Not asking whether or not it's metal (especially since it seems none of the artists themselves seem to think so), but do you have any grunge favourites from both the Big 4 (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains) and the lesser knowns who also achieved modest success (Hole, Melvins, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, Malfunkshun, TAD, Skin Yard, 7 Year Bitch)? And how do you feel about post-grunge? (i.e. Bush, Candlebox, Creed, Foo Fighters, Nickelback, Switchfoot, Three Doors Down, Stone Temple Pilots...)

Here's a new question- do you blame grunge for ushering in most of modern alternative (which fused with mainstream rock/alt metal to produce the likes of modern hardcore pop punk, nu metal, and "mallcore", as well as emo screamo and whine punk)? Or would you blame most of that on post-grunge?

Personally, I find grunge a tad overhyped, and while it did produce many good bands, and post-grunge is a mixed bag. PG definitely has some good acts, and I love Stone Temple Pilots, Three Doors Down, and Smashing Pumpkins and will argue for their case as good modern rock bands, but there's no doubt that it has a few... iffy acts. I know they say that 'everyone's a closet Creed fan,' I just can't get into their music.
I also find it odd- 'popular grunge' sounds a LOT like '70s heavy rock with punkish/classic rock/classic stoner metal added in. Classic grunge- the '80s/pre-1991 stuff' sounds like it definitely could have inspired nu metal. Very funny... You'd think rock in the latter half of the naughts and the aughts would sound more like that. Local H, I think did it fine if a bit Nirvana-up-arsed, but Creed and Nickelback kind of overtook the market.
Always wanted to ask= don't both bands sound the same? Creed and Nickelback? Yeah, they have their own quirks- Creed's a pinch heavier and more spiritual, while Nickelback is a bit cheesier and more for anime music videos/30 year old housewives who claim to rock- but I always thought they were cut of the exact same cloth.

>>TAD<<

Honestly, having lived through the grunge era I'm really burnt out on the whole genre still. Even now, local rock stations play popular grunge songs or songs that sound like popular grunge songs. It got old when I heard it the first time.

When the big grunge wave hit in the 90s, I was into a little Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Temple of the Dog, etc. But I haven't touched much of those bands in years.

When I started playing guitar, I targeted the easiest songs...which obviously included Nirvana. So yeah, I started off by listening to them, but eventually it wore off. The stuff that sometimes pops on my playlist are:
Alice in Chains
Soundgarden
Melvins (their grunge phase, I know it's debatable)
Pearl Jam (few songs from the 'Ten' album)

...but that's about it.

The only Nirvana songs that I still enjoy today are from the Bleach album, and maybe some in utero + unplugged. but mainly bleach. It's a very good album

I absolutely love the shit - more than most metal sub-genres, that's for sure. The "big 4" of grunge (Nirvana, AiC, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden) are IMO essential to any decent appreciation of rock music in general, and there are a buttload of smaller bands that are just as good.

I mean check this corker of a track out. Fuck, the early 90s were amazing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvqZ1t-nnCw

When it comes to grunge, I've fallen in love with The Melvins and Mother Love Bone in more recent days (Tad, Skinyard are also pretty good. Mudhoney is quint. grunge.)
(And to add to that, Melvins' "Honey Bucket", "Black Santa", "Hooch"... just amazing tracks!)
Nirvana, from a rock and metal perspective, is definitely the apex- as a music listener, I can appreciate Nevermind and In Utero. Their least known album, Insecticide, is my favorite as a whole.
Soundgarden- they were too good for grunge in my opinion; Alice in Chains is the most accessible off hand, to me (and how I even began delving into grunge in the first place).
Pearl Jam is that band I have to love but simply don't know enough about. The only album I have is Ten, and- considering I love many of their softer tracks- it's kind of odd that it's the only one I do own.

THEN there's Post-Grunge....
/opposite of my signature

I've shared a coffee with Ben Shepard of Soundgarden on a couple of occasions. He's a pretty cool guy, I didn't even know it was him before someone told me I just thought he was a regular there.

I'm a big fan of Nirvana and Alice in Chains, but generally like the sound of a lot of bands from 80s and 90s Seattle. As has been mentioned, Melvins rule (for those who don't know, now you know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Q_IF-fR_g). Skin Yard is cool too; I keep meaning to check out more of their shit. I also like the non-grunge stuff from the era, like Smashing Pumpkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers.



It's actually Incesticide.

Yep, me too. Mother's Milk is just fucking fantastic. So is Patton-era FNM, Ugly Kid Joe, etc etc etc. I think a lot of it for me is that I have a total boner for the early 90s and grunge was just a big part of it.

I like most grunge I've heard so far...Which isn't much, to be fair, so some recommendations would be appreciated.
Also, does anyone know of any good sites or forums about grunge and similar stuff?

Grunge was huge when I was first getting into music. Nirvana and Pearl Jam were of course big. Other than a few songs though, I just never could get into them. Alice in Chains and Soundgarden were more my thing, although of course I felt they were kind of unfairly lumped in with grunge. "Hunger Strike" by Temple of the Dog is one of my favorite grunge songs.

I really appeciate a lot of the hallmarks of "Grunge" music (more specifically, the stuff that immediately preceded "Grunge" in the commercial sense)... but I too am terribly "burned out" on skronky, mid-rangey, early 90's alterna-sludge-rock-punk-blah blah blah music [Grunge], namely the MTV equivalent.

I really like the "vibe" of the pre-Grunge explosion Seattle Punk music scene, though. I always appreciate down-to-earth, local/community-based music scenes that play for fun in their own insular, unambitious circles. I hate that my city is no longer like that, too.

Anyway, that's the "vibe" I always got from Seattle's music scene (as documented in the post-Nirvana, Grunge-is-money world, at least): A community doing it's shit because there was nothing else going on, just because it was fun and gave them something to do. Totally FUBU shyt, nawm sayn?

After Grunge went all huge, that went to shit. And I never thought most of the popular Grunge bands were even terribly worth a shit. Frankly, I'd rather listen to Fastbacks, who were like the Seattle equivalent of Shop Assistants, if anything, despite their assciation with Grunge.

To me, "Grunge" is/was just Punk/Indie/Alt. music for Seattle/PNW locals. Less a particular sound as it was a general term to give to a musically diverse regional scene (similar to how "Region Rock" is often used to describe DIY Punk/Pop-Punk from the south east) Grunge as a scene died when the media gave it a name and all the bands had to start sounding the same to fit the bill for "what makes a Grunge band".

Christ, I could not possibly disagree more... I think those bands are famous because people have been programmed to think they're great. Remember when Dimebag died? Who the fuck was sucking his dick and buying Dimebag darrel merchandise and guitar pedals and shit before that? No one (or only an incredibly negligible number of super-fans). Kids today only think Kurt Cobain is jesus because he shot himself. If he were alive today, he'd be irrelevant. The media milked the hell out of Grunge's poster boy dying, and apparently that paid off. Now he's a (marketing) legend. I bet that would really upset him if he weren't dead.

People think the 90's were great merely because they were kids who didn't have to worry about anything "back then". Every new generation of idiots thinks 20 years ago was the best era in human history.

It wasn't. Existence has always been shit for someone, somewhere.

AKA Grunge Lite.
Gross.

I think Nirvana are shit and Pearl Jam is an abomination, but Soundgarden had a few decent songs and AIC are one of my favourite bands. All of their albums are essential, including their post-Layne one.

With the exception of the Kurt Cobain/Dimebag examples, none of that makes much sense. It sounds like you spent more time hating than you did reasoning, tbh. If you don't like it that can't be helped, and you're within your rights to dislike without tangible reasons. That's what personal taste is. But there's no possible link between me associating that music with good times, and the fact that someone, somewhere, was depressed at that same time.

Grunge-Lite are the bands that came in 1995-1999.
Post Grunge is its own genre, and appeared in the 2000s. /difference

I'm not sure what exactly "grunge-lite" is, but there are a bunch of bands I think are cool that were putting out something grungy in the mid-late 90s: Days of the New, Silverchair, Bush, etc. I think people always pick up on bands like Creed and Nickelback and decide the entire genre is shit.

And what does any of this have to do with grunge as a form of music? Yes the media manufactured a legend out of Cobain and the industry cashed in heavily on the grunge sound. That doesn't make the music itself suck.

As for its importance: grunge was easily the most representative of the cultural phenomenon of rock in the 90s, just like metal was in the 80s.

Grunge got me into music but specifically Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. The crazy time signatures and riffs from Soundgarden is what got me playing guitar. I also have a man crush on Billy Corgan...atleast the older 90's Corgan.

But I do think Nirvana is a tad overrated. I like them and all but I agree the media definitely turned Kurt Cobain's death into a way to make money. They wouldn't have the legacy they do if Kurt was still alive.

The real question out of all of this: would grunge have been nearly as popular had Cobain not died? Deep down inside we all know the answer is a big, fat hell no. Grunge would have been another flavor of the week. It had the potential to be popular, but it would not have had the lasting impact. MTV and the recording industry subsequently shoved everything grunge related down the world's throat. Now, as far as radio is concerned, grunge is like some holy golden idol that everything is viewed to the standard of.

I agree 100%. Grunge might have had a mild impact with a still breathing Kurt, but not the major force that it became. Grunge was growing while he was still alive but his suicide caused a media explosion and henceforth, grunge was the holy grail of the music industry for years.

That's quite a revisionist position, I think. Grunge completely changed the landscape while Kurt Cobain was alive. I was around 20 year old at the time and experienced the cultural shift in full force. I remember seeing Ozzy's "No More Tours" we were waiting for Ozzy to come on stage, a selection of cool metal was playing in the PA system when suddenly the whole crowd went crazy as soon as Smells Like Teen Spirits started playing. I think that's when I fully acknowledged something significant was really happening.

The pinnacle of the grunge phenomenon, all the big bands from that genre, it all happened while Cobain was alive. This thing was huge and that's why Cobain is relevant to that part of music history. Even if he was still alive, overweight, bald, writing music for Lady Gaga and mud wrestling Jared in Subway TV ads, he would still be relevant to that part of history, just like Ozzy is relevant to metal despite being a mumbling fool who hasn't released something truly worthwhile since almost three decades.

Also disagree with your views on Dimebag but I'll leave it there.

I don't think it's revisionist at all.

grunge died when it became a commodity. Plain, simple truth. The commercial equivalent of any underground subculture that becomes mainstream is but a shadow of its former self.

Happened with Punk (and, my oh my, "sleazy" GLAM, too... How did we go from The New York Dolls to Poison?!).

Keep telling yourself that. :]

Post-Grunge is a catch-all term for a pretty broad spectrum of (shitty) music, nothing more, nothing less... Just like "Post-Punk" and "Post-Hardcore" also cover an extremely broad, diverse musical spectrum.

Your reading comprehension sucks.
I said I'm burned out on it. "It" meaning the genericized post-Grunge explosion sound of basically every 90's "Alternative Rock band".

I never even said "it sucks", I said it got fucking lame and I got sick of hearing it... In that sense, it kinda does suck to my ears. Big deal. I still never explicitly said that, much less made the claim that it sucks universally according to my opinions.

Who's the one being irrational here? People get all huffy about the silliest shit...

Agreed.

Grunge might still (well, it DOES have) cringe-inducing "revivalists" who dress up like all the post-millennial Thrash Revivalists and Hair Metal Revivalists who still like it's 1987, but we all must realize people wouldn't give a shit about it if it weren't crammed down their throats by the music press that ROCK AND ROLL'S SAVIOR has died in 1994, and subsequently milked it endlessly for years and years after. I can't tell you how many issues of music magazines I've seen with Cobain on the front 4+ years after he offed himself.

That's not a refutation of my argument. You were saying Kurt Cobain would be an irrelevant dude if he hadn't taken his life. I'm explaining to you why he is and would be.

Now you're uttering esoteric sentences about how a genre died when it went mainstream. That would be a good debate but hardly relevant to what we were discussing.

It looks like you're basically not seeing any value in this genre or in Cobain's output. That in itself is an opinion that is debatable but is yours. However, you're trying to justify it with nonsensical scenarios. You can't pretend Cobain was insignificant just because you weren't into this phenomenon and that he is only relevant because of the circumstances of his passing. That's just nonsense, since he was terribly significant way before his death.

In that post you said it didn't deserve to be famous. I don't care about what you said in your previous posts.



If this is so, how did several albums by each of the "big 4" manage to sell millions and rank high in the charts before Cobain's death? It was popular, immensely so, both before and after his death. If you want to make big assumptions from the fact MTV and the industry capitalized on the event, go ahead, they won't be correct.

What the hell are you talking about?

Quote me. Quote the exact words from which you managed to interpret this, otherwise, stop putting words in my mouth.

dude, you said it right here:



what else could you possibly mean?

The big four may have sold a ton in the short time before Kurty poo's death, but it wouldn't have lasted so god damn long if he hadn't died. I mean we still have bands that are emulating the grunge sound. And major labels are eating the up. If it's not a boy band or rap, it's a bastardized form of grunge. I don't care if you call it grunge lite, post grunge or grungy ass... It's still been forced down our throats for most of our lives.

I'll be thirty in the next few months. That means that for well over half of my life, and most importantly my entire music listening years, I have been force fed grunge by radio and MTV. It got to the point that the same ten Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains songs were no longer interesting. When you hear something a million times, especially something as utterly simple as "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Lithium", it becomes very, very boring and stale.

That right there may be your problem. I stopped listening to commercial radio and MTV when I was 17. Nobody's forcing anything down your throat.

Your problem isn't Kurt Cobain's death. It's that you're tuning to shit sources. For every one song with legitimate artistic merit, you're gonna be subjected to a hundred crappy songs. Not to mention they keep on playing the same songs over and over again because the (correct) assumption for these stations is that the average listener has the IQ of a gerbil.

Besides Alice in Chains' whole discography (and that's stretching it, as I see them as more of a metal band), three records by Soundgarden (same here, though Superunkown is less metal, more experimental/alternative something), Pearl Jam's Ten and Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit (I love the song, overplayed and overrated as it might be), I can't say I care for grunge. I do believe the concept of grunge to have a lot of potential, but it's rarely fulfilled.

I don't tune into shit sources. I have a CD player in my truck and an iPod that I use on AUX when I'm at work. But someone is usually listening to a "rock" station in the locker room or in one of the offices if I'm stuck at station.

I don't have a problem with Cobain's death. I only have a problem with a 20+ year cash grab that his death turned into.

Those albums essentially comprise the entirety of grunge. Keep in mind there is no such thing as grunge as a genre of music. I don't know who made up the label, but that's all it is - a label, for a late 80s/early 90s "movement" involving a few bands which happened to be from the same city and were influenced by 70s hard-rock, combining it with a disgruntled, existentially troubled attitude and a rough, unpolished sound. Apart from those common elements, the big 4 didn't really sound alike at all.

You can't compare it with an established genre like, say, metal. The bands involved didn't even know they were playing grunge. They would just say they were rock. Notice also that although Pearl Jam has been constantly releasing and AIC and Soundgarden both have new albums, they wouldn't be described as grunge but "by the bands that played grunge back then". It was a phenomenon confined to a specific period in music history and the idea of bands playing grunge outside of that era is as stupid as a 20th century Renaissance composer.

This just isn't true. These stations play the same songs over and over again for really obvious reasons that don't involve their listeners being retarded, brainwashed sheep, or any other oft-on-metal-forums-repeated line.

The radio is almost NEVER listened to by anyone as a primary source of music. Something like 75% of radio listeners (don't know the exact stats, but it's a solid chunk of them) are in the car on their way to/from work. The rest are either tradesmen who have the radio playing while they drill holes in walls and fill the holes with cable, or office workers sitting in cubicles while the one radio in the room plays for all of them. With so many people from so many different backgrounds, with so much variety of taste, there's only one thing the radio stations can do and keep listeners: Play the classics. The hits of the last 2-3 decades. Songs that no one hates, or that they can statistically play the most without people tuning out. Radio stations don't want to be the broadcasting equivalent of that one socially retarded guy who plays a metal song at a party. Everyone hates it, no one thinks he's cool, and the chicks will leave, taking most of the blokes with them. It's not much of a party when there's no one there.

Either things are really different completely different from the rest of the world in Germany or you have no idea how radio works in 2012. This isn't about some metal fandom opinion, BTW. It's about the very real way commercial radio has evolved after the 70s, proceeding relentlessly toward homogenization. It's a an undeniable fact. The freedom of individual DJs was taken away from them progressively.
Different mediums have been bought back and converged in media empires. It's got everything to do with brainwashing sheep, contrary to your claims. It's about the same source fabricating easily disposable stars that sing under-4-minute accessible hits that are disposable. Then "informing" the masses of this through networks of television and newspapers that they also own or have close ties too.

The whole cultural landscape has changed, with focus groups and laser-precision market study of demographics, making sure the masses are ignorant and happy. The ultimate goal? Money. It's not just about selling music, it's about creating a conformist climate that makes you want to buy into a certain lifestyle.

It would have been entirely possible for a DJ who was on a Santana kick to play the entire side B of Abraxas back in the 70s. Today, not only would this behavior be discouraged, it's not actually possible to do so.





LOL, this isn't about metal but I think you have things backwards. People don't leave because some strange music they're not accustomed to is suddenly playing. They leave because it's been drilled into their heads from infancy that music should require absolutely NO effort from the listener and should consist of an utterly stupid sentence like "tonite's gonna be a good nite" repeated 6000 times a day, or some insipid turd from Korea acting like a fucknut and mumbling something about "Gangnam style", whatever the fuck that means.

It's not about metal. The masses are now programmed to see anything that isn't even remotely super-accessible (even some forms of softer pop music) as actually THREATENING because it's unknown. Of course, this makes sense and facilitates the job of corporations which are making the masses drink watered down piss (Budweiser) and pass it as actual beer, or have convinced people that an even remotely decent burger would resemble a Big Mac.

Anyway, we're digressing from our original disagreement over how UTTERLY SHITTY radio has become. I recommend you check out this book as an entry point. It's just a really thin slice of what's actually going on: http://www.amazon.com/FM-Rise-Fall-Rock-Radio/dp/0812992652

I like to listen to some grunge occasionally like Nirvana, soundgarden, alice in chains, pearl jam, temple of the dog, mad season, screaming trees, great stuff. My favorite album by any of the bands would be Nirvana- unplugged in new york, what an amazing performance, many of the songs are better played then the studio versions, although I wouldn't call it grunge since its an acoustic rock performance, it also helped me get into the meat puppets.
This album is also really good and underrated, grunge with psychedelic rock and stoner rock elements.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GGjNWWBA0Y

It means everything I said and nothing more... Stop taking it so personally. It's a simple, sad fact that popularity is based on big label backing and promotion. It doesn't mean "no one in grunge deserved popularity". So, once again, stop putting words in my mouth.

It's not my fault you think too much with your feelings based on what I've said and consider any observation I make about the music industry [ahem, and its flock of sheep, of course] as a personal affront to the artists and your personal taste in music.

I meant what I said. There's no subtext or metaphor in any of that post. It's all quite plainly written. I never said they "didn't deserve to be famous". If anything, I said their fame was overblown (and anyone who says otherwise is, frankly, deluded), especially considering the ethos of that whole scene. If anything, I said fame is what killed the culture, and that over hyping and over saturation is what turned it into a big, lame joke of a trend.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Any questions/(more) baseless accusations?