Thread: Grunge is not a genre...

Grunge is not a genre but a period and place in time. Bands such as Mother Love Bone and Alice In Chains have very little in common... (Both lead singers were guys) Pearl Jam and Nirvana??? Pearl Jam and Soundgarden??? Soundgarden and Nirvana??? Stone Temple Pilots and Nirvana??? How about Temple of the Dog and Pearl Jam??? Nirvana and Stone Temple Pillots??? Mad Season doesn't even sound like Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees or Alice In Chains but the members from the latter bands mentioned were in Mad Season. Screaming Trees and Nirvana??? It goes on an on...

Grunge is not a genre... I don't understand the similarities... Lyrics full of angst??? That's part of many different genres... Not all "grunge" bands have angst ridden lyrics...

Thoughts???

Originally Posted by keith!

i actually don't like grunge much besides Nirvana.

is this bad?

Bad??? I think it would be beneficial for you to check out more bands that are considered grunge. While they aren't similar, most of them are AMAZING...

I suggest checking out Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Temple of the Dog, Mother Love Bone, Screaming Trees and Mad Season... Of course the threads for those bands are scattered around the grunge section of the forum... (You're in it right now...)

Also check out Mudhoney and Screaming Trees.

Originally Posted by Manson7703

Definately do what FreeTime said

Definitely do what Manson said...

I thought this thread would get arguments from both sides but I guess everyone has come to their senses...

The bands that comprised the original Seattle scene were just rock bands, yeah, but the rest of the world stereotyped and generalized and made it one. Arguably it is a genre because of what the commercial radio whores did with it, namely created a programming vacuum in which artists dutifully created a post-grunge genre to fill the demand. I'm thinking of bands that made names for themselves in the wake of the first Seattle wave by appropriating Electro-Harmonix stomp boxes and turning Kurt Cobain's intonations into caricature. Then it most definitely did become a genre, after the fact, and all for marketing purposes.

Originally Posted by jusinofresh

honestly i don't get the term post-grunge. so its... what... grunge after grunge?
obviously, as i've stated 09876978 times before, i don't see anything about "grunge" bands that make them "grunge" and not either metal or hard rock. flannel shirts and scruffiness and raspy voices don't make up a genre. but as zandar said, marketing scumbags pimped out the artists under a label to rake in the cash.

Good thing they did that because if they didn't I probably wouldn't have heard of many "grunge" bands...

If there was (or had been) such thing as grunge, it's obviously not Nirvana. As FreeTime said, it's rather a period binded to a certain area and place. I live in Hungary and we know all of the bands Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, L7, Soundgarden, Alice in chains, Temple of the dog, Dinosaur Jr and etc...but here in Hungary there isn't a living "grunge culture" and I would be surprised if there was in Serbia or China or wherever. It's a typical american thing and if you see it outside of it, it must be fashion and a rip off of empty and end-people. Grunge is today more dead than ever. Listen to new music and move along. Create new and things yet have never been created.

Kurt Cobain must have been a person who actually spent time in the area where this so called grunge took place and just because Nirvana got famous, the attention crowded at time on Seattle so other bands could earn success. Grunge should have been something underground instead of mainstream. I personally never liked it because I think it was far more about the clothing and fake-created-fake problems, it was too much about drugs and being down, and choking in dirt and stuff...man, be happy and take breath. Nirvana is a whole other story, they were simple, melodic, dynamic, "ugly" bit weird and funny. It's no wonder that the world were keen on them. The most important band in this story I would guess, is The Pixies.

I didn't want to insult anybody, I am 22 years old.

Peace.

I'll bite. I think grunge is a genre but often misused. Bands like Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Mono Men, Malfunkshun, Green River and Nirvana do have quite a bit in common. The riffs are very punk sounding stylistically albeit fairly downtempo and the distortion is muddy and with the low end and high end fairly dense to give it a sharp crunchy sound. How bands like A.I.C. and Pearl Jam ended up being tagged grunge though seems to be more about place and time than actual sound and I'd be hesitant to describe either as grunge.