Rethinking the Grunge era

i just saw a nirvana cover band on halloween and goddamn if there isn't a band that rocks quite like nirvana.

No, it's not true that British people love Mudhoney.

Whatever exactly hair metal was, it was not the beginning of the 1990s.

It is OK to invent elastic decades the way Hongro is doing, but I am not terribly convinced by his attempts above.

Cobain was talented - he could produce melodies, structures, songs. That was the central great fact about grunge, I think, and the reason the Nirvana records all have at least something good on them. Of any other bands I would be a lot more doubtful.

everyone should love mudhoney they pwn and rule

i love how geir spends his time in a grunge thread talking about thompson twins and howard jones

also: dude at work bought the new mudhoney...it sounds just like mudhoney! crazy!

"For my generation, grunge was more than just music: it was subterfuge, knowledge, philosophy, empathy, wit, courage, love, desire and anger..."

poll?

GEIR UNLESS YOU HAVE GOTTEN BAKEd AS A FUCKIN CAKE AND LISTENED TO DINO JR YOU CANT TELL ME JACK S HIT ABOUT GRUNGE

20 years ago tomorrow. Still funny, lamestains.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/15/style/grunge-a-success-story.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

That's right. I totally forgot that it was People magazine what broke grunge.

was looking at a big book of 90's alt rock concert posters and it was so terrible. it was like a zoot suit riot of horrible color and design. raygun magazine looks subtle in comparison. every single poster looked like this:

http://blog.humuhumu.com/wp-images/gig-poster-from-coop.jpg

Loved all that shit.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/uponsun/flyer-90s-lollapalloza.jpg

http://media-cache-lt0.pinterest.com/upload/287245282453532098_A6XSB7fB_b.jpg

god, I forgot that was Kozik. First thing that comes to my mind when I think of that guy are those damn rabbit toys.

was gonna say unmistakably kozik

Enjoyed this article about the guy who was kicked out of both Nirvana and Soundgarden and then went on to be Special Forces in Afghanistan and then a Columbia philosophy undergrad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/magazine/evermans-war.html?hpw

yeah that was great

Aren't we due for a grunge revival per the 20 year cycle theory?

The main annoyance, from my point of view, was that the public (the American public, anyway) conceived of "alternative" or "indie" as being a rock phenomenon, a howling emotive beast primarily influenced by near-heavy metal and muddy guitar heroics. An entire underground was painted with this brush, despite 90% of the bands in that underground working from either a post-punk or a hardcore aesthetic. It seems almost ridiculous to say, VH1-style, that "the underground" emerged at this point, when what we got was Soundgarden and STP, and not, say, Superchunk or Fugazi. This was probably one phenomenon where one can safely say that most participants Missed the Point Entirely, and I think that's key in understanding today's beefy rockers: weirdly enough, the mainstream of culture co-opted a movement but wound up co-opting precisely those things that were anomalous to the movement.

I wonder what nabisco thinks of this 12 years on. From my perspective, with this distance, it seems like a curious view. American post-punk and post-hc pretty much always had a strong influence from classic hard rock styles, with plenty of guitar heroics, starting with Bad Brains and Black Flag, through Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr, the Meat Puppets, Minutemen/fIREHOSE, Sonic Youth doing an epic double album with four symbols on the sleeve, Saint Vitus, ... If anything, I'd sooner look to most of these bands for 'guitar heroics' than to Bon Jovi or Def Leppard. Even Superchunk had plenty of anthemic AOR to them.

I think some indie people in the 90s did adopt this view, though, maybe to distinguish themselves from the 80s rockers?

OK, that article about Everman IS great.

Aren't we due for a grunge revival per the 20 year cycle theory?

It's gurgling under the radar, and has been for a few years, but nothing's really come out of it yet.

if anything grunge has the least mainstream cultural currency it's had IN the last 20 years now -- Nickelback, Shinedown, etc. finally no longer making crossover hits and dwindling in influence on rock radio, perfunctory reception of new Alice In Chains With Rome and Soundgarden albums. i suppose you could make an argument for Roomrunner or whoever reviving the sound on an underground level.

The cycle is actually running behind a little bit. Baggy/Madchester is just now starting to be revived in a tangible way, so grunge will be along any moment. ("Lo-fi" type indie never went away, but the 90s style of it came back a few years ago.)

"It's gurgling under the radar, and has been for a few years, but nothing's really come out of it yet."

To me, quite a bit of what has been called stoner rock or stoner metal over the past 10-12 years is pretty much the carry on of the musical aesthetic of the West Coast groups that got labeled as grunge, in the same way it taps into punk and the origins of hard rock/metal from the early 70s.

While anything could happen, I'm not really feeling that type of hard guitar rock will get popular again as a mass popular music like it was on and off from the 70s through the 90s. Certain bands might get fairly popular, but there isn't anything to tie all together anymore in the same way other forms of pop music have.

I know I trot this horse out every once in a while, but Kristin Hersh has been making some great grunge over the last 10 years with 50 Foot Wave. Better than it was done the first time around, imo. I don't know if they get recognized enough for this.

Probably 90% of anyone under 45 into doom metal got into it via grunge. Melvins influence is still being felt now. Who would have predicted that?

Speaking of grunge, I just saw that today is the anniversary of Mia Zapata's death. :(

The most genius thing The Melvins did was just keep on keepin' on and just from the map of where they had gone the line in-between the dots showed up. Then again, there was always some overlap in where that came out with how St. Vitus, The Obsessed, Kyuss and Fu Manchu among others had direct ties into the SST/DC punk scene.

There are all sorts of weird ties, you think about Jason Everman up there with that article you also can keep in mind that Reed St. Mark played drums in the band Mindfunk with him and also was one of the drummers in Celtic Frost. That's easily just as weird as Brian Baker of Minor Threat and Chris Gates of the Big Boys going L.A. trash glam with Junkyard.

I remember in early interviews a whole bunch of people from Kurt Cobain to Billy Corgan denying they were metal or into metal then later it turned out they were all massive metalheads. The 90s were a weird time with all these kids into metal yet denying it.

Metal was in a weird place, as at that time all that poodle metal was pretty damn uncool in punk circles by many. What's kind of hilarious in some ways was the next generation of kids kind of said fuk it, I like Iron Maiden and thrash what have you then got all a lot of those 90s Revelation hard core bands becoming obsessed with the mosh part and eventually even bringing back the solos, then just becoming "metal" and not even bothering with it having to be hardcore.

if anything grunge has the least mainstream cultural currency it's had IN the last 20 years now -- Nickelback, Shinedown, etc. finally no longer making crossover hits and dwindling in influence on rock radio, perfunctory reception of new Alice In Chains With Rome and Soundgarden albums.

― some dude, Sunday, July 7, 2013 3:08 PM (1 hour ago)

otm. grunge broke through 20 years ago, but hung around well into the new century with nickleback, puddle of mudd and the like. earlnash also otm that grunge flavors persist in doom and stoner rock, ascendant since the final days of hard rock indie. so there isn't much to revive. maybe in 5-10 years.

I never quite got how some people heard nickleback et al as an actual part of the grunge era rather than just collective soul-influenced late-90s alt rock. The difference is instantly apparent to me.

grunge, like a toothpaste tube, slowly had everything worthwhile squeezed out of it. started out as noisy, greasy punk. became arena-bound pop metal. by the turn of the century, it was a just a vocal style, an emphasis on wounded pathos, and some fuzzy guitars. that's how i read it anyway.

Is it because on American radio grunge-lite never went away? Whereas here in the UK with no rock radio it was never as popular? Like R1 played grunge for a few years til britpop but commercial radio wouldn't touch it (no not even nirvana or pearl jam, infact on chart run downs they used to skip the songs)

Weirdly, possibly thanks to Offspring, No Doubt, Limp Bizkit etc having proper genuine hit singles with actual airplay they then played Nickelback.

Why anyone likes Nickelback I will never know but I'm still to meet someone who does. They sold shitloads however even here.

But 92-94 radio was actually pretty great here (for me anyway) in a way it hadnt been since I was about 11 or 12 or since. Actually hearing Them Bones by AIC on daytime Radio 1 was pretty amazing to my ears.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2358015/Avril-Lavigne-Chad-Kroeger-open-Goth-French-wedding.html

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/07/07/article-2358015-1AB38359000005DC-135_634x961.jpg

"How You Remind Me" is a good rock ballad.

I remember in early interviews a whole bunch of people from Kurt Cobain to Billy Corgan denying they were metal or into metal then later it turned out they were all massive metalheads. The 90s were a weird time with all these kids into metal yet denying it.

I'm not sure what you mean by metal here but afaik both of those guys were always really upfront about their love for Sabbath and Zeppelin. Maybe you're talking about heavier stuff though.

No, in Raw Magazine Corgan complained about being in metal mags. He wouldnt even talk to Kerrang (so they never really covered them outside of album/live reviews until mellon collie when he decided to talk about loving Judas Priest etc and since then he got mega coverage)

That was just a savvy move on his part. Talking about loving Judas Priest in 1993 would make you the squarest motherfucker in alt rock.

like I said

The 90s were a weird time with all these kids into metal yet denying it.

Did the UK have any worthwhile contribution to the whole Grunge era? There must be somebody right, but I'm racking my brains and coming up with nothing.

Fudge Tunnel were the UK answer to Nirvana remember!

Great band but were hardly going to get big.

Bush weren't worthwhile , and they sold fuck all in the UK, but I think it's fair to include them.

Although I understand why you want to just give them to America.

Bush was in that second wave of pretty grunge. Even Stone Temple Pilots pre-date them.

Interesting that Grunge was never really compartmentalised ime. Psych Grunge, Stoner Grunge, Pop Grunge, Singer-Songwriter Grunge

Also AG, did you know that the bass player from Hue & Cry ended up in Stiltskin? he was my old bass tutor, from Springburn.

Did the UK have any worthwhile contribution to the whole Grunge era?

Thee Hypnotics obviously, first UK band on Sub Pop right when they were at their grungey peak.

I didn't know that!
xp

Interesting that Grunge was never really compartmentalised ime.

― MaresNest, Monday, July 8, 2013 2:51 AM (1 hour ago)

i always compartmentalized it as grunge vs. "grunge". the former = first wave sub-pop stuff, melvins, u-men, contemporaneous outliers like halo of flies. fucked up heavy punk with on foot in 70s rawk. with, like, later black flag and the butthole surfers circa locust abo tech as proto-grunge.

"grunge" was pearl jam, mad season and aic, bullshit merchandising wearing similar clothes. (this was the "corporate rock still sucks" era, after all...)