Titus writes:
Many
people think that Grunge music (or the Seattle sound as some have
dubbed it), is something that happened in the 1990’s and was gone just a
few short years later. Like most music genres, it began much earlier
than people think. In Grunge’s case, it emerged in the mid eighties in
the Washington State of the U.S. and tended to fuse together parts of
punk rock and parts of heavy metal. Again I’ll use the clichéd term
“Not a lot of people know that” when I say that Neil Young was often
referred to by purists as “The Godfather of Grunge”
Talking
of purists, many such folk have decreed that “bands should be guitar,
bass & drums” theory. It was just that, but vocals were added and
the guitar sound was distorted. Like many forms of music, its lyrics
were protests, and covered such subjects as a desire for freedom,
social isolation, and psychological trauma. The record label Sub Pop
was dominant in this type of music, and it marketed grunge quite
cleverly, and indeed by 1990, its popularity extended to other parts of
America, Australia and the U.K.
By
far the most successful band of the era in my opinion, was Nirvana,
although bands like Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, The Melvins and Alice in
Chains also enjoyed huge following & loyalty from fans. I liked it
because it added to the appeal of alternative music, and when I first
heard ‘Nevermind’, I just knew that it would be the rip-roaring success
it became. The Melvins were known as the most influential of all of
the early grunge bands, and they began writing slow & heavy riffs
to form a dirge-like music that was the beginning of North West grunge.
Early grunge bands have been known to copy a heavy metal riff, slow it
down, play it backwards, distort it and bury it in feedback. Like
last week’s subject area for my blog – Grindcore –the lyrics had little
melody to define some tracks.
Nirvana
were influenced by punk, Pearl Jam by classic rock but both
contributed significantly to grunge, attempting to counter the slick
elegant sound of mainstream rock. Nirvana in particular, had a
‘stop-start’ format for their songs, which alternated between soft
& loud sections. The late Kurt Cobain of Nirvana used ‘offset’
guitars like the Fender Jaguar, or Mustang which would produce a loud
‘sludgy’ sound, as opposed to the regular mainstream artists favouring
Gibson Les Pauls or Fender Stratocasters. Grunge guitarists would
generally use very loud Marshall amplifiers, and Dave Grohl of Nirvana –
later of the Foo Fighters – would always use heavy distortion.
Many
either all female, or female-led bands played grunge music too.
Prominent names come to mind.....Courtney Love’s band Hole, L7, Babes
in Toyland, Bikini Kill, Dickless, 7 year Bitch and the Lunachicks. It
was Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna who was the source behind one of
Nirvana’s most popular songs ‘Smells like teen spirit’ which referred
to a deodorant especially marketed for young women. In the U.K. perhaps
the most notorious incident involving female bands, was an appearance
by L7 on the Channel 4 programme‘The Word’, whereon certain members of
the band decided to strip off just before the end of the song ‘Pretend
that we’re dead’.
After
the euphoria of the Seattle sound, inevitably it experienced a
decline, and by 1994 seemed to be fading fast. The deaths of Hole
bassist Kristen Pfaff from a heroin overdose, and of Kurt Cobain via
suicide only served as a catalyst to grunge’s demise. Many bands broke
up, and in 1996 Soundgarden and Screaming Trees released their final
studio albums of the 1990’s.
The track I have chosen for consideration by lex is Mudhoney’s ‘Touch me I’m Sick’, which was a pre-Nirvana anthem to some. I’d love to choose a Babes in Toyland track too, but perhaps another time.