«
»
Editorials

WHAT THE HELL IS “GRUNGE” ANYWAY?

 Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 3:32pm by

Eddie VedderAh, our good old friends Grunge and Alternative, those bastions of ’90s rock nostalgia. Are they one in the same? Did they start out meaning different things but over time come to mean the same? At some point in ’92 we started hearing both of these terms bandied about in equal measure to describe the crop of bands emerging from the Seattle scene and their ilk, but over time these words seem to have lost all meaning. What the hell is “grunge” music anyway? And for that matter, what the fuck is “alternative”?

Alternative rock’s roots go back to the late ’80s. In the simplest form, Alternative as a genre described guitar-based rock that didn’t conform to the glitz and glamor of hair metal. At that time there was certainly an “alternative” quality to the music; bands like The Pixies, Sonic Youth and Jane’s Addiction eschewed big production and musical showmanship in favor of a more raw-sounding, emotion-driven performance.

But it’s a little less clear when the term “grunge” came into the picture. In the most literal sense, it seemed that the word was attached to an aesthetic more than anything else — with flannels, ripped jeans, doc martens and messy hair, a look you all know quite well, these bands were literally grungy looking — and it was certainly in stark contrast to the made-up, glamorous appearance of bands like Cinderella and Poison. I think it’s also safe to say that there is a certain sound, though somewhat ambiguous, that is attached to grunge — dirty, fuzzed out guitars, and a much more raw style of production.

Chris CornellAs time went on, the terms “grunge” and “alternative” seemed to lose their meaning. By the time 1994 rolled around, a whole second wave of so-called alternative and/or grunge bands emerged that embraced the same song structures, lyrical themes and aesthetic. This second wave, influenced directly by the first wave, didn’t necessarily share the same influences as the first wave and often sounded completely different; some already established bands were even lumped into the grunge and alternative labels. All of a sudden you had Nirvana clones (Bush), hippie jam bands (Blind Melon), industrial goth rock (Nine Inch Nails) and funk rock (Red Hot Chili Peppers) all being classified under the same umbrella. And you had everyone’s favorite alternative ragdoll Candlebox, with soaring vocals, big production and guitar solos that basically spit in the face of everything grunge and alternative purportedly represented. A good band, maybe, but what was alternative about them? I still maintain that had Candlebox come out 5 years earlier with their hair blown out and dressed in leather they would have been equally as successful.

Layne StaleyIt seems that the only thing all of these bands really had in common was “rock music that came out in the early to mid ’90s that wasn’t metal.” What other explanation is there? The minute mainstream media starts classifying bands as “alternative,” those bands, and the genre as a whole, cease to be alternative. The same thing has happened with indie rock today — what’s so indie about it if everyone I know listens to it? Alternative rock as a genre is kind of a sham, inherently contradictory, a label given to bands so the media can easily describe them. As a genre it never meant much, and really means very little today — just look at the Alternative radio charts. What the fuck do Linkin Park, Paramore, Radiohead and Atreyu have to do with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains? For that matter, what the fuck do they even have to do with each other??

So where does that leave or good old friend “grunge”? As Alternative grew bigger and bigger with less and less meaning, the word “grunge” passed out of the common musical lexicon. Maybe that’s for the better. Perhaps Grunge was a real movement with meaning as a genre that got swallowed up by the bastardization of Alternative. While in retrospect it certainly seems that Alternative means nothing at all, its brother Grunge does still seem to embody a certain look, ethos, and feel. Listening to those early Soundgarden records still makes me want to run around and break shit, and those early AIC records hit the spot every fucking time.

So, in short, fuck Alternative. I’m gonna go listen to some Grunge.

-VN

Tags: , , , ,
  • Tommy Toughtits

    I think “grunge” and “indie” both have a certain sound and aesthetic that makes them both pretty distinct and classifiable. “alternative”, however, is a completely worthless label

  • http://verbeat.org/blogs/bereteando tiagón

    great article you wrote there, Vince!

    I say this – grunge was a local movement that grew pretty big, and vanished pretty quickly. First wave of the movement got us here at Brazil at 1992 either – we had local MTV since a year back, and we saw – me included – long hair and flannel shirts *and garage bands* coming out of everywhere.

    and I agree with you cause I tend to look grunge more like a movement, almost like a flash mob in social History, that gathered the alternative “meaning of music” and concentered the power of the kids to form a band, stand up for the music and reject what was established. In this aspect grunge music is really made only by a few albums (as you can easily say earlier records from Soundgarden and Nirvana, or later from Pearl Jam, are not grunge). but left a legacy in society that is bigger than the dozen albums that can be fitted definitely in the genre.

    In what grunge bands are concerned, I’d say that Alice in Chains is the most important band of the genre. Nirvana, Soundgarden and even Pearl Jam drawed elements found in AIC’s music. It was not Kurt’s death that buried grunge; it was Layne’s.

    To me, grunge as music started with Temple of the Dog and ended with Mad Season.

    As for alternative, I have to say it is a pretty good label when used by listeners, and even independent labels – but loses all its meaning when industry uses it. I still tag many bands alternative in last.fm these days – for bands that passed out without knowing big media, or those still in the not-mainstream way of making rock. I wouldn’t say fuck alternative – I say fuck big players using a tag that only has a meaning from listeners point of view :D

  • http://www.myspace.com/freaksystemband Sammy

    I guarantee you that if the early ’90s bands from Seattle (or thereabouts) had worn leather pants and silk shirts, the term “grunge” would never have existed (for music, anyway). Those bands had one common thread: where they hailed from – sort of. Nirvana was not really from Seattle, but from Aberdeen, 100+ miles SW of there. Musically, Nirvana was NO WHERE near Pearl Jam who was NO WHERE near Soundgarden who was NO WHERE near AIC, the most metal of the bunch.

    I always hated the term as well as “Seattle sound”, which wasn’t one sound to begin with.

    Great article, Vince.

  • green&grey

    For the most part, I think both of these terms were ultimately about the aesthetic more than the music. And their wide use post-dated the earliest band’s (the ones already mentioned that will actually be remembered) initial sounds at any rate.

    But there were some important things that bands aiming to exploit both terms certainly did have in common. These were the things bands must do — or not do — with given instruments to get or maintain distribution. For example, on guitar, solos obviously must be minimal or preferably avoided entirely. Distorted guitar should never be palm muted, only strummed loosely, etc. Similar boundaries and clichés emerged for other instruments and even lyrical content.

    Briefly “alternative” stood in contrast to pop and “grunge” to mainstream traditional hard rock. But there was something Orwellian about the post 1992ish use of “alternative”, in that it promoted a sense of liberation and escape among those engaged in it while appealing to the lowest common denominator to obtain the broadest possible sales. No coherent genre can emerge when the style is synonymous with “sales.” If “alternative” brought with it the only route to success, then everything wanting to succeed (or survive) must be “alternative.”

  • http://www.myspace.com/freaksystemband Sammy

    Disagree, Green&grey. Alice in Chains had widespread use of palm muted chords, along with ripping solos. Pearl Jam had, well, extended solo jams.

  • http://www.metalsucks.net Kip Wingerschmidt

    I’m with you, Neilstein!! Keep it GRUNGE

  • green&grey

    Sammy – I do not disagree. Those are both examples of the bands I mentioned who broke and developed a fan base before the widespread generic use of even the term “grunge” and certainly before the “alternative” hegemony about which I wrote earlier. AIC opened for Anthrax, Slayer, and Megadeth. Pearl Jam was used in Wayne’s World 2 along side Aerosmith and Van Halen. AIC, PJ (and others, like SG) followed no such aforementioned restrictions (at least not at first) and didn’t need to (there were indeed far fewer creative boundaries for them then most of their big hair predecessors).

    1990 to about 1993 was a time where the so-called “Seattle sound” and bands with more traditional sounds (or other new sounds, FNM etc.) coexisted with little apparent contradiction, so long as the latter was willing to alter their appearance somewhat. Initially “grunge” was just a set of very good rock bands from the same city with new ideas infused with the old, the latter of which certainly included palm muting and/or guitar solos.* Those new ideas (especially AIC’s) thankfully became a permanent part of rock/metal’s vocabulary.

    I would contend however that even the grunge innovators, in their later work during the less-enlightened era I described earlier, eventually became somewhat influenced by their own followers. For this reason my ratings for “grunge band” albums tend to start off quite high and rapidly decline.

    *To be clear, I was not suggesting that such things are necessary or desirable, only that their absence for the radio/MTV music that emerged under the alternative label during the mid-1990s provided a sort of negative common thread to the otherwise ambiguous notion of “alternative.”

  • Sammy

    Vince and Axl, do us all a favor and bring Green&Grey on as a contributing writer. Awesome wordsmith.

  • Lacey

    To me, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana and Pearl Jam do have a few things in common, not only their aesthetic. They have the same ultra distorted, almost trippy sounds. And although Nirvana came from Aberdeen, it is such an insignificant town that you kind of HAVE to group it with Seattle. There were frequent rehearsals held in Seattle and all of those bands jammed together at one time or another. The term Alternative, however, is too wide of a grouping. You can put every band in existence under one umbrella. Paramore, Linkin Park, Atreyu, they are all mainstream bands. They do not belong in Alternative, or in indie. Indie has become more and more commonly UN indie, so to call The Fall of Troy indie is like calling Linkin Park the blues. You can’t.

    …. I forgot my point.