How Important Was Grunge As A Musical Movement?

As an interesting footnote, did you know that Dizzee Rascal cites "In Utero" as one of his favourite albums? Take from that what you will.

Also, that bands could have unkempt hair, and stuff like that.

Wait, you were actually still paying attention after *Dry as a Bone* and that Dead Boys cover? Impressive. (I did somehow manage to make it to some shitty Ann Arbor Mudhoney show in '89, but is was ALL over by then.) (Give or take an occasional Candlebox or Collective Soul hit, at least.)

so grunge was extremely important.

http://www.boardhell.de/schrott/115.jpg

According to this Best Of Grunge tape from Caroline Records my dad bought me in middle school, Tin Machine was grunge.

Why did so many '80s band names consist of the same word twice?

An alternate view is that "hard rock" is seeing its evolutionary niche taken over by "hardcore rap" which represents a Hegelian synthesis of the dialectic strains of Dionysian hair metal and Appollonian grunge.

David Coverdale hired Steve Vai and Aynsley Dunbar = APOLLONIAN

this is simple, people.

And yes, echoing Shookout, the godliness of the Screaming Trees can't be affirmed enough.

http://www.angelfire.com/film/princepurplerain/apollonia.jpg

http://www.operagloves.com/Modernstars/PrincesBeauties/apollonia-2a.jpg

"Come Out And Play" by The Offspring

*(insert name of any 3rd rate late '80's-early '90's lammo brit "indie" band here)

Grunge = introverted, sarcastic, angry, chaste, restrained, self-conscious, heroin, hardcore

Hair Metal = extroverted, shallow, playful, libidinous, transgressive, self-forgetful, cocaine, glam

While grunge (like any loud rock music) still partakes of a Dionysian element, I would say that it represents somewhat of a retreat to a more Apollonian restraint. This is especially notable in its sartorial conservativeness and relative asexuality.

The question "how important was grunge" means nothing until you define grunge, and even that means nothing here because ILM has already decided that Nirvana was a worthless band, and this is all just clever jabs at passing fads. Grunge was what indie is, a hip genre label that helps you sell stuff. A question like "How Important Of A Single was Smells Like Teen Spirit?" might get us a little closer to the answer I think we're after, but still.

more like a small bunch of very vocal detractors have decided they're a worthless band.

I never said Nirvana was perfect, but FFS these are virtually rock n roll prerequisites!

I can think of lots that aren't, and many that are only obliquely. I mean do you really think that a song like "Suck You Dry" is about sex? If it is, it's a particularly negative view of sex. Writing songs about how much you hate sex is very grunge. Writing songs that celebrate sex is very hair metal.

Grunge was more truly Dionysian in that it claimed to be all grunt-level emoting (Dionysian) and satisfied, mostly; for one thing it didn't have strict chart-hit order and was sort of loose and when there were guitar solos they were true wandering emoting blurts (not the pert perky ten-second wave-hellos of hair). There was more disordered moaning and shouting, and in some cases more collective shouting, both of which are totally Dionysian. All of which makes it funny that for certain Apollonian eggheads, grunge sounded better than hair.

i admit it's almost impossible for me to be objective about grunge b/c it really was the first music i was passionate about, and for better or worse it sparked my love of music in general. obviously i had to unlearn alot of the things grunge taught me, but i'll never back down from thinking nevermind was an amazing pop record and that in utero was a wonderfully ugly, cathartic masterpiece. i'm also pretty defensive of pearl jam, cos somebody's gotta be.

-- Josh Love (heaveninrowboat...), August 29th, 2004.

dude, you had me until that last sentence...;-)

The Killers' Brandon Flowers has blamed Nirvana and Kurt Cobain for making rock music depressing. Despite the seminal grunge frontman dying almost 15 years ago to the day (he took his life on April 5, 1994), Flowers lambasted Cobain. "I don't mean it in a bad way but I think Kurt Cobain and grunge took the fun out of rock and roll," he said. However, Flowers says that he thinks his band is now making American music "a lot more playful and brighter" (Daily Star/NME).

sort of funny, i really have no knowledge of the original "grunge" bands -- Mudhoney, Green River, early Soundgarden, Melvins, etc. Any of it worth my time? I mean, I generally don't like Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and their ilk.

Any of it worth my time?

Yeah: Nirvana. Nirvana >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> any other grunge band.

the grifters are fucking great. don't know if they really count as 'grunge' but there's certainly some similarities.

People like Melvins, too.

I dunno I'd say the Melvins are better than any of 'em, Nirvana included (I can't listen to Nirvana anymore). The first couple Mudhoney albums are fun but totally juvenile, I would recommend them if you are between the ages of 12 and 21.

sort of funny, i really have no knowledge of the original "grunge" bands -- Mudhoney, Green River, early Soundgarden, Melvins, etc. Any of it worth my time?

Yes, and none of it sounds like Pearl Jam , Alice In Chains(who were both great) or the post-grunge bands (who weren't)

The first couple Mudhoney albums are fun but totally juvenile, I would recommend them if you are between the ages of 12 and 21.

fuck that, im 36 and still listen to Mudhoney.
Funnily enough they are a band who make better cohesive albums in the last 10 years than they did back then.
Melvins last 2 albums have been awesome too.

dude you NEED Superfuzzbigmuff by Mudhoney...it doesn't really sound like "grunge" how you probably think, more like super mean rabid garage rock

heh, yeah I've heard Nirvana ... would probably like Mudhoney, I like the stuff I've heard anyway -- Stooges-y stomping stuff? dunno, I think the main problem I have with most so-called grunge is the vocals. Just a lot of bad singing going on there.

coffin break was pretty rad, but i dunno if they were totally grunge

the deluxe reissue of superfuzzbigmuff is essential.

However, Flowers says that he thinks his band is now making American music "a lot more playful and brighter"

delusions of etc

I've been googling Killers lyrics to refute Branden Flowers lies.

i honestly can't listen to nirvana with anything approaching perspective. i don't think i really like them but it's just colored by way too many other things to tell.

I like the stuff I've heard anyway -- Stooges-y stomping stuff? dunno, I think the main problem I have with most so-called grunge is the vocals. Just a lot of bad singing going on there.

I got off the bus after their major label debut but yeah Stooges are the main reference point and I've always liked Mark Arm's voice. He doesn't do the ass-clenched warbling Eddie Vedder thing.

ha yeah, the ass-clenched warbling Eddie Vedder thing -- that's the big problem. I can remember hearing Pearl Jam when I was a kid and thinking "man i just don't relate to that at all!" obviously some people did/do.

I really liked Eddie Vedders voice, but when all those other bands took the template I can see why it became annoying, but when PJ first hit the singing style was something fresh to many people.

I always hated it

I was just listening to the royal trux's pound for pound a few mins ago

every listen to it

argh I meant to type everyone listen to it

Melvins Live >>>>>>>> Melvins on record >>> Mudhoney > Nirvana >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> any other band that got called grunge

while we're on the grunge kick, i never, ever, ever understood why Neil Young got the "godfather of grunge" tag. Are there any grunge bands that actually sound like Neil Young? Even remotely? I know he toured with a lot of them (saw STP open for him in 1993, lol) and did the record with pearl jam but i'll be danged if i hear much Neil Young in those bands. was it just the flannel?

not just flannel, but also volume and sloppiness being used as virtues. but I think it was largely an association thing.

yeah there aren't very many clear similarities (unless we bring Dinosaur Jr into the picture, but they predate grunge "movement" by a bit)

Plus Ragged Glory came out around then and Sonic Youth opened for him and he was in vogue and got name dropped a lot.

right -- i guess there was a period pre-nirvana where grunge could mean dino jr and sonic youth. though honestly, "grunge" seems like the best term to describe Dino Jr, moreso than a lot of grunge bands.

Actually pre-Nirvana grunge just meant 7 or 8 Seattle area bands. It never meant Sonic Youth and Dinosaur unless journos were being lax.

Agree that it's easy to imagine "grunge" referring to Dinosaur though. Mascis just seems kind of grungy.

Vedder and his ilk are so fun to sing along to loudly with your friends. "eeeewaa flerrrrr, come arwahr like feeeevin flaaaaawwrrr".

Mascis' vocal whine also kinda similar to Neil

oh yeah totally -- dino jr and neil comparisons are valid!

and re: lazy journos calling non-grunge bands grunge, seems like there was maybe a lot of this in the UK?

Late 80s at WRCT, we used the adjective "grungy" a lot to describe Touch & Go type stuff, and eventually early Sub Pop. Killdozer, Drunks with Guns, Volcano Suns even. Don't remember it being pegged as a genre until after the NME thing in 1989 about Seattle.

and re: lazy journos calling non-grunge bands grunge, seems like there was maybe a lot of this in the UK?

yeah dinosaur jr, sebadoh,belly, sugar, helmet, babes in toyland even the lemonheads got called grunge.

yeah i feel like i read some old article from the UK referring to "American grunge group Galaxie 500" ...

dino jr kinda was grunge though IMO

yea i agree

i guess there was a period pre-nirvana where grunge could mean dino jr and sonic youth

SY and Dino Jr. had legitimate ties to the grunge scene...not the least of these being Nirvana themselves, who opened for Sonic Youth before they broke big...meanwhile J Masics was a serious contender to replace Chad Channing before they settled on Dave Grohl...

also SY's split 7" with Green River, and Dino Jr.'s whole Dio-meets-the-Cure (w/ special guest, you guessed it, Neil Young) aesthetic...

Don't remember it being pegged as a genre until after the NME thing in 1989 about Seattle.

WTF? Grunge was hyped in the NME???

that's the first place it was hyped! wasn't sub pop's whole marketing plan designed to sell a regional scene to the UK?

J Masics was a serious contender to replace Chad Channing before they settled on Dave Grohl...

I'm surprised that Masics -- who was a fairly big indie-star at the time, I'd guess -- would try to join Nirvana, which hadn't yet broken big (since Grohl was the drummer on Nevermind).

i'd heard that bit about mascis/nirvana too -- who knows how serious J was about that though?

I'm imagining some oakland impresario flying everett true over to introduce krumping or hyphy or whatever it's called.

re: jmascis what is the deal with him supposedly dating uma thurman at the time?

Why would the NME give anything even close to a shit about obscure rock music half a world away that even its own home country didn't want anything to do with?

get a clue

Late 80s at WRCT, we used the adjective "grungy" a lot to describe Touch & Go type stuff, and eventually early Sub Pop. Killdozer, Drunks with Guns, Volcano Suns even. Don't remember it being pegged as a genre until after the NME thing in 1989 about Seattle.

This was also my experience - though not sure about the NME thing. I was living in Houston at the time, and pretty much any gross, ugly, obnoxious, Stooges influenced rock group was described as grunge. Local stuff like Sugarshack I spent most of the early 90s trying to convince people that PJ and STP weren't real 'grunge' and didn't even make any sense as a description of whatever Pearl Jam was.

the Sugar shack mention was supposed to be backspaced over. nobody wants to see me reminisce about extinct local groups. :/

OK I'm assuming this hype didn't amount to much, since there are no grunge records in NME's 1989 EOY list.

Oops, wrong link!

x-post SY also had a Mudhoney split 10" where the bands covered each other's songs.

But I suppose so did Jimmie Dale Gilmore.

It was actually Everett True covering Seattle bands for Melody Maker that people are referring to I think, which was in 1989.

I spent most of the early 90s trying to convince people that PJ and STP weren't real 'grunge' and didn't even make any sense as a description of whatever Pearl Jam was.

this x1000

(except I'd given up by 1995)

x-post to ― slugbaiting (rockapads)'s namedrop. Ha. I put out a Sugarshack record! Actually upon inspection of Discogs, it appears I put out 2... (1993 seems so long ago right now). End reminisce.

Sugar Shack is exactly the kind of thing that I thought of as grunge back then. Hair, distortion, noise, garage, punk roots.

to me, the biggest development of the "grunge" era was the popularization of independent labels and being a music nerd, mainly because of kurt cobain. i honestly don't listen to too much Nirvana at this point, but Cobain will always be a hero of mine for opening up my conception of what music could be. i was 11 i guess when Nirvana broke, and since i was not really a rock fan before that (hair metal type shit was just not for me) it was kind of revolutionary sounding. i had been listening to mostly hiphop since that's what EVERYONE at my pittsburgh public school was listening to. some of that stuff may have been underground to most people, but it was just the most common shit to us since everyone knew about it. but Nirvana sounded like nothing i had heard, and upon reading about them, it was Kurt's non-stop giving props to various labels and bands that made me realise you had to go out of your way to find these things. immediately, i started digging deeper. the grunge-alternative connection via Dinosaur Jr., Jane's Addiction, REM, Sonic Youth, etc opened up me to labels like SST, Caroline, Sub Pop, and all those kind of typical bands.

by the time i was 12 i was trying to go to Lollapalooza to see all this music, but i didnt get there till i was 13 in 93. and that was some eye opening shit. all the second stage acts, the variety of genres (seeing bands like Fishbone, Front 242, and Arrested Development play in a row basically went on to define how i expect to hear music to this day), all the subculture shit associated with the music..... that was some very powerful shit. i started going to high school a few months later in the college neighborhood of Pittsburgh which left me exposed on a daily basis (we took public transportation to school so i got to fuck around after school as much as i wanted) to all the underground record shops, head shops, etc that were basically there for people much older than i was. this was like crack to my friends and i who ate it all up. basement punk shows, smoking blunts and drinking 40s with the hiphop crew, raving, crate digging, etc. this was our life starting when we were 13 years old, for some of us it never stopped. and really, it's all because "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a pop hit. i can't thank Kurt Cobain enough, i can't imagine what my life might have been like without him. big fucking ups, RIP.

http://www.outpost-daria.com/images/mystik_spiral.gif

If I have to explain to my kids what the 90s were for some reason, I'll save myself a lot of time and show them that picture. Maybe I'll play a 4 non blondes song too.

whoa, nice to see some love for Sugar Shack! Some great music came out of TX in the late 80s, very early 90s.

Dino Jr was total grunge - can't understand you guys are debating this.

I wouldn't put SY in that category but back then they were def. championning the scene (cf. 91: the Year than Punk Broke) and appropriating the sound and the style ('Dirty' era)

my early teens paralleled pipecocks, only from a crappy northern irish perspective. spent 11-16 in bands constantly, hanging round practice rooms smoking doobs and hitting strong white cider. Im glad i got it out of the way early on so by the time i was 18 i could smell a ripoff coming. thinking back on it thats where my love of heavy, messy music comes from and my hatred for bandwagon jumping.

it was Melody Maker not NME championing grunge back in 89

Absolutely. NME had nothing to do with grunge.

Yeah, and IIRC, ET was using the grunge word to describe a few different things before it got firmly affixed to Seattle stuff. Should be mentioned though that the first guy that was really championing all the early Sub Pop stuff before it even got a mention in the music weeklies was John Peel.

No surprises there though.

Don't really know what NME was championing in 1989

Madchester maybe?

Bradford and the Sundays?

Anyway grunge was too rocky for the NME in 1989

NME was always behind Melody Maker. Infact NME was usually looking for the new smiths

Okay yeah, it was MM. NME was all Madchester with some Napalm Death thrown in, IIRC. I'm trying to find and online version of that MM middle-of-the-magazine spread they did on Seattle- that was the Everett True thing I'm thinking of, probably.

http://archivedmusicpress.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/the-sub-pop-rosta-18th-march-19891.jpg

???

http://archivedmusicpress.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/everett-trues-guide-to-the-sub-pop-scene-18th-march-1989/

Grunge Bands You've Written Off/Pointedly Ignored because of their name:

Cat Butt
The Thrown-Ups

Nice to see that article.

Thanks NickB- that's it.

RAGING PRIMAL GRUNGINESS

any more articles from 88-94 around online?

SEATTLE'S NEW GENERATION OF THRASH METAL MERCHANTS

The NME mostly ignored grunge back in 1989. And they're still looking for the next Smiths.
http://archivedmusicpress.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/stone-roses-cover-18th-nov-1989.jpg?w=410&h=585

This is a great comp if you willing to pay an arm and a leg for it.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/36/SubPop200.jpg

That Charles Burns really ripped off the Fever Ray album art.

NME still looking
This weeks NME

http://i41.tinypic.com/6r7tw5.jpg

LOL, who is the NME's target audience? More suited to the MOJO crowd methinks.

Mojo had a john lennon cover this month

Mojo did have a while back
http://cover.mojo4music.com/uploads/Images/399x567/633504167189422999.Jpeg

(from that Melody Maker scan, about Beat Happening)

"Cramps meets Marine Girls meets Jonathan Richman meets Screaming Trees and are run over by a passing tractor."

I never tire of this b.s. band-chemisty-set hyperbole from the british music press. As far as I know, they invented it.

man that MM spread is great. love the picture of Tad.

Melody Maker used to be so great. It's a real shame what it eventually turned into.

Okay, that Melody Maker article from 1989 is INCREDIBLE.

i want that MM issue

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2003651721_nirvana050.html

I'm going to dig out my old Tad lp.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sub-Pop-200-compilation-LP-Nirvana-Soundgarden-Mudhoney_W0QQitemZ120388045280QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMusic_on_Vinyl?hash=item120388045280&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

or sealed
http://cgi.ebay.com/Sub-Pop-200-Nirvana-Beat-Happening-3X12-SEALED_W0QQitemZ150333866518QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMusic_on_Vinyl?hash=item150333866518&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

http://cgi.ebay.com/POISON-IDEA-RECORD-COLLECTORS-ARE-PRETENTIOUS-CD-NEW_W0QQitemZ280325101513QQcmdZViewItemQQ_pidZ3130379QQ_mediaitemZ1QQptZMusic_CDs?hash=item280325101513&_trksid=p4295.c0.m312&_trkparms=240%3A1318

not directed at you or anything, btw. just strikes me funny to see grunge records as collectibles.

man that MM spread is great. love the picture of Tad.

otm

rockapads> even back then that stuff was out my price range. Over on another board I post on DFFD(the board that used to be the Southern Lord Forum), a guy posted his entire Soundgarden collection. Must be worth a fortune and he bought it all when it came out.

I have always viewed the "grunge" tag as a construct of a media that did not understand where this music was really coming from. When Nirvana, Mudhoney, Melvins, Dino Jr etc. were releasing their first records, my friends and I regarded it as a continuation of punk rock. We live in Saskatchewan for fuck sakes. The idea of this shit being some specially named sub-genre was laughable.Especially coming from writers that seem like they should know better.
What it became though was no joke. The horrible garbage shat out by Pearl Jam, STP, Candlebox, etc. shortly after the mainstream explosion of Nirvana has left a streak of shit through rock n' roll until now. All of these awful bands like Nickleback, Puddle of Mudddd, Staind can be blamed on the myth of "grunge" and Nirvana. It's Cobain's fault but he can't be held resposible if that makes any sense.
Too bad his championing of Flipper and the Wipers didn't stick better with the mainstream instead of those who think aping the sounds of Nirvana, vacantly too(ie:Nicleback et al as stated above) makes for compelling rock n roll.
To this day I find listening to Nirvana a bit painful due to the constant retread of their sound in modern "rock". And I loved their records when they came out.
This point of view had no effect on my love for Mudhoney though for what it's worth.
(...ps Sugar Shack were great.)

i think you have to credit Nirvana for the rise in popularity of punk, indie, and alternative as well as the wackness of "modern rock". to me, the good far outweighs the bad, especially since it is very easy for me to never hear Creed, Nickelback, etc. also, i'm not sure anyone out there is aping the sound of Nirvana, at least not that i've ever heard. even back in the day, it was always knock offs of Pearl Jam that were huge, not Nirvana. i can't even think of one post-Nirvana band that sounds even remotely like them.

also, i think Mudhoney just aged a little better than a lot of this other stuff because they always remained raw. this is not a quality that mainstream rock ever ripped off, it keeps their sound a little more fresh because of it.

there are some pretty bad rock radio bands these days that are more on the Nirvana than PJ in terms of influences -- Seether and Puddle of Mudd in particular have been really ubiquitous on the radio the last couple years.

i've at least heard Puddle of Mudd once, maybe one song? i can't see the Nirvana comparison at all!

'She Hates Me' was so Nirvana-for-tweens

That is true pipecock they do deserve credit for that, too. As I said I was a big fan at the time. I did not mean to be hard on them.
As far the aping of their sound; it is almost always a failure anyway (these bands try) but it annoys anyway.
I also agree with you on why Mudhoney still sound good.

i'm not saying they're super Nirvana-ish, but if you were gonna trace their sound to any of the big grunge bands, it would be Nirvana. it works that way for most big active rock bands of the past decade, really...Shinedown = Soundgarden, Godsmack = Alice In Chains, etc.

xpost

i remember arguing about the merits of Godsmack with a coworker at the corporate CD store i worked at when they came out in 1999. i was like "they sound just like AIC but worse, they named themselves after one of their songs for godsakes!!" that guy finally just last year sent me a myspace apologizing for defending them.

Godsmack certainly stole their name from AiC, and they have a few moments of atmospheric gloom which recalls Dirt...Voodoo is prolley one that most readily comes to mind...but if there is any numetal ripoff song which truly captures the spirit of what AiC is all about, it was Incubus' "Drive"...

http://www.subpop.com/catalog/discography