What Do You Think Of A New Age Grunge Style Of Music

So he had luck with coming with his particular sound at the right time, and being picked up by the industry.

 

the term grunge came about because at the time of the mid eighties everything was glam rock and if you were in the los angeles scene they did coke and uppers and drank and wore makeup and were a bunch of pretentious and lame ass fucks - and then the seattle guys were in total contrast - they cared about rock, were heavy, slow, didn't glam out, were into heroin, didn't give the slightest fuck about the los angeles glam goobers

so you see there was a reactivity to the naming of the scene

some superficial chick wrote a book about her glam days and though i don't recommend it unless you have nothing on earth to do then it puts some los angeles music industry perspective on the reasons for the title

 

Wiki;

Although writer Paul Rambali used "grunge" in a 1978 NME article to describe mainstream guitar rock, Mark Arm, the vocalist for the Seattle band Green River—and later Mudhoney—is generally credited as being the first to use the term grunge to describe this genre of music. Arm first used the term in 1981, when he wrote a letter under his given name Mark McLaughlin to the Seattle zine Desperate Times, criticizing his own band Mr. Epp and the Calculations as "Pure grunge! Pure noise! Pure shit!". Clark Humphrey, contributor to Desperate Times, cites this as the earliest use of the term to refer to a Seattle band, and mentions that Bruce Pavitt of Sub Pop popularized the term as a musical label in 1987–88, using it on several occasions to describe Green River.

Arm said years later, "Obviously, I didn't make grunge up. I got it from someone else. The term was already being thrown around in Australia in the mid-'80s to describe bands like King Snake Roost, The Scientists, Salamander Jim, and Beasts of Bourbon."Arm used grunge as a descriptive term rather than a genre term, but it eventually came to describe the punk/metal hybrid sound of the Seattle music scene.
Some bands associated with the genre, such as Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, have not been receptive to the label, preferring instead to be referred to as rock and roll.

 

The thing that gets me is that Cobain has been so lauded yet people seem to ignore the fact that "Polly" was written about a brutal drawn out rape and torture session from the rapists perspective.

C/S,
Rev J

 

Needs more death metal unk:

 

And cowbell.

 

From what I understand, and bare with me as I have no television, music videos are no longer a staple on MTV or VH1. (I never had cable) In the time of grunge music videos were the big thing. I just thought it worth mentioning.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklUAoZ6KxY

 

I didn't have cable or watch any TV to speak of during that time but yeah, MTV was still fairly relevant in the late 80's, early '90s.
There was still the prevailing notion among a lot of musicians that the only way a band got big was getting played on MTV. I do know MTV played the hell out of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Radio too.

 

Sums up Nirvanas music to me. Don't get me wrong I loved Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and especially the first Pearl Jam album. Then there are these 2 gems that are like pre Pearl Jam Pearl jam:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lH0gnwtSEGI


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VUb450Alpps

In my opinion Andrew Wood the late singer from Mother Love Bone had way more of a pervading influence on that scene than Cobain. On top of being a better singer and songwriter consider this.

Before that scene blew up Wood started Mother Love Bone with Mark Arm, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, and Matt Cameron. He was also Chris Cornell's roommate. As a matter of fact it was Cornell who found him dead. After this Arm became more active with Mudhoney, Cameron started drumming for Soundgarden, and eventually Pearl Jam. The rest of the group including Cameron started Temple of the Dog with Mike McCready, and Chris Cornell, to record a one off tribute to their friend while Pearl Jam was forming. Eddie Vedder was drafted for secondary vocals on a couple of tracks. This was all before Pearl Jams Ten came out.

Also the track Would? by Alice in Chains was about Woods death. Strangely or not Anrew Woods death was from a heroin overdose, as was Layne Staleys, and Cobain while an aknowledged suicide also had a heroin problem.

I think that Nirvanas success had little to do with their music. I think it had more to do with the fact that Cobain was more photogenic as a front man than the rest. There is an old adage that the Music Business is run by 14 year old white girls from the suburbs since they are the ones who actually buy music. Cobain while not good looking in the traditional sense had an unkempt look, sad blue eyes, and depression/mild angst, that made 14 year old white girls from the suburbs take him home, give him a shower and take care of him like a lost puppy.

C/S,
Rev J

 

To his credit, he did have a decent rock voice, and wrote a catchy hook or two.

 

Alice in Chains I liked... Never paid that much attention to the rest of the genre.

 

I don't think people who are into punk or grunge listen to it as a way of rebelling against their parents. Maybe some of them do, but most of us genuinely enjoy the music. And they're styles of music that, if you look to their roots, are a lot more diverse than how they've been stereotyped.

But you're right, there was a backlash at the time between the underground scene and the "grunge scene". It was "sellout this" "sellout that". I think Kurt was genuinely trying to take the DIY ethos of punk to a more mainstream audience. I don't know how much Kurt was responsible for the scene not degenerating into a bunch of rock stars in the worst possible way, but after he died, it did become that, and I kind of suspect if he were still alive music would be a lot more diverse and open. Meaning that what it means to be "cool" would not mean limiting yourself to liking one style of music, or dressing in a certain way.

Like him or hate him, Kurt was certainly an alienated person, which does make for a good spirit of individuality. If we had an artist today who was similarly alienated and not just putting on one of these awful pretenses of being alienated that are all too common today, we might all have something to rally around. To be alienated in this world, I think, means to generally be a lover of people, to not judge them for their particular tastes or styles.

Chris Cornell seems like a lost soul to me. I don't think he knows whether to be a rock star or not, but a rock star is the only place he really fits in. I don't think he belongs there, though. I think he belongs in a place like the nineties, or the sixties even, when the music came first and being a cool rock star came second. Pearl Jam stayed true to the cause, they never became self-glorifying rock stars.

 

This post seems pretty accurate. I'm impressed with the way Nirvana sounds, relative to punk of the old school variety. Not that they are old school punk, but more that they must have had old school punk influences. And anyway Incesticide seems like they really went for a certain sound, and then In Utero was more geared toward mainstream rock.

I was a Nirvana fan AND a Pearl Jam fan in the nineties, so the prospect of a new grunge era seems attractive to me.

 

You gotta realize, producer Steve Albini had a big hand in that sound...

Wiki;

"...Although Nirvana publicly denied the statements, the group was not fully satisfied with the sound Albini had captured. Albini declined to alter the album further, and ultimately the band hired R.E.M. producer Scott Litt to make minor changes to the album's sound and remix the singles "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies"."

 

That's good to know. I didn't know until long after it was released but I finally realized that didn't exactly sound like them. Thanks.

 

Honestly even as a rock singer I think his voice sucked. I also don't hate everything Nirvana did but the only 2 tunes they did I still like were covers "The Man Who Sold The World" by David Bowie and I still would rather hear Bowie do it and "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" by Leadbelly and it's hard to fuck up a Leadbelly tune.

C/S,
Rev J

 

LOL, tru dat!

 

Yeah man, I'm not a big fan of Nirvana either but I still recall when I first discovered Where did you sleep last night on that unplugged album. Most of the album didn't hold my attention except this cover.

I think people who say stuff like they only got so succesful because of Cobain's look or attitude etc. are trying to find explanations why a band which sound and songs they don't really dig, and essentially don't understand why others dig that band and their music so much, is still so much appreciated by a lot of other people. I hate to break it to you people, but I think it is still for a large part the music

 

They also featured concerts and stuff as well, I vaguely remember seeing some of this show and thought it was pretty different.

http://youtu.be/GVCPDdkC0pQ

http://youtu.be/gTcPTFq0MPk