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Because everyone wants to argue what bands are or aren't grunge...
Watch this episode of VH1 Classic's Metal Evolution from the guys that made Metal: A Headbanger's Journey & Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage.
And yes... Alice in Chains is GRUNGE and yes No Doubt killed grunge.
http://www.vh1.com/video/metal-evolu...playlist.jhtml
Stubby Member
What do people think? This one band came along and instantly, somehow all the other bands in that genre are like "Ugh, I really hate No Doubt... so let's stop making grunge."? No, genres go in and out of style due to many, many factors.Originally Posted by Reznor2112
Arguing what genre a band is is a completely unnecessary act. The only purpose of genres is to let people know the general sound before they get to hear the band themselves. It lets people come together with similar tastes in a similar time. All good music crosses over genres because they have their own sound, or they could simply be the beginning of a new genre themselves if they come to have a large influence. A more hearty discussion would be "What happened to grunge?" "Do you think contemporary grunge and post-grunge deserves as much respect as the original era, including bands such as Alice In Chains?" Otherwise you simply get yes or no.
Active Member
Grunge died long before. No Doubt were just there to tap-dance on it's grave.
Throbbing Member
AiC is most deff Grunge.
I think every one agrees Grunge ended with Kurt in '94. Now I'm not one of those people who consider Kurt a super rock god or think Nirvana is the best band ever. Just by '95 most bands had broken up, had a member die, or had started to move away from grunge.
Recently have fallen back in love with Soundgarden, STP, Mother Love Bone and Mudhoney. soo much goodness
Also I never really liked Pearl Jam, sounded too much like Creed for me. but Temple of The Dog, thats good shit.
Mother Love Bone
Soundgarden
Temple of The Dog
Active Member
I never liked AiC. Layne Staley always came off as melodramatic and whiner than Kurt Cobain (I hate Nirvana), and their riffs always seemed to be Metallica-Lite. Other than "Again" and "No Excuses", I can't really stand them. Sure Layne had an amazing voice, but man, if he didn't come across as such a "woe is me" figure.
Soundgarden and Pearl Jam I love though. I've seen PJ as much as any band live and I have always admired the fact that they wanted to evolve as a band. Listen to Yield or Binaural and there's some pretty deep shit, Binaural especially, that album is basically an art-rock album. Soundgarden on the other hand just kicked ass. I love Louder Than Love, Badmotorfinger and Superunknown. I honestly believe Kim Thayil is the most underrated guitarist ever, and Cornell's voice was and still is booming. I was so surprised when I saw them at Lollapalooza how good he still sounded. I didn't bother with his solo efforts because Audioslave nearly turned me off for good, but he still fucking brings it and so does the band.
Active Member
AIC were fundamental for me growing up. Layne Staley manages to tap into a place of raw pain, and make it into something transcendent. AIC could be both incredibly heavy, wistful, resigned. For me grunge is all about dejection: sheer hopelessness and not being able to see that life may actually improve. It's not surprising it claimed victims.
Pearl Jam only really came alive to me on Vitalogy, their tribute to Cobain. After that they became just another rock band with their hearts in the right place.
Soundgarden's Superunknown and Down on the Upside are great albums, and though I enjoyed this band I always found them lacking something.
Stone Temple Pilots' Purple is a great grunge record, and their first album also has its moments.
I'd say the most underrated grunge band is Screaming Trees: Sweet Oblivion and Dust are two grunge classics. For me Lanegan has never come close to his work in that band.
Going to throw Meat Puppets in here too: Too High to Die is another grunge classic, and their contribution to Nirvana's Unplugged is well documented.
Another grunge album I enjoyed is Second Coming's 1998 self-titled album, which captured the grunge spirit without being some kind of Godsmack/Creed abomination.
House Always Wins
Last traces of Grunge ended in 1995-1996 due to the outs of Soundgarden, Nirvana and Alice in Chains all ending for various reasons. Kurt's death, their breakup and their hiatus, respectively.
My favorite 'grunge' band is and will always be Soundgarden. Their sound is distinct, piercing, heavy in select areas, obscure and down right fucking weird. I love it.
Last edited by Space Suicide; 01-13-2012 at 08:46 PM.
Active Member
I disagree, Lanegan's work on Soulsavers' It's Not How Far You Fall, It's the Way You Land was as good as anything he's ever done. Even Bubblegum was awesome. I love Screaming Trees, but I think Mark Lanegan has had an excellent career outside of it.
desperately chilled
post-grunge, perhaps... but i've always had a soft spot for this song.
probably because they remind me of the psychedelic furs...
Active Member
^^That's Sponge?! I always thought it was Social D. Huh. Guess I actually know TWO Sponge songs.
Throbbing Member
This count?
Throbbing Member
^yup!
L7
Soundgarden is my favorite band of all time, im all about Loud Love, Ultramega OK and Superunknown
get ready for brain melt
AND for those who don't like AiC
Last edited by PooPooMeowChow; 01-13-2012 at 11:06 PM.
Member
Of all the bands in that era, Nirvana is my favorite. Maybe due to the fact that they had a pop element I liked that was more Beatles than what was going on in pop music during the late 80s and early 90s. I do love Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. I like Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, Alice in Chains, and some of those early bands at the time. I just despise the association of post-grunge though I thought some of the songs by Sponge were pretty good. I know some will call Stone Temple Pilots a post-grunge band but I think of them more as a straight-ahead rock band. They actually had talent. It's just that it makes me sick thinking about all of those shitty bands that came in after Kurt died like Bush (though I did like some songs from Sixteen Stone), Silverchair, Dishwalla, and Collective Soul which then led to more shit bands like Crud, Matchbox 20, Nickelturd, and 3 Dull Dudes.
Active Member
I thought it was SD for a while too.
Memb, Member, The Membest
Absolutely love Soundgarden/Temple of the dog/Audioslave/Cornell solo. Never was impressed by Nirvana, simply no idea about AIC/PJ
Active Member
it's not "grunge" ( i still cringe at this meaningless term), but if you can listen to River of Deceit from Layne Stanley's beautiful side project Mad Season, and not feel something, i feel sorry for you.
Stubby Member
I have a whole bunch to say about this topic that I'm too drunk to articulate at the moment. But the Mad Season album was easily the most powerful yet depressing music I've ever heard. You could actually hear Layne dying in the vocals. I'd argue he was more talented than Kurt or Eddie, but he was to caught up to ever write anything as great.
Stubby Member
I like my grunge with a punk element to it, which is pretty much means few of the bands that have been mentioned.
Last edited by think i'm a fire engine; 01-14-2012 at 10:09 AM.
ooo... it's all sticky
^^^Mudhoney
Having lived in Seattle during the heyday of grunge and being the right age to attend shows to see these bands emerge (the first live show I ever saw was actually Mudhoney,) I feel very connected to the grunge scene... which also may be why I cannot stand to listen to it anymore. Too much of a [sorta-]good thing.
Btw, No Doubt didn't kill grunge. They were never part of the scene, so unless you meant mainstream "alt" rock or ska revival killing grunge, No Doubt shouldn't even be in this conversation. You now what killed grunge? Grunge.
Grohl has said in the past that bands like Nirvana were not built to last. Think about how many grunge bands ended due to self-desctrution of the group within the group. Anyone ever see an L7 show? Yeah, they weren't meant to last. Neither was Nirvana. Temple of the Dog and Mad Season, while great, were one-off bands without a future. Mother Love Bone and Green River were over before the scene even knew what it was or could become. (I think Pearl Jam become the anomaly over time and, while I don't listen to them anymore, I respect them for it.) Bad-ass bands like Grunt Truck or Tad never even got a real chance with major labels pimping "the big guys" everywhere.
When the mainstream wave came through (Everclear, Bush, Silverchair, Candlebox, etc.) the genre was immediately something different. "Post-grunge" I guess, which was really just mainstream rock... and grunge was dead.
Throbbing Member
Butters got it right.
As for meaningless terms. Grunge is just the word used in association with bands in that particular music scene. I know if prog fans could rid their self of the Prog title they would. Same with Stoner Metal. No one likes being pinned down by a term or a genera but we need ways of identifying these musicians.
While there's a distinct sound with early grunge, later grunge become more pop-oriented and mixed with the rest of the '90s and harder to define.
but I think record companies had the most to do with killing grunge, just by trying to emulate the sound and scene and morphing it into the money pumping shit new rock we still hear today.
Active Member
Layne wasn't really a writer: Cantrell wrote his best songs for him.
And talking of AIC, apparently they're working on a new album http://www.rollingstone.com/music/ne...album-20120110, unfortunately. I thought Black Gives Way to Blue was a waste of time, vastly inferior and beholden to Staley-era material.
Last edited by aggroculture; 01-14-2012 at 02:16 PM. Reason: news item spotted
Stubby Member
Sometimes I blame bands like Soundgarden and STP for writing the songs that every single cover band in every single bar plays around here every single weekend, and for spawning a wave of imitation bands that suck ass.
But it's not really their fault.
Active Member
Catchy songs are catchy songs. I hear the same type of bands play "Far Behind" and "Lightning Crashes" along with "Interstate Love Song", "Fell on Black Days", or even "Jeremy" which along with "Tempted" by Squeeze is my go-to karaoke song. Credit to Alice in Chains though, I never hear any bar band are drunk singer try to tackle "Man in the Box", who wants to fuck with Layne's voice?
Throbbing Member
on a major Mother love Bone binge, seriously if you haven't heard their album Apple, download that shit.
Bone China
Bite The Apple
Active Member
And Holy Roller!
Throbbing Member
AND
Just discovered these guys, pretty fucking good.
Need more new Grunge bands, please post any you haven't already seen posted!!1
Throbbing Member
Ah.. Grunge.. the kind of music I was 1-2 years too young to feel attached to (born in 1982). I think that Grunge died because the pessimism of the Reagan/Bush era was replaced by the optimism of the Clinton years, especially the dot-com boom and the new world hierarchy after the collapse of the communist block. It took a few years to turn the global economy around and to reshape the new order, but by 1994/95 it was all done and Grunge had nothing meaningful to say anymore. These microgenres never last more than about 5 years anyway... (like disco in the US 1975-1980 or Nu Metal 1998-2003)
Hairy Member
Any Jesus Lizard fans out there? One of the first bands I saw live, David Yow is an awesome front man even if you can't understand what the hell he's saying most of the time. Very frantic and raw. They were around mostly in the late 80s and early 90s, split a single with Nirvana once.
Throbbing Member
Pure is about the only Jesus Lizard release I've got, but it's one of my go-tos for "pissed off" music.
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