Grunge

AKA The Seattle Sound

I obsess over this genre as much as prog and I am trying to build up a collection. I have quite a few grunge albums by Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Nirvana (tho i consider them weak and overrated in regards of grunge and don't like them very much), Stone Temple Pilots, Pixies, Soundgarden.

I just love the hair, the style, the mix of great hard rock tunes and acoustic tunes, the distinct vocal styles that chris cornell, layne stayley, eddie vedder, kurt cobain and scott weiland share (billy corgan and frank black are different).

I am currently after these albums.

- Green River - Rehab Doll/Dry as a Bone
- Soundgarden - Louder Than Love
- Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog (i only have an mp3 version)
- Alice in Chains - Dirt (only have a copied version)
- Mad Season - Above
- Mother Love Bone - Apple
- Nirvana - In Utero
- Smashing Pumpkins - Earphoria/Vieuphoria (only have earphoria copied cd)

If anyone has an interest in grunge like I do then we should start a discussion about the great rock movement here!

I'll be impressed if any of you can tell me the link between the four albums in my signature!

Edited by frenchie

Dreamer wrote: I don't know much, but isnt it abit similar to alternative? I'm not too clever when it comes to this types of music...

alt rock? it leans more towards heavy metal at times.

Grunge is really heavy distortion that was actually based on songs like fallen angel and 21st century scizoid man by king crimson, reli hard driving guitar riffs with lots of reverb and distortion with harsh lyrics, hard hitting drums and sludgy basslines.

Grunge was sort of alternative/ underground music's return to heavy and dirty sounds, a bit of punk and metal influence, a bit of arena rock, a little psychedelia. Nirvana was the breakout band (for some reason- they weren't the best by a long shot) and Pearl Jam took more of a mainstream approach...and then we got Bush and the Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl ex-Nirvana) and it kinda lost momentum.

Don't miss Mudhoney's "Superfuzz Bigmuff", Screaming Trees' "Anthology", and Tad's "8-way Santa"; absolute classics of the genre. Anything from the SubPop label (up until around '95 or so) is worth hearing if you have any liking for the style. The Pixies (like Dinosaur Jr. and The Jesus & Mary Chain) were more of an inspiration to grunge rather than a grunge band themselves...they probably also were a big inspiration for the first crop of Emo bands.

regarding your question, are you looking for the musicians who played on all of those albums, or the tragic story behind them? If the latter, you could include Alice in Chains' first big single "Would" (i.e., "Wood") as well.

Edited by James Lee

oh yeah, and james pretty much gets it, but all of those albums had pearl jam members before pearl jam released their debut.

Green River has Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament and apparently the first grunge album in 85. They made 3 albums and disbanded in 88.

Mother Love Bone made one studio album featuring Stone and Jeff, Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose (he was the vocalist). Pearl Jam covered "Crown of Thorns" on their dvd, "live at the garden", which is quite recent.

Temple of the Dog formed and made a tribute album for Andrew Wood (check out Say Hello to Heaven). This album featured Soundgarden's Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron (later to drum for pearl jam) and Jeff Ament, Eddie Vedder and Stone Gossard who later formed Pearl Jam after TOTD's only album was released.

So these albums all have pearl jam members in common.

actually i dont know any grunge bands that have growling vocals, and all of it is VERY melodic and full of range and ideas, i dont know what the hell you've been listening to peter but you havent described grunge at all. If you did mean grunge then i am very confused about your view!

Edited by frenchie

frenchie wrote: actually i dont know any grunge bands that have growling vocals, and all of it is VERY melodic and full of range and ideas, i dont know what the hell you've been listening to peter but you havent described grunge at all. If you did mean grunge then i am very confused about your view!

Maybe I don't quite say what I mean when I ask where the melody is, Frenchie (I'm not a musician), and maybe I heard the wrong stuff, but aren't Nirvana and Soundgarden grunge, and don't they have growling, gravelly, angry type vocals? (Forerunners of the Nickleback-type sound?)

Don't take it personally, please -- you started the thread, and I'm not trying to insult your taste in music, but just meant to reveal more about my tastes in music as a reviewer. I'd like to hear that Who cover, too, as the Who are one of my all-time fave R&R bands.

I only know grunge from the radio, BTW.

Edited by Peter

frenchie wrote: that "i am one", isn't a cover, eddie vedder came onto stage to take over from roger on vocals, i think he does "see me feel me/listening to you" as well. I have it on cd, i could send the tracks to you, its from live at the royal albert hall which is originally a dvd. sorry peter, by growling i thought you meant opeth/death metal style vocals. I would call grunge vocalists bluesy yet gravelly, nirvana are grunge but a weak and commercial verison of it. Grunge IS about harsh lyrics, not vocals, some of the music is very melodic, having a strong blend of acoustic and electric songs. The best examples of grunge are "Alive" by Pearl Jam, "Hunger Strike" by Temple of the Dog, "Nutshell" By Alice in Chains, "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, the list could go on. I am betting that the radio rarely play any good grunge, the best grunge is quite underplayed, but in the early 90s it was rather popular.

Thanks for the info, French Safe!  Yes, I meant gravelly more than growling, as I know that adjective is often used to describe the type of death metal vox that I loathe, and find just plain corny, affected, and irritating (as in my Haggard review -- the vocals absolutely RUINED that disc for me. I don't think many folks my age want to hear a "singer" who is actually TRYING to sound like a demon, especially one with a thick German accent -- that just made it even sillier/more juvenile for me.

Some of the more acoustic grunge passages are fine, but when the Nickleback-type vox (which seems to be the style of 3/4 of the bands on my local rock station) come in, I just switch it off.  All that anger just depresses and bores me. Give me some feel-good Weezer, and harmonizing, and a little sensitivity, any day.

But then, I like Coldplay OK too, and I bet most guys your age HATE them, correct?

To each his/her own, but still, I'd like to hear more of your fave grunge -- perhaps I could like some of it after all, if it's R&R based....

(But I am indifferent to the hair and the clothes, at 44!)

Edited by Peter

smashing pumpkins are supposed to have gone a little prog with "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" - a pretty cool record by all accounts.

I too used to love grunge, but stopped listening to it back in 1994 - just before kurt cobain died.  I actually find listening to it now quite difficult, as it isn't as good as I remember it. 

Pearl jam became dull after Yield and the rest of the scene imploded when kurt died.  Any bands who surfaced after 1994 aren't worth listening to.  Stone Temple pilots being one of them! 

It was fun while it lasted though and when Nirvana came on the scene I remember being blown away by them.  Pearl Jam were one of my faves at the time though.

don't you think stone temple pilots were just pearl jam clones?  I bought their first album, but the singer (whose name escapes me, but isn't he in that G 'n' R band now) seemed to just rip off  vedder, IMO.

Do you still enjoys revisting the grunge albums?  I bought rearviewmirror: pj greatest hits - it has some good songs, but didn't make me want to buy the albums again.

spectral wrote: don't you think stone temple pilots were just pearl jam clones?  I bought their first album, but the singer (whose name escapes me, but isn't he in that G 'n' R band now) seemed to just rip off  vedder, IMO. Do you still enjoys revisting the grunge albums?  I bought rearviewmirror: pj greatest hits - it has some good songs, but didn't make me want to buy the albums again.

I remember reading an interview with Eddie Vedder circa 1992,93

Interviewer: I really love the new single Plush!
Eddie: That's not us, its by Stone Temple Pilots!!!

STP have a different style, they are only a four piece, they have a more camp image, dressing up in weird clothing and often being topless, their sound uses a different style, most grunge vocals sounded like that tho. Eddie, Scott, Layne and Chris all sound similar.

Scott Weiland is now the frontman for Velvet Revolver with Slash and Duff.