Does anyone miss Grunge or The Seattle Sound?

[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!

go to about 1:40 for some fun guitar.

Check out "wood goblins" from Tad too for a wild vid.



Green River still plays.




Mudhoney showing more punk influence.


Compare AIC and its much more lush sound.



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.



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



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! )


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

[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