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   This is the thread for that loud, abrasive, stripped-down sound of yesteryear-the Seattle Sound. Long ago, it dominated the music charts for a brief time, and still has a loyal following today. I am referring to Grunge. Talk about any Grunge bands from the time period, as well as current bands influenced by the genre. AYC fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Mar 28, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 20:17
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Woohoo! My buddy got the single "Smells like Teen Spirit" from the Subpop record club when it first came out. We listened to it in the dorms over and over again, just stumped. I really hate that Pearl Jam and STP and anyone in flannel was thrown in that category. It has to be dirty, filthy, punk mixed with sludgey metal and Butthole Surfer sloppiness. Glad you put Tad and Mudhoney in the OP. I always thought Mudhoney would make it big since they kick rear end and are really nice guys. Now if I can only remember the name of the band on Subpop that did an amazing cover of the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams". They were at SXSW back in 1993 or so, and that show was incredible. They aren't listed on wikipedia, which shows the earliest cover is from 1995 by Presidents of the United States (ugh). I need to dig thru my garage and attic...
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Mar 28, 2014 02:18
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So, this is a bit before grunge, but I thought this is as good a place as any to share my collection of flyers for Seattle shows. They were my late aunt's, and I have inherited them. Dates range from around 83-85. Lots of Green River and Mr. Epp (Pre-Mudhoney) including a zine interview with Epp. Many of bands that influenced grunge appear in them quite often (The U-Men, Melvins, Malfunkshun, Butthole Surfers, etc..) http://www.flickr.com/photos/86967282@N05/sets/72157637417270586/ This Youtube channel has a lot of great recordings of some of those exact shows, and my aunt is visibly in the crowd in a couple of them. http://www.youtube.com/user/nearSeattle84
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Mar 28, 2014 05:28
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Fors Yard posted:So, this is a bit before grunge, but I thought this is as good a place as any to share my collection of flyers for Seattle shows. They were my late aunt's, and I have inherited them. Dates range from around 83-85. Lots of Green River and Mr. Epp (Pre-Mudhoney) including a zine interview with Epp. Many of bands that influenced grunge appear in them quite often (The U-Men, Melvins, Malfunkshun, Butthole Surfers, etc..) Holy poo poo, these are cool. Thanks for sharing!
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Mar 28, 2014 07:17
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Grunge was my big musical obsession for a few years up til recently. There are sooo many great grunge or at least grunge-related bands that have been pretty much forgotten. Most of the grunge bands that became popular realllly sucked, but I still love Alice in Chains and Nirvana. Mudhoney is one exceptional band that everyone should check out. Hole, Babes in Toyland, TAD, and oh so many more. Can I post some YouTube album links? Also, THANK YOU Fors Yard, Grunge and 80's underground in general flyers are so awesome to look at
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Mar 29, 2014 02:33
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Soundgarden’s Superunknown is getting a re-release this year. I love pretty much everything associated with grunge (even Silverchair), but Superunknown is the peak of this vague and patchwork genre to me. It’s an absolutely colossal album, it is just absolutely huge to the point of being apocalyptic. It bridged a gap perfectly for me between this loosely-held together grunge genre and stuff like Kyuss, as well as harkening back to my first musical love in Black Sabbath. I love Superunknown.
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Mar 29, 2014 03:00
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I'm so glad grunge killed glam metal. It's amazing to me that actually good rock music managed to make some waves in mainstream radio after that bullshit.
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Mar 29, 2014 07:12
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One of my weirder concert moments was when The Melvins asked if there were any heroin addicts in the crowd, to which one screaming guy runs up on stage and flashes them his track marks. They then break into Smells Like Teen Spirit and the guy basically mumbles into the mic while the crowd goes wild. Great show.
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Mar 29, 2014 08:10
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Alexander the Grape posted:I'm so glad grunge killed glam metal. It's amazing to me that actually good rock music managed to make some waves in mainstream radio after that bullshit. I've grown to appreciate both grunge and the music that came directly before Grunge.
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Mar 30, 2014 01:33
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I'm not really well-versed enough in the popular music of the late 80s and early 90s to judge for myself, but I suspect that like most received wisdom w/r/t pop music the "grunge killed hair metal" thing is way overblown. I mean obviously grunge was ascendant while hair metal was on the decline but that doesn't imply a cause and effect relationship.
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Mar 30, 2014 03:38
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It isn't overblown; that's what happened. If you like glam, that's fine. There's no point in arguing which is "better." I'm just saying I'm glad that grunge came after it.
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Mar 30, 2014 10:29
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Alexander the Grape posted:It isn't overblown; that's what happened.
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Mar 30, 2014 10:53
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Yeah like '90-93 or so was kinda weird because you'd see the hot new Def Leppard video right after the hot new Soul Asylum vid in the Buzz Bin.
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Mar 30, 2014 11:55
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het posted:it's dumb and obviously wrong. Why?
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Mar 31, 2014 10:32
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Because hair metal was already dying and it's not like all the people that were listening to hair metal suddenly jumped on the grunge train and never looked back.
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Mar 31, 2014 13:52
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I'm a greybeard and I remember this period well. Hair metal was on the decline and then grunge came along hastening hair metal's exit. Hair metal losing its seat in the Top 40 was inevitable without the rise of grunge, alternative, whatever but it was sort of put out of its misery by the rise of this "newer" rock style.
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Mar 31, 2014 16:30
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Hair metal was already on the decline and something was going to occupy the space it left simply by necessity, grunge happened to be around. And even then, "grunge" as defined by what ended up dominating the charts was kinda nebulous.
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Mar 31, 2014 17:53
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Crackerman posted:Soundgarden’s Superunknown is getting a re-release this year. I love pretty much everything associated with grunge (even Silverchair), but Superunknown is the peak of this vague and patchwork genre to me. It’s an absolutely colossal album, it is just absolutely huge to the point of being apocalyptic. I found my old copy of SuperUnknown last month and have been listening to it a lot lately. I've been thinking the lyrics to Superunkown (the song) have to be about some addiction Chris Cornell was going through. Fresh Tendrils and Limo Wreck are such epic songs. I love his lyrics and how his voice is idiosyncratic but powerful. Anyone who likes Alice in Chains or Pearl Jam should check out Mother Love Bone. Anyone who likes Nirvana should check out The Replacements, who I think were a bigger influence on Kurt Cobain than a lot of people think (...and who I like a lot more than Nirvana) even though they predated all the bands in this thread pretty much. My total 12 year old guilty pleasure "grunge" album is 16 stone by Bush.
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Mar 31, 2014 21:14
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Anyone going to the Soundgarden/NIN/Death Grips tour?
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Mar 31, 2014 21:59
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Henchman of Santa posted:Because hair metal was already dying and it's not like all the people that were listening to hair metal suddenly jumped on the grunge train and never looked back. It's not really that hair metal fans moved on to anything one way or the other, but that they weren't teenagers any more, and subsequently no longer the target demo of the music industry. Same thing happened to grunge a few years later.
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Apr 1, 2014 12:01
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Grunge also rode the steady wave of success from 80s alternative groups such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, the Pixies, etc. I'm cautiously looking forward to the Superunknown reissue. The first two Nirvana reissues were underwhelming and (in the case of Nevermind) awful but In Utero was unarguably awesome. The 2013 remix is my go-to version of the album.
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Apr 1, 2014 13:20
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I'm just glad they played the album live all the way through. When I was 15 I never thought they would get back together. Chris' voice sounds pretty good, too!
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Apr 1, 2014 16:01
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Cheesus posted:Grunge also rode the steady wave of success from 80s alternative groups such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, the Pixies, etc. i just wish they were doing it for Badmotorfinger too, no one ever talks about how excellent that album is.
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Apr 1, 2014 16:53
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Crackerman posted:i just wish they were doing it for Badmotorfinger too, no one ever talks about how excellent that album is. Which is criminal because "Slaves & Bulldozers" is such an amazing blistering song, and easily my favorite Soundgarden track. There was so much Sabbath in that sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO18jd0bqvM
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Apr 1, 2014 22:57
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It doesn't matter if grunge "killed" hair metal directly; it's more interesting to view it as a response, just like how British punk was a response to prog before it. And how pop responded to grunge with acts like Blink 182 and then Avril Lavigne, defanging it completely.
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Apr 1, 2014 23:40
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Popcorn posted:It doesn't matter if grunge "killed" hair metal directly; it's more interesting to view it as a response, just like how British punk was a response to prog before it. We need a super popular band that achieves its popularity outside the music industry. Something that goes viral under a Creative Commons license or something. At this point, the music industry just seems like a sick dog that needs to be put down by Dr. Bandcamp.
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Apr 2, 2014 00:03
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AYC posted:I hate to sound like a hipster, but the state of the music industry these days kind of depresses me. I would argue something like that happening has a very low chance coming to fruition. Because the game has changed. Bands (thinking Nirvana in particular due to this thread) would get big via heavy radio play which was usually pushed by the music industry. Now with the proliferation of the internet, the radio is no longer one of the main sources for people to listen to music. I could post a lot about how culture used to be a lot more homogeneous due to limit options in finding entertainment but I am going to skip it because its boring. Long story short you now have easier access to a larger pool pool of styles and sounds that will cater to what ever you specifically find enjoyable. Niche is where its at now.
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Apr 2, 2014 01:33
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My older brother was DJing at his college station from 1988-90 while grunge was starting to emerge. He left a crate full of proto-grunge gold at our parents' house for me to discover a few years later. This LP, by the band "Cat Butt", was always my favorite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_Center_Of It's not very good, but come on, they were called Cat Butt.
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Apr 3, 2014 15:30
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het posted:Hair metal was already on the decline and something was going to occupy the space it left simply by necessity, grunge happened to be around. And even then, "grunge" as defined by what ended up dominating the charts was kinda nebulous. And even then, Guns n Roses was a WAY bigger band in the golden age of Grunge than Pearl Jam or Nirvana. I'd say without a doubt the three biggest hard rock bands of 1991-1994 were GnR, Aerosmith and Metallica. Bon Jovi was right in there, too. That wave of hair metal bands that got signed in the mid 80's were burned out, creatively and physically. It's not like Slaughter or Warrant had these magnum opuses that had to be tabled because grunge was popular now. Their contracts were up and Jani Lane probably only had one album's worth of material in him to begin with that got stretched out over a 4 album deal. The butt rock bands that had talent and staying power (GnR, Bon Jovi, maybe Motley Crue) are either still around or didn't die because of grunge.
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Apr 3, 2014 18:56
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JoTro posted:My older brother was DJing at his college station from 1988-90 while grunge was starting to emerge. He left a crate full of proto-grunge gold at our parents' house for me to discover a few years later. This LP, by the band "Cat Butt", was always my favorite: I have never heard them, but I remember reading about Journey to the Center of the Cat Butt in Thrasher (I think) and thinking that it sounded pretty drat great.
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Apr 4, 2014 04:44
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I dunno if these are all strictly "grunge" as there's tons of overlap between all the messy, noisey, melodic punk stuff, but here's my favorite bands still carrying the grunge torch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfkL7GHNnb4 Weed from canada. one of the best grunge/whatever LP's of 2013. I think they are poised to blow up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_5CE3c83Lg Naomi Punk, from Olympia. You could pretty much just post a list of current underground Olympia acts and it would fit the bill. So many good bands coming from there right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB9R05cVopo Broken Water, one of the best bands to come out of Olympia. Perfect mix of melody, noise, wall of sound, sloppy, and pop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZO8GG9t7lc Milk Music put out the best rock LP in like the last decade, but their first EP is way more noisey and straightforward grunge, I love it. I'll stop, I could go on and on. SO many superlatives in these descriptions, but there's so many great bands making this type of music right now. Everyone knows every Nirvana and Melvins song (right?), post more current bands! kirkjames fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 08:05
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Was in my late teens during this period which was the perfect age to get really, really, really into it. A lot of good bands and albums mentioned here, but one that I think gets really overlooked and can stand near the top of a "Best Grunge Album" list is Veruca Salt - American Thighs. It is a seriously great album. Convenient playlist: http://tinyurl.com/kz48hur One thing I miss from that period was that modern rock / alt radio stations were happy to play more than the singles. I knew at least half the tracks from that album (and, similarly, Superunknown) before I ever bought the albums just due to radio stations playing deep cuts.
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Apr 4, 2014 15:25
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regulargonzalez posted:Was in my late teens during this period which was the perfect age to get really, really, really into it. A lot of good bands and albums mentioned here, but one that I think gets really overlooked and can stand near the top of a "Best Grunge Album" list is Veruca Salt - American Thighs. It is a seriously great album. Convenient playlist: http://tinyurl.com/kz48hur I remember Veruca Salt at the time being panned by a lot of people as manufactured and poseur-y, but they did write some pretty irresistible tunes I thought, like Number One Blind. Not exactly purist grunge, but yeah, I liked them a lot through the first two albums. Huge fall off a cliff when Nina left and whatsername got all angry about it.
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Apr 4, 2014 16:58
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I was heavy into grunge when I was a kid, at least the forms which were available. I remember my dad taking away my dubbed cassette of In Utero because of "Rape Me", calling into the radio station incessantly with my friends requesting "Heart Shaped Box" and my mom hating the fact that I intentionally ripped the knees out of all my jeans. Now I'm almost 30 and can't stop listening to Screaming Trees and Mark Langegan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jamJIe332R0 with a very young Josh Homme Also, it's gonna take some Love Battery to get us through this thread, I rock Dayglo on cassette regularly in my car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6LB0MQI4V4 E: I think Neil Young might be an authority on the subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VmFtLeWwOo"As long as it gets off" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woN-rSesgDM Classic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt98mHPI4mo Modern https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCtxQz_srCw RIP Jack Nitzche Elrobot fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 17:16
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hatelull posted:Which is criminal because "Slaves & Bulldozers" is such an amazing blistering song, and easily my favorite Soundgarden track. The whole album has this amazingly catastrophic sound. It’s like Badmotorfinger is the score to the end of the world and Superunknown is the aftermath. I listened to Pearl Jam’s Ten the other day for the first time in ages and remembered how good it is. Despite some dodgy lyrics it’s really consistent and has a great texture to it. I think my favourite will always be Vitalogy, which is probably their closest to having a sound people typically associate with the word ‘grunge’.
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Apr 4, 2014 19:52
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Shovelbearer posted:I remember Veruca Salt at the time being panned by a lot of people as manufactured and poseur-y, but they did write some pretty irresistible tunes I thought, like Number One Blind. Not exactly purist grunge, but yeah, I liked them a lot through the first two albums. Huge fall off a cliff when Nina left and whatsername got all angry about it.
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Apr 4, 2014 20:01
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'Mirrorball' is a great album. Crackerman posted:I listened to Pearl Jam’s Ten the other day for the first time in ages and remembered how good it is. Despite some dodgy lyrics it’s really consistent and has a great texture to it. I think my favourite will always be Vitalogy, which is probably their closest to having a sound people typically associate with the word ‘grunge’. I could never get into it because I didn't like the production, but the remaster sounds much nicer, so I will have to give it another go. 'Vitalogy' is my favourite of theirs though. Eddie doesn't do this sort of thing much any more does he? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQWE5bWmUk
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Apr 5, 2014 02:38
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shmee posted:Eddie doesn't do this sort of thing much any more does he? Now he just chugs a bottle of wine and busts out Tom Waits covers.
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Apr 5, 2014 02:52
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One of the things I feel that gets overlooked a little when discussing some of the bigger grunge bands is the sheer ridiculous quality of the vocalists; Chris Cornell, Lane Staley, and Mark Lanegan in particular are just insanely good singers and Kurt Cobain was just raw and amazing as well. Some of these absolutely gorgeous voices singing these tortured songs was just something very genre bending and really, really special.
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Apr 5, 2014 07:09
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Bulging Nipples posted:One of the things I feel that gets overlooked a little when discussing some of the bigger grunge bands is the sheer ridiculous quality of the vocalists; Chris Cornell, Lane Staley, and Mark Lanegan in particular are just insanely good singers and Kurt Cobain was just raw and amazing as well. Some of these absolutely gorgeous voices singing these tortured songs was just something very genre bending and really, really special. Layne Staley had the most incredible voice, even though Alice in Chains aren’t my absolute favourite of the grunge bands he’s my favourite vocalist. He just sounds so unbelievably tortured and agonised. He could swing from soft and mournful to sounding like a diseased air raid siren. His harmonising with Jerry Cantrell was often gorgeous. Alice in Chains were an essential part of that scene. It was mentioned earlier that Guns N Roses were huge at the time - Guns N Roses were the party, with all the booze, unprotected sex and drugs it involved, whereas Alice in Chains sounded like the disease-ridden, hungover, jonesing aftermath. I’d be interested to know what people think of Stone Temple Pilots. They’re often labelled as pretenders of the genre, and Core certainly ripped off a whole shitload of different bands at the time (and as such it’s my least favourite of their albums aside from a few standout tracks), but I felt like they got better and better as they went on and started doing their own thing. Not that they ever stopped openly wearing their influences on their sleeve. Also Scott Weiland is the most hilarious mess of a human being.
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Apr 5, 2014 17:08
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