How Important Was Grunge As A Musical Movement?

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