Does anyone miss Grunge or The Seattle Sound?

[Miller77]

Im 35 years old so yea I love this type of music. For years Ive thought about putting together a band who covers the classics and writes orginals in this mold. For years no one seemed to be interested, however recently I talked to a drummer who is eager to do the same thing. Now Im stoked and have been going back and listening to all my old tunes. Its actually has me on the verge on wanting to sing, and let me tell ya thats something I cant do. :thwap

Im just curious if anyone else miss's what I consider to be the last true scene in rock music.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

No

[guitartango]

I suppose it beats being in a Justin Beaver tribute act. Trouble is that i have heard it all before, punk, new wave, old wave, microwave. There are plenty of tribute bands out there doing the circuit, so why not.

[FrankenFretter]

I'm not sure I miss that sound per se, but those were some good times back in the early 90s. I happened to live in Seattle from 1991-1995, so I was in the middle of it all for a while. Now I wish I'd gone out more to see more music.

[R_of_G]

It doesn't seem like there's a shortage of bands still drawing from more or less the same sonic palette.

[Robert]

Nope.

[markb]

Grunge? Tried one of those pedals once :D

[Commodore 64]

I'd rather listen to Justin Beiber.

[sunvalleylaw]

I enjoy some of that sound. (And it is actually fairly varied). And miss some of those times. I am a Tacoma native, and was a Tacoman back then. So, yes, in a way, I miss the sound, or more properly, I miss a time when a more organic rock sound was more popular.

Here is a thread where some of my thoughts on the era were collected. http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php/8638-90-s-Icon-for-better-or-worse

Besides the more known bands, I have also enjoyed Mudhoney, Green River, and the like as well.

[Ch0jin]

I'm surprised by the lack of Grunge love. I did, and still do enjoy it! (and i'm 41). When I'm not trying to sound like the Black Keys or White Zombie, it's Grunge all the way. I sling my guitars too low to play past the 7th fret, get lost in 10 minute song intro/outro's made up of random bends and scrapes and bucket loads of fuzz, and I understand that flannel shirts (Flanno in Australian) are supposed to be worn around the waist, not buttoned up.

Oh and I think the best set finisher is to just drop your still turned up guitar on the ground and walk off through the wail of feedback. Although that might be more a punk rock thing than a grunge thing....

[deeaa]

me 2...all my own music is largely grungish as well.

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[Tynee]

I miss the times of my life that accompanied that musical period. I can't say I'm sad that we moved on from Grunge, but I wish we had replaced it with something better than what we have now.

Edit: Let me clarify, I wish we had replaced Grunge with SOMETHING definable. When we look back on the 90's, they have a sound. The 80's have a sound of their own. The 70's, 60's, and 50's all have specific sounds. What will be the defining sound of the ought's?

[Tig]

I don't miss all of it, but I appreciate what it did at the time. The music "business" needs a little shaking up to get out of a rut from time to time. Unfortunately, the business jumps on the new bandwagon and subsequently destroys and drowns the raw spirit.

I am glad some of the musicians that the grunge era launched are still recording. Chris Cornell and Dave Grohl are making better music recently than in the past, for instance. I can still listen to most of Alice In Chains' albums and enjoy them.

[Katastrophe]

I dig parts of the grunge scene... McCready is an amazing player, and can rip on a Strat.

Jerry Cantrell was easily one of my favorite 90s players with AIC. It's debatable whether they could be considered "grunge" though.

I love Cornell's voice, but Kim Thayil's (don't know if that's the right spelling) playing in Soundgarden drove me nuts for the most part.

I enjoy Grohl more with the Foo Fighters than I ever did when he was with Nirvana. Cobain's playing, again for the most part, drove me nuts as well. I guess I just didn't "get it." Oh, well.

[omegadot]

Only 26 so I only enjoyed it because my older brother forced it on me at the time. I now enjoy it because I just enjoy it. I find a certain honesty in a lot of the music that resonates with me. I'll always really enjoy a lot of the music from that scene even if I don't necessarily listen to it a lot.

[Photomike666]

Ah grunge, the final death note of the last true guitar based rock.

Got to admit to it didn't inspire me. I was a teen in the 80's, and was metal through & through (still am just quietly). But the late commercialism of metal split it into factions, and the infighting and bickering over whether death metal was better then thrash metal weakened the overall scene.

Then the bombshell hit; Judas Priest vocalist came out of the closet. We all looked out metal regalia of leather, studs and chains and went - oh shit. Heavy metal was dead almost overnight. We no longer had an image, band members cut their hair & the fans fell away.

Out of the dust rose grunge, a new dirtier sound and a new manly image. But the untimely death of Curt brought it all tumbling down.

The 90s was not a great era for guitar music. New metal & rap metal were poor attempts, and only a few bastions from the old days held the fought. Little has changed since.

[R_of_G]

The 90s was not a great era for guitar music. New metal & rap metal were poor attempts, and only a few bastions from the old days held the fought. Little has changed since.

Maybe not in mainstream popular music but otherwise, the 90s abounded with great guitar music.

[hubberjub]

On some level, grunge is responsible for bringing rock music back into popularity. For years, the closest thing to rock that you could hear on the radio was glam metal. Grunge really brought the focus back to the music. I was never really into Nirvana, but Pearl Jam is still an amazing band.


Maybe not in mainstream popular music but otherwise, the 90s abounded with great guitar music.

Very true.

[deeaa]

Oh yeah...I just listened to Temple of Dog album while driving...me likes.

There was a lot of bad grunge too, and I don't honestly even know what qualifies as Grunge, but in the 90's there were many bands that were very guitar-centered and, most importantly, were not feeling commercially driven. Rather something honest, something a bit raw and original. That's always the best. Of course producers soon took over and commercialized much of it, but the vibe was certainly there.

And that to me is always the most important thing about bands. They need to sound honest. Sure, some album worked over 5 years in studio can sound good too, but in general I just prefer a coarse honest drunken take of noise over that. And grunge was largely just about that.

[R_of_G]

...but Pearl Jam is still an amazing band.

No question, and one need look no further than PJ's Mike McCready for exciting guitar work both in the 90s and currently.

[sunvalleylaw]

Oh yeah...I just listened to Temple of Dog album while driving...me likes.

Right on. Some good stuff there.


There was a lot of bad grunge too, and I don't honestly even know what qualifies as Grunge, but in the 90's there were many bands that were very guitar-centered and, most importantly, were not feeling commercially driven. Rather something honest, something a bit raw and original. That's always the best. Of course producers soon took over and commercialized much of it, but the vibe was certainly there.

And that to me is always the most important thing about bands. They need to sound honest. Sure, some album worked over 5 years in studio can sound good too, but in general I just prefer a coarse honest drunken take of noise over that. And grunge was largely just about that.

I agree with what you say, and I like a lot of the Seattle sound (really Puget Sound sound, as some of those bands, including Nirvana, were not from Seattle but more south in Spanaway (AIC), and Olympia/Aberdeen (Nirvana)).

But about the section of your quote that I bolded, I completely agree!!! What bugs me about discussions that sometimes occur about "Grunge" is that a bunch of local music, which was largely less produced and overall had some of the qualities that were discussed here was labelled and boxed up together by Time magazine and the rest of the national media, then later, after being labeled and boxed, was blamed for killing rock and stuff like that. Hogwash!!!!! Those arguments are huge overgeneralizations, are inaccurate, and are like saying the spotted owl killed logging in the 90s, when it was really that the timber companies had run through their old growth forests and there was none left to tear down. Metal as it existed at that time, folded on itself to some extent.

Green River and later Mud Honey were bands that no one even remembers anymore, and which started a movement toward a fusion of punk, heavy metal, and for lack of a better term, "alternative", though that really doesn't add anything. Green River and Mudhoney were local acts, and were not polished or produced, because they really were tavern or bar acts. They influenced Cobain, along with a lot of others, and also Temple of the Dog, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. I always felt that the larger Seattle sound of the time (I really like that better than the grunge label) was a cross between punk and hard rock, or heavy metal. But AIC had a much more lush sound, Nirvana's sound was very stripped down, not very technical, and filled with angst (that I understood). Pearl Jam had its own thing going that came from Temple of the Dog, Pearl Jam started out as being more related to its roots in Mother Love Bone, which folded after flamboyant (not very grunge) lead singer Andrew Wood died of an overdose. But Vedder found his lungs and really turned the band as he became the most major influence as time went on. He was very influenced by 70's Zeppelin-esque classic rock, and also all the proto punk of the 70's, along with the Ramones, etc.

So really, the discussion is much more complex than the "grunge" label allows. I do miss a lot of that Seattle sound and miss more that music like it is not more popular at this time. But there is some out there if you look for it. And really, the sound was founded in being rebellious, not popular. Once it got popular, things started to implode.

One other thought: I love going back and hearing the sound, but I am glad the bands that are still recording are not putting out lyrics (at least all the time) that are quite as depressed and angry as at least Nirvana and sometimes Pearl Jam and AIC were at the time. Though I really like the sound, I would rather be defiant than depressed.

[deeaa]

Yeah! Well said!

[R_of_G]

SVL - Excellent post. You know your history on this subject.

I agree that the Seattle sound, for lack of a better term (because I hate the term grunge which was super-imposed on the music after the fact) grew organically out of the punk/post-punk and hard-rock/metal these guys were listening to. As often as the early punk bands are cited as influences by a lot of these bands, so is Black Sabbath. Like many musicians, the Seattle guys were able to blend their influences into a sound that was their own and yet still showed its roots.

I was never a big fan of the "grunge killed metal" theory. Metal killed itself, though of course, it didn't actually die, it just stopped being as much in the mainstream as it was in the late 80s/early 90s. I'd also make the argument that most of those hair-bands weren't metal anyway. Ballads with distortion isn't metal. Is it?

Either way, "grunge" didn't kill metal, though it may have provided some of us with a soundtrack to dance on metal's grave.

[stingx]

I miss the "alt radio" music of my college years - late 80s. I also loved and miss the 90s a great deal. Some amazing music and concerts came out of that decade. To me, it was the last time I truly felt free. We all know how quickly things all changed after that decade.

[stingx]

Forgot to mention, I was a HUGE fan of Mother Love Bone! Great music and such a tragic loss of talent regarding Wood.

[Photomike666]

I never said grunge killed metal, but that it rose from the ashes of metal.

[sunvalleylaw]

Photomike, my comments were not so much directed directly at you. You stated yourself some of the reasons metal imploded. Though you did say that "grunge" sounded the death knell of guitar based rock, or something like that. I think the Seattle sound was absolutely full of guitar based rock. But my comments were more at the old accusations in general. Rock on!

I sometimes wonder what would have happened had Andrew Wood lived. PJ as it exists probably would not have happened. Cobain would have still been doing his thing Same with Soundgarden and AIC. From what I know of Mr. Wood, he aspired to arena type shows, and loved performing. Like I said before, not what we think of as stereotypical "grunge". The Seattle scene may have tilted differently, or maybe not. Who knows?

Anyway, I definitely miss the prevalence of the music that did occur.

[sunvalleylaw]

P.S. here's a sample of some Seattle before it all got boxed together. Not all of it is exemplary, but most is fun!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZHip9IkiIE go to about 1:40 for some fun guitar.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-24wYEPZDmg Check out "wood goblins" from Tad too for a wild vid.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_XVHkpBaxk

Green River still plays.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95NvfCMCpu0&feature=related


Mudhoney showing more punk influence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMuLYVOqFNQ

Compare AIC and its much more lush sound.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gHiR1xeOSs&feature=related

Check out Andrew Wood here in 1989, at Bumbershoot (a fairly old, outdoor music festival at Seattle Center, named after the Brit term for "Umbrella"). This WAS Seattle before it all blew up. Not so grungy, with the piano and all. Pearl Jam does a nice cover of these conjoined songs.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAF3BksqxZ0&feature=related

And for an example of earlier 80's Seattle music with a different sound, check out The Young Fresh Fellows, who were Popllama artists.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blQMpEwX0KA&feature=fvwrel

The old school Seattle intro is classic!

That is part of the reason "Seattle sound" music is so important to me. It reminds me of a time when Puget Sound changed forever and did not look back. (I ended up moving) Old school logging was over due to the end of the old growth forests, other than pretty much in parks. Salmon fisheries were dying. (I firmly believe that a lot of Kurt's anger came from this, as he was raised in Aberdeen, which relied on logging AND salmon). The purse seiners of Gig Harbor were hanging it up. The Nordstroms sold the Seahawks to a california developer who subsequently ruined "The Plateau" east of Seattle with CA style developments previously unseen in the region, and the Seahawks by trying to turn them into the Raiders. The music scene changed quite a bit after it all got labeled, and there was the obvious backlash against anything "Grunge". The old distinctive neighborhoods changed as well. Ballard was not just where the swedes and other scandanavians lived anymore. Nor Gig Harbor with its slavs. The older, modest waterfront homes in the region got torn down and big places replaced them. The older seniors that tried to stay in the homes where they raised their kids got their taxes raised so they had to move.

Anyway, that was where a lot of the music was coming from. Sorry about the almost rantish history, but it was what was going on. I still like hearing good, honest, shirt on the sleeve, emotional music, and am glad there is still some out there. :) This thread motivates me to dig for some more.


(m77, see what ya done and did, getting me all going like that! :AOK)


At Jayson, absolutely Black Sabbath was a big influence to a lot of these guys. :AOK

[R_of_G]

I never said grunge killed metal, but that it rose from the ashes of metal.

Which is also inaccurate if you want to get right down to it.

Rising from the ashes suggests that the grunge movement came (a) in the aftermath of metal's collapse, and (b) from the component parts of the collapsed metal scene. Neither of these are true of the Seattle sound. What was happening in Seattle predates the end of the mainstream metal era, and would have happened regardless of what metal was doing at the time.

[stingx]

Which is also inaccurate if you want to get right down to it.

Rising from the ashes suggests that the grunge movement came (a) in the aftermath of metal's collapse, and (b) from the component parts of the collapsed metal scene. Neither of these are true of the Seattle sound. What was happening in Seattle predates the end of the mainstream metal era, and would have happened regardless of what metal was doing at the time.

Exactamundo!

All good things MUST come to an end. In the case of metal, it never died, only changed. It still continues to. Watch The History of Metal if you haven't already. It's been evolving since we started listening to it. Look at how it's morphed since inception and all that has followed. Don't be fooled by radio...that media hasn't been relevant since the late 80s/early 90s. It's all corporate and the DJs lost control a long time ago. The record labels caused the downfall of "metal" in the early 90s by continuing to push cookie cutter clones of the same old, same old. It got tired and became ridiculous. Some really good bands fell victim to this. They got labeled wrongly. Then you got saturated with the next phase - loved the "grunge" but the labels did it again and saturated the market with those clones. Oh well, back to metal. It's still out there fellas, if you know where to look.

[Commodore 64]

Up the irons!

[Photomike666]

Up the irons indeed. Seen every tour since 7th Son, have met the band and wish I could play more of their songs

[guitartango]

While you had grunge us Brits had the "Madchester" sound, i.e music from Manchester like Oasis, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses. All you needed was some baggy trousers and a wah pedal.....Sorted


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnBi-LNM0Og