Grunge
Grunge is an alternative rock genre and subculture that emerged during the in the U.S. state of Washington, particularly in Seattle and Olympia, and other nearby cities. Grunge fuses elements of punk rock and heavy metal, and features the distorted electric guitar sound used in both genres, as well as bass guitar, drums, and vocals. Grunge also incorporates influences from indie rock bands such as Sonic Youth, Pixies, and Dinosaur Jr. Lyrics are typically angst-filled and introspective, often addressing themes such as social alienation, self-doubt, abuse, neglect, betrayal, social and emotional isolation, addiction, psychological trauma, and a desire for freedom.
The early grunge movement revolved around Seattle's independent record label Sub Pop and the region's underground music scene, with local bands such as Green River, the Melvins, and Mudhoney playing key roles in the genre's development. Sub Pop marketed the style shrewdly, encouraging media outlets to describe the Seattle sound as "grunge"; the style became known as a hybrid of punk and metal. By the early 1990s, its popularity had spread, with similar sounding bands appearing in California, then emerging in other parts of the United States and Australia, building strong followings and signing major record deals. Grunge broke through into the mainstream in the early-to-mid-1990s, led by Nirvana's Nevermind in 1991, and followed by other crossover successes including Pearl Jam's Ten, Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger, and Alice in Chains' Dirt. The success of these bands boosted the popularity of alternative rock, eventually making grunge the most popular form of hard rock music during the 1990s.
Several factors contributed to grunge's decline in prominence. During the, many grunge bands broke up or became less visible. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, labeled by Time as "the John Lennon of the swinging Northwest", struggled with an addiction to heroin before his suicide in 1994. Although most grunge bands had disbanded or faded from view by the late 1990s, they influenced modern rock music, as their lyrics brought socially conscious issues into pop culture and added introspection and an exploration of what it means to be true to oneself. Grunge was also an influence on later genres, such as post-grunge.
Etymology
The word "grunge" is American slang for "someone or something that is repugnant" and also for "dirt". The word was first recorded as being applied to Seattle musicians in a Sub Pop mail order catalog from 1988, when Bruce Pavitt described Green River's Dry as a Bone EP as "Gritty vocals, roaring Marshall amps. Ultra-loose GRUNGE that destroyed the morals of a generation". Although the word "grunge" has been used to describe bands since the 1960s, this was the first association of grunge with the grinding, sludgy sound of Seattle. It is expensive and time-consuming to get a recording to sound clean, so for those northwestern bands just starting out it was cheaper for them to leave the sound dirty and just turn up their volume. This dirty sound, due to low budgets, unfamiliarity with recording, and a lack of professionalism may be the origin of the term "grunge".The "Seattle scene" refers to a regional Pacific Northwest alternative music movement that was linked to the University of Washington in Seattle, and the Evergreen State College in Olympia. Evergreen is a progressive college which does not use a conventional grading system and has its own radio station, KAOS. The music of these bands, many of which had recorded with Seattle's independent record label Sub Pop, became labeled as "grunge". Nirvana's frontman Kurt Cobain, in one of his final interviews, credited Jonathan Poneman, cofounder of Sub Pop, with coining the term "grunge" to describe the music.
The term "Seattle sound" became a marketing ploy for the music industry. In September 1991, the Nirvana album Nevermind was released, bringing mainstream attention to the music of Seattle. Cobain loathed the word "grunge" and despised the new scene that was developing, feeling that record companies were signing old "cock-rock" bands who were pretending to be grunge and claiming to be from Seattle.
Some bands associated with the genre have not been receptive to the label, preferring instead to be referred to as "rock and roll" bands. Ben Shepherd from Soundgarden stated that he "hates the word" grunge and hates "being associated with it." Seattle musician Jeff Stetson states that when he visited Seattle in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a touring musician, the local musicians did not refer to themselves as "grunge" performers or their style as "grunge" and they were not flattered that their music was being called "grunge".
Rolling Stone noted the genre's lack of a clear definition. Robert Loss acknowledges the challenges of defining "grunge"; he stated that, while he can recount stories about grunge, they do not serve to provide a useful definition. Roy Shuker states that the term "obscured a variety of styles." Stetson states that grunge was not a movement, "monolithic musical genre", or a way to react to 1980s-era metal pop; he calls the term a misnomer mostly based on hype. Stetson states that prominent bands considered to be grunge all sound different. Mark Yarm, author of Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge, pointed out vast differences between grunge bands, with some being punk and others being metal-based.
Chris Cornell, in a 1994 interview with Rolling Stone noted the limitation of the "Seattle scene":
...the rest of the country and the world and probably a lot of the bands that play in Seattle now think that what the Seattle scene was about is Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Alice in Chains — guitar-based rock with punk influences and '70s influences. Period. End of story. And that's so far from what was going on. What was left out was the completely experimental music, from free jazz to theatrical bands to a lot of very Gothic-bent bands.
Musical style
In 1984, the punk rock band Black Flag toured small towns across the US to bring punk to the more remote parts of the country. By this time, their music had become slow and sludgy, less like the Sex Pistols and more like Black Sabbath. Krist Novoselic, later the bassist with Nirvana, recalled going with the Melvins to see one of these shows, after which Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne began writing "slow and heavy riffs" to form a dirge-like music that was the beginning of northwest grunge. The Melvins were the most influential of the early grunge bands. Malfunkshun have also been cited as an influence on the early sound of grunge by figures such as Kurt Cobain and Mark Arm. Sub Pop producer Jack Endino described grunge as "seventies-influenced, slowed-down punk music".Leighton Beezer, who played with Mark Arm and Steve Turner in the Thrown Ups, state that when he heard Green River play Come On Down, he realized that they were playing punk rock backwards. He noted that the diminished fifth note was used by Black Sabbath to produce an ominous feeling but it is not used in punk rock. In the 1996 grunge film documentary Hype!, Beezer demonstrated on guitar the difference between punk and grunge. First he played the riff from "Rockaway Beach" by the Ramones that ascends the neck of the guitar, then "Come On Down" by Green River that descends the neck. The two pieces are only a few notes apart but sound unalike. He took the same rhythm with the same chord, however descending the neck made it sound darker, and therefore grunge. Early grunge bands would also copy a riff from metal and slow it down, play it backwards, distort it and bury it in feedback, then shout lyrics with little melody over the top of it.
Grunge fuses elements of punk rock and heavy metal, although some bands performed with more emphasis on one or the other. Alex DiBlasi feels that indie rock was a third key source, with the most important influence coming from Sonic Youth's "free-form" noise. Grunge shares with punk a raw, lo-fi sound and similar lyrical concerns, and it also used punk's haphazard and untrained approach to playing and performing. However, grunge was "deeper and darker"-sounding than punk rock and it decreased the "adrenaline"-fueled tempos of punk to a slow, "sludgy" speed, and used more dissonant harmonies. Seattle music journalist Charles R. Cross defines grunge as distortion-filled, down-tuned and riff-based rock that uses loud electric guitar feedback and heavy, "ponderous" basslines to support its song melodies. Robert Loss calls grunge a melding of "violence and speed, muscularity and melody", where there is space for all people, including women musicians. VH1 writer Dan Tucker feels that different grunge bands were influenced by different genres; that while Nirvana drew on punk, Pearl Jam was influenced by classic rock, and that "sludgy, dark, heavy bands" such as Soundgarden and Alice in Chains had a sinister metal tone.
Grunge music has what has been called an "ugly" aesthetic, both in the roar of the distorted electric guitars and in the darker lyrical topics. This approach was chosen both to counter the "slick" elegant sound of the then-predominant mainstream rock and because grunge artists wanted to mirror the "ugliness" they saw around them and shine a light on unseen "depths and depravity" of the real world. Some key individuals in the development of the grunge sound, including Sub Pop producer Jack Endino and the Melvins, described grunge's incorporation of heavy rock influences such as Kiss as "musical provocation". Grunge artists considered these bands "cheesy" but nonetheless enjoyed them; Buzz Osborne of the Melvins described it as an attempt to see what ridiculous things bands could do and get away with. In the early-1990s, Nirvana's signature "stop-start" song format and alternating between soft and loud sections became a genre convention.
In the book Accidental Revolution: The Story of Grunge, Kyle Anderson wrote: