Rethinking the Grunge era

low: everybody started a band.

I have loads of thoughts on the era but no overarching impression. 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.

Begin musical story. So? STP? Interstate Love Song was a great track, and teriffic video. Where's Maura? We need her to praise Superunknown. Hole, as I always discuss, was magnificent -- troubled and turgid, a whole mess of elsewhere-discussed gender issues embodied in a rock queen.

Nirvana as as band? We've done this before. Consensus: pretty tunes.

The loud/soft dynamic? GRATE at time, certainly largely faded by 1995, today not hardly evident at all in the nu-metal kidz. Transformed, I think, in the 2nd gen. bands (who were largely less good -- Better Than Ezra, anyone?) into a dull verse, amp up the power chords in the chorus type thing. But let us not forget the 2nd generation orig. "grunge" creature of Garbage. Garbage deserve props. Also that "grunge" opened the way for punk acts like Bad Religion, at least temporarily.

I can't speak for eveyone who was starting high school (aka the Hell years) when they first heard 'Nevermind', but though the grunge era produced a lot of retrospectively embarrassing mopey lyrics, those words made sense for a 13-year-old kid.

Re: Nirvana, I thought I'd share a theory that occurred to me last week. Guitar-wise, Kurt's songs were all about Frank Black's structural trick, which was to play a fairly standard chord progression but use major chords where there would normally be minor chords (and occasionally vice versa), for that off-kilter "one note in this chord is one half-step off" feel. (Those of you who play guitar surely know exactly what I mean.) What struck me, while listening to an old tape with "Pay to Play" on it, was that while the Pixies circumvented that tonal oddity with vocals that were sort of speaky-screamy, and therefore didn't need to acknowledge the unexpected sharps, Kurt's pop leanings led him to write melodies that actually worked through those off steps. I'd never noticed before, but when you think about a song like "Lithium," he's accomodating those sharps and flats in a really sophisticated way: hum over the line "but today I've found my friends," or consider the differences between the two long "Yeahs" in the chorus. I think this is the heart of what makes the band interesting -- the fact that their presentation is that of a banged-out three-chord punk rock outfit, but their songs have that note of melodic complication that makes them linger in the head much longer.

Forgive me if that's a statement of the very obvious. But even though I'm not particularly huge on the band, this seems like an unassailable retort to those who say they were essentially ripping the Pixies. (Along with "Nuh-uh, it was the Vaselines.")

Hmm, maybe I was/am just a sheep...

In Utero: I lost Nevermind on tape, so this was the only one I had for a while, thus the one that got played constantly. Can't really add anything that hasn't already been said.

Versus: the only PJ album that I ever liked. From the get-go, I was resolved not to like them (esp. since Kurt didn't), but then I heard 'Daughter'.

Core: back then, it wasn't a matter of STP blatantly ripping off bands left and right, it just seemed convenient for me to have everything I like in grunge in one album. I thought that AIC never made a single as good as 'Sex Type Thing' or PJ never did anything better than 'Plush', so chalk it up to innocent, uncritical ears.

Dirt: Heroin and suicide, that's what I think of when I put on this album. It was by far the most depressing shit I had.

Live Through This: I bought into the belief that Kurt basically wrote it, so by proxy, must be good, thought I. It was. Then I got Pretty on the Inside, which was shit shit shit.

Colour & Shape: This is more of a nostalgic pick, because by then, I had started to bridge out to other genres. This one brought me back to that short three-year period of my life. Kinda like a tribute to grunge for me.

OK, enough posts for me in this thread. Sorry everyone, it just struck a major (instead of minor, ha!) chord with me.

Er, well, just last weekend I moved into a house with wonderful views of the Preston Park area of Brighton, if that makes you feel any better.

* Kurt wanted to be in a Pixies cover band.

Spookily enough, Nirvana's old soundman Craig Montgomery *is* in a Pixies cover band.

I can't really explain how I started on those bands except to posit the usual channels of cooler older kids, basically. Possibly it was just my school, which had a pretty big Morrissey-fan contingent for southern Colorado. And surely Disintegration was pretty widely known to people throughout the UK, US, and Canada?

One good thing I can say for the grunge explosion: much like the web's explosion, a lot of money got tossed at bringing rock music to the kids. Most of the results were stupid, and the whole thing went bust just as quickly, but for a roughly six months, even my southern- Colorado prairie town had a decent "alternative" radio station, which was were I first heard things like Velocity Girl, Red House Painters, and the Trash Can Sinatras. Which is really quite good for commercial radio, don't you think?

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

re: SP. Yeah, sure. They weren't from Seattle, I was quite strict about those kinds of things as a teenager ;)

chrome had the soft/loud thing. sounded cool. actually that spacemen 3 album with when tomorrow hits on it might be my fave grunge album. just for that song.

Only "grunge" I really had much interest in was Hammerbox, but Carrie's vox and the guitarist's effects (way more than just a Big Muff) made them only tangentially related anyway imo.

never could get into hammerbox. or much of anything on c/z, tbh.

I used to run a challops racket involving claiming the best grunge band was actually Stone Temple Pilots, but now I just admit that it's Soundgarden.

in seattle, punk-rooted dumbass grunge seemed to compete with a strain grown more obviously from metal, prog, funk and jazzy art rock (that intersection defining a HUGE amount of what was going on in town, musically). c/z skewed slightly toward the latter, and i camped with the former.

^^^ yeah, that'd be an interesting take sides: Sub Pop vc. C/Z. I'm not all that familiar with either catalog tbh.

"vs."

problem is that c/z never generated a breakout mainstream act, where sub pop fielded nirvana, mudhoney and soundgarden (the latter an outlier on the label's roster in that they refused to play dumb, flashed sick chops & drew on influences outside sludgy punk & hard rock).

i guess 7 year bitch were c/z's biggest band (in terms of visibility, if not sales). maybe that first built to spill album?

Skin Yard was the best band on C/Z, don't really like much else though.

Most underrated Sub Pop band of the era was Rein Sanction, who kind of sounded like a jazzier Dinosaur Jr with maybe a dash less Crazy Horse in their blood and a bit more of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Broc's Cabin still sounds incredible to me.

The Gits, you fools

Where is the love for Big Poo Generator?

are the grifters grunge?

i don't know if they always caught that label but they seem to represent the best aspects of grunge imo

I think my most-played C/Z LP was by Slack, Portland wacky funk that hasn't aged well. Tone Dogs were on C/Z too (love Amy Denio!) but we're far removed from grunge there...

C/Z's very first release (Deep Six LP from 1986) was more grunge than anything Sub Pop ever produced:

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Deep-Six/release/1812635

Green River – "10,000 Things" – 3:37
Melvins – "Scared" – 2:19
Melvins – "Blessing the Operation" – 0:44
Malfunkshun – "With Yo' Heart (Not Yo' Hands)" – 3:54
Skin Yard – "Throb" – 5:29
Soundgarden – "Heretic" – 3:22
Soundgarden – "Tears to Forget" – 2:06
Malfunkshun – "Stars-N-You" – 1:46
Melvins – "Grinding Process" – 2:09
Melvins – "She Waits" – 0:40
Skin Yard – "The Birds" - 3:56
Soundgarden – "All Your Lies" – 3:53
Green River – "Your Own Best Friend" – 6:21
The U-Men – "They" – 3:32

Sub Pop 200 tracklist is pretty grunge though:

"Sex God Missy" - Tad
"Is It Day I'm Seeing?" - The Fluid
"Spank Thru" - Nirvana
"Come Out Tonight" - Steven J. Bernstein
"The Rose" - Mudhoney
"Got No Chains" - The Walkabouts
"Dead Is Dead" - Terry Lee Hale
"Sub Pop Rock City" - Soundgarden
"Hangin' Tree" - Green River
"Swallow My Pride" - Fastbacks
"The Outback" - Blood Circus
"Zoo" - Swallow
"Underground" - Chemistry Set
"Gonna Find a Cave" - Girl Trouble
"Split" - The Nights And Days
"Big Cigar" - Cat Butt
"Pajama Party in a Haunted Hive" - Beat Happening
"Love or Confusion" - Screaming Trees (Jimi Hendrix cover)
"Untitled" - Steve Fisk
"You Lost It" - The Thrown Ups

I used to run a challops racket involving claiming the best grunge band was actually Stone Temple Pilots, but now I just admit that it's Soundgarden.

Nah.

Tad > Mudhoney pre-1990 > Soundgarden > Mudhoney post-1990 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Pearl Jam >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Nirvana

yeah, deep six was awesome, love most of those songs. heavy as hell and probably the single best document of grunge ground zero. way more ferociously single-minded in its attack than either of the early sub-pop comps. if you culled a bunch of the best SP tracks from 87-90, you could beat it, but that's hardly fair.

my list would probably go (not worrying about what phase of who):

melvins > mudhoney > nirvana > tad > soundgarden > screaming trees > the fluid >>>>>> some other stuff

I have never thought of the Melvins as a grunge band. But I never liked them until they assimilated Big Business.

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