Rethinking the Grunge era

Meanwhile, where's MY snowboard? How deprived I am.

I remember buying a tape of _Ten_ and a tape of _Janet_ (Ms. Jackson, if you're nasty) on the same day, at this Record Town store in a local mall. Ah, to be naive enough that I could have such alien things co-exist in the same tape drawer and same aesthetic foundation. I was fine, drifting out of his school, switching up between the Chili Peppers and the Spin Doctors and Ralph Tresvant and Pearl Jam. Granted, Pearl Jam (and then Temple of the Dog) grew to monumental stature in my mind, but that didn't mean much. It was all music, with one scratching certain types of itches that another just couldn't reach. Isn't it great that this is a world that can have all these disparate expressions co-exist peacefully?

And then I went to college, where the lines were drawn with more fervor and spite. I'd be lying if the merciless mocking I took (insecure, unsure, meek and shy) lead me to stow away those natty R&B tapes - no more Mariah, no more Boyz II Men. It's funny that all these different people in my dorm - the power-pop / AC/DC freak, the glam-rock / G&R freak, my Rush / E-Z listening neighbor, the "alternative" guy on the other side of the floor - took me to task on a constant basis. It was good-natured teasing, sure, but I (insecure, unsure, meek and shy) took to it like silk takes to rain.

Of course, wanting to know more about this type of music lead me to the magazines, which lead to the usual reference points, which lead to even BETTER music, music that was so much more about me than this bombastic would-be-classic-rock. And, after enough reading, I realized that, yes, this new music - this "indie" music - was SUPPOSED to be better than what was in power. This IS the good music, and all the other music that isn't "indie" is just crap. And this is the beginning of a new renaissance! So this is the dogma I used as my shield and my guide through the rest of my abortive college years.

Of course, eventually this dogma lead to me renouncing the "grunge" that brought me to this "indie" epiphany, which is pretty funny, since it was the idealized DIY punk aesthetic (which became perverted, exclusionary, didactic, and stultifying) that fueled the fires of what became "grunge". Of course, now that I'm older, and a bit more secure in myself, and I look back on all this, and my half- hearted faith in "the movement" is a bit silly.

So - "did the brief commercial success of Nirvana, Lollapalooza, & Sassy achieve anything?" If anything, it brought two worlds crashing head-first into each other. It uprooted a lot of underground bands prematurely, it gave overground bands a chance to hop trends & feign credibility. The parlance of the punk world ("selling out", "cred") is now firmly ensconced in the popular music vocabulary; meanwhile, the underground has a better idea of how the "corporate world" works, and how unidealized the underground actually is. Ideally, major labels might realize the sense in letting a band DEVELOP, instead of trying to thrust them straight into the world of multi-platinum excess - instead, when the "alternative" / "punk" scene started to peter out & prove unlucrative, they just cut bait and scampered off looking for another trend.

I don't recall who mentioned the dotcom boom in conjunction with this thread, but that's a damn fine connection to make. The Big Guys that existed at the beginning are still there; the little guys that didn't lose their pants regrouped and soldier on; a lot of other people got caught in the wake of the crashing roller-coaster, and were decimated. Everyone that can't fall back on excess amounts of capital continues on their way a little more wary, a little less trusting, realizing that the goal isn't to topple the Big Guys, but to find their own niche and survive.

Sorry for rambling on like this. (It's a bit ponderous in the last few paragraphs, too, isn't it?)

While "grunge" did open up this grand new world to me, and all the creative fervor contained therein, it also introduced me to the damaging rhetoric that was attached to this creativity, which certainly kept my ass in the dark about lots of things. Eventually, though, I realized that it's silly to just dismiss things because of "cred" and "cool"ness, which I found myself inadvertently doing (and still do, when I'm not paying attention). That's more a personal failing than anything else, though.

So now I'm done babbling. Thanks (for all you that actually read your way down to this very last period & parenthesis).

Mudhoney's first LP, too, was one of the first grungy things that seemed to be a bit of a sea change, if in a smaller way than Nirvana.

Like any empire, it rose, it fell, there was some good, and a lot of crap. I liked Nirvana, they had great pop tunes nicely twisted. Liked some Mudhoney. Not much else. The Black Sabbath influence on the more heavy metal side of grunge completely baffled me, since I didn't think much of Sabbath at the time. Still don't like metal. The worst thing about grunge was that it led to lots of bands doing that head- shaking thing with their long hair all in unison. Well, at least that part was funny.

i should also point out that if i'd never heard of sub pop records i wouldn't have been buying unrest albums in high school. well, no, maybe i would have, since 'imperial ffrr' got namechecked by spin in what was it, '91? the year that 'bandwagonesque' was its #1 album?

grunge albums that are classics: 'badmotorfinger' -- crazed, yet rooted in a pop sensibility; 'temple of the dog' -- epic, absolutely epic; 'apple' -- if andrew wood had lived, would fred durst be wearing more eyeliner now? it's worth a thought; 'sweet oblivion'; 'dirt'; that mudhoney reissue with 'touch me i'm sick.'

the era died with kurt, i'd agree with that; there were a million rocker-come-latelies in his place, and they all had no qualms about being big huge smiling-all-the-time rock stars. but 'my brother the cow' is still a pretty great record.

and hey, i had -- and still have -- tons of good times listening to my records from that era. a spin through the myriad versions of 'swallow my pride' alone (2 green river, 1 soundgarden, 1 fastbacks, and that version with eddie vedder & mark arm that's on some fan club single). it wasn't all posturing; it's not like pearl jam is effing creed, you know.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/31/grunge

Twenty years ago this weekend, Nirvana released Love Buzz, the first single by the band who would ignite grunge from an interesting local scene to a global phenomenon.

And this is significant why? Because grunge wasn't just another musical or youth trend - it was the ultimate expression and fusion of most of the defining cultural, ideological and social threads of the modern western world. Feminism, liberalism, irony, apathy, cynicism/idealism (those opposite sides of one frustrated coin), anti-authoritarianism, wry post-modernism, and not least a love of dirty, abrasive music; grunge reconciled all these into a seminal whole.

For Generation X-ers, male grungers represented all that is good in men. They were the fabled "New Man" with the volume turned up to 10, gentle-natured but discordant and angry. The women were intelligent, non-conformist, cool. Each took the best aspects of their opposite gender and retained the best of their own. Grunge took back loud music from poodle-rock and gave it a heart, soul and brain. It married a love of noise with thoughtfulness and sensitivity, putting a trash soundtrack to lofty principles and uncommon erudition. It turned old paradigms on their head, like the one that said rock music was made by "real men" and feminism was for ball-busting harpies and emasculated weirdoes.

Grunge wasn't nihilist or moany - they really did want a better world for everyone. It was misrepresented as being self-absorbed, but actually addressed big themes, things outside the artists' private concerns - a rare thing in popular music.

These bands weren't restricted by the limits and ideologies of genres like punk, which insist that you write certain kinds of music and lyrics. They didn't recycle banal cliches but tackled weighty subjects - one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

So Pearl Jam wrote about domestic abuse, illiteracy, the maltreatment of the mentally ill. Nirvana looked at alienation, rape, stultifying conformity. Alice in Chains dug deeply into the black hole of addiction. Soundgarden pondered the search for meaning in an indifferent universe. Courtney Love wrote ferocious lyrics about misogyny, eating disorders, sexual predators.

Aesthetically, they eschewed babes, booze and fast cars for cropped hair, college degrees and ever-present frowns. And they lived out their principles in concrete, courageous ways.

Most grunge bands were politically active. Lollapalooza combined music with information stalls on everything from organic food to voter registration. Pearl Jam fought a ruinous battle with Ticketmaster and refused to make promos; Nirvana constantly antagonised their new, macho audience.

It was a long way from Axl Rose thrusting his crotch in your face on MTV, and of course it couldn't last. Grunge was replaced by frat-boy rock, pimp-wannabe gangsta rappers and hyper-sexualised Britney/Barbie dolls. Plus ça change ...

For my generation, grunge was more than just music: it was subterfuge, knowledge, philosophy, empathy, wit, courage, love, desire and anger, and it saddens me that nothing has truly replaced it. Sure, there will always be musicians who are politically aware, socially concerned, risk-taking; not everyone is Fred Durst. But the days when gender constructs became virtually meaningless, when brains and coolness and sex appeal weren't incompatible, when mass popular culture transcended humble origins to become something profound, subversive and greater than itself … those days are gone. They're in the grave with Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley and Kristen Pfaff.

*rolls eyes*

good lord

what a boring and misleading and stupid narrative.

which is even worse because that type of stuff covers up what could be much more interesting story, of that weird time when the remnants of 80s metal, thrash, and nascent "alternative" rock all coexisted in sort of strange and cool ways...

i graduated in 1993, so i was of the age, but i remember just weird juxtapositions of taste in me and all my friends...like listening to jane's addiction's "nothing's shocking" while waiting to buy "use your illusion" at a midnight opening for musicland....or being excited that soundgarden was opening for metallica....and all those forgotten "intelligent" metal bands that sort of straddled the era like mind funk and warriorsoul and even queensryche....

the beauty of grunge is in the palm of your hand.

These bands weren't restricted by the limits and ideologies of genres like punk, which insist that you write certain kinds of music and lyrics. They didn't recycle banal cliches but tackled weighty subjects - one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

So Pearl Jam wrote about domestic abuse, illiteracy, the maltreatment of the mentally ill. Nirvana looked at alienation, rape, stultifying conformity. Alice in Chains dug deeply into the black hole of addiction. Soundgarden pondered the search for meaning in an indifferent universe. Courtney Love wrote ferocious lyrics about misogyny, eating disorders, sexual predators.

Aesthetically, they eschewed babes, booze and fast cars for cropped hair, college degrees and ever-present frowns. And they lived out their principles in concrete, courageous ways.

banquet of rong

far far better was the mojo article re sub pop a few months ago.

the biggest mistake is thinking grunge was the beginning of the 90s when it was really the end of the 80s

This dude's other Guardian pieces included an Ironic Review "John Peel was bad not good like you think aaaaaahhhhhh" one, and, I will quote the headline of it in full for you here, "The time is right for intellectual reality TV"

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

ALMOST.

That's right. So I guess that means that actually, one couldn't.

the biggest mistake is thinking grunge was the beginning of the 90s when it was really the end of the 80s

Grunge was the middle of the 90s. The 90s began around 1986-87 with the synthpop bands losing popularity while Run DMC discovered guitars and house music got massive. They haven't ended yet.

(and will not end until hip-hop becomes roughly as relevant as prog rock was in 1985)

grunge was the finale of 80s US underground rock culture something you know less about than most things, which is saying something

so wrong, even more than usual for you. I was 32 in '88 and Mudhoney/Soundgarden/Seattle were all the rage.

(xpost to dumbass)

grunge was the finale of 80s US underground rock culture

There is always an underground, but the decade is defined by the mainstream.

decades are actually defined by calendars and shit you funny little norwegian.

Anyway, the 80s started in late 1979 with "Video Killed The Radio Star" and two Gary Numan UK chart toppers. And it lasted until acts like Howard Jones, Thompson Twins, Culture Club and even Duran Duran failed to sell as much as they used to. Which was around 1986.

(About the same time, synthpop acts started using guitars to an increasing extent, and sampling and FM synthesis had started to completely dominate synth based music while analog synths were nowhere to be heard. Obviously, the 80s had ended)

Yeah, but that's when hair metal started to get really popular, and... you know what? Madness this way lies.

Hair metal=not synth music=not 80s music. Thus hair metal=beginning of the 90s.

It was a great time to be poor. I could buy shirts from army and navy for £2.00 a shot and still look cool.

The music was mostly wretched though.

...

Musically, For the most part, american minstrels and angst-merchants who were mostly at least 10 years older than their target audience. Terminal students on a route to the loot. No wonder Cobain killed himself. The one true talent of that pathetic genre saw through nthe whole shallow process.

I was 32 in '88 and Mudhoney/Soundgarden/Seattle were all the rage

WTF???? Maybe to like 100 people.

Thus hair metal=beginning of the 90s.

― Geir Hongro, Saturday, November 1, 2008 1:02 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

lolololololololololololololololololololllolololololol

they're not grunge canon, but the label fits them better than most who carry it. huge inspiration to (and contemporary of) the bands for whom the term was coined.

it is hard for me to accept the existence of those who would deny lysol & bullhead

I do kinda like Lysol, actually, but mostly for the cover songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBW9tTpuXSA

i've tried with melvins i really have. well, in a youtube way anyway. i never hear anything i really like. they allude me. and they totally sound like grunge every time i hear them.

i think the only grungy thing i own is that Only Living Witness double CD that Decibel magazine made me buy cuz everyone at Decibel loves them. or Albert did anyway. pretty good. though they weren't technically grunge. too metallic. but they had kind of an alice in chains thing going on. i'd rather listen to Kyuss though. i really like Kyuss.

i mean this is totally grungy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mGI-_j_i6c

Melvins are pretty good live. If they're playing, say, a block from your house (or your store), and it's free, you should totally check them out.

Seems like there's a little bit of grunginess creeping up in the last few years of the garage rock scene. Kurt Vile seems kind of grunge-y to me. Or at least Mascis-y. And I saw that Jeff The Brotherhood band open for somebody last summer and it felt like a real grunge flashback... and some of that late-period Jay Reatard stuff reminded me a lot of early Nirvana's poppier stuff.

But I don't listen to any of this stuff or grunge much so I may be making this up as I go along.

"Kurt Vile seems kind of grunge-y to me. Or at least Mascis-y."

i think "sleepy" is the word...

ty segall is pretty grungey too

someone mention sic alps and then all the people that make me sleepy will be accounted for.

ha i think i might actually have meant ty seagall, i get him and kurt vile mixed up

just don't call my new fave band grungy

are FIDLAR the best new rock band?

Heh I saw Sic Alps last Thursday and the support band was way Dinosaur Jr sounding. Can't remember what they were called tho.

Also Purling Hiss.

also milk music

ty segall's songwriting has always struck me as p strongly influenced by nirvana (or if not influenced, esque). just the tunes, i mean, even without the fuzz & roar.

and yeah, i thought about jeff the brotherhood in relation to this thread yesterday. they bring up a lot of associations (stoner rock, weezer pop), but the grunge is definitely in there somewhere.

ok i was thinking about kurt vile as beeing mascisy/sleepy, but agree about ty seagall

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/01/12/577063077/the-grunge-gold-rush

poor jawbox <3

i'm sure some people are nostalgic for it, but virtually all of the notable "grunge" bands still sound pretty bad to me.

looking back, still the worst thing about it was the the perpetual flu season aesthetic of flannel shirts, overlong sleeves and lack of vitamin d. not a healthy scene.

"aesthetic of flannel shirts, overlong sleeves and lack of vitamin d"

Also known as Canada.

Great piece but (in reference to the opening anecdote) two sides to every story -- here's a blog entry from the drag queen mentioned but not identified in the shoot, which was a David LaChappelle one. And personally I'd love to have a photo shoot from him!

http://lindasimpson.org/2011/05/i-was-a-model-for-david-lachapelle-in-new-jersey/

it's a great look

listening to grunge today:

couple Gruntruck albums (solid!)

Skin Yard (there's a newer remix of Fistful of Chunks that sounds pretty fucking great, very underrated grunge album)

U-Men (2017 subpop comp) - I get why they were important to grunge but definitely feel of a different era (didn't know they formed in 1980)...i dig it, like Scratch Acid meets Wipers or something like that

Love Battery - Dayglo is good grunge