# Did I ever tell you about grunge? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 26, 2003, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-grunge/203939 "2003-09-26T10:34:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-grunge/203939/21 "2003-09-27T07:30:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by percypercy \* > \*\*I can’t think of a band less suited to the grunge category than REM. They’re jangle pop, lovely lovely jangle pop. Or am I totally confused? > -Lil \*\* No, they weren’t grunge. But I was a fan, and Michael Stipe did flap his yap a lot. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by The Griffin_ > **I thought Nevermind was released in 1991 not 1990…** You are correct, sir. Remember my state of mind when I composed the OP! I was just throwing out stuff I remembered from that time period. > [@](#): > > \*\* > **Then the wave came and while exciting, deep in my heart I knew I had become part of a fad. Most young people do, I suppose, at one time or another. I still firmly believe that this particular one, reflecting back on it, was at least a little different than most. There was a LOT of good music there that will stand the test of time (and already has). Maybe because it was something real that was “discovered” and exploited, instead of being entirely fabricated by executives like many fads and trends.** I have Kurt Cobain’s journals, and I treasure them. Not because I think he was a genius or anything; far from it. But because his thought processes seem to so closely mirror mine and my friends’ at that time. He and I are within a year of the same age (can you still phrase it that way if the other person’s dead?) and I can tell from what he writes that we were both very much influenced by having been children of the '70s. Mine was a very pushed-around generation for many years, and it’s no wonder we were so truculent when we reached our late teens and twenties. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-grunge/203939/22 "2003-09-27T08:21:32Z")
It was 1991. I was the singer for a shitty rock band in Atlanta. We had just formed, were having maybe our third practice. We were sitting around afterward, drinking a few beers, trying to come up with a name for our band. Suggestion after suggestion was deemed too stupid. “Hey,” said someone, “what if we call ourselves ‘Nirvana’?” “Hmm,” says I, “I _think_, but I’m not sure, that a guy who lives on my hall has a CD by some new band called Nirvana…” Yeah, I loved the grunge years. And the grunge times. And the grunge _parties_; oh, lord, the parties. And The Breeders’ _Pod_. And and and… Thanks, **Rilchiam**. ---
**Author:** ![widdershins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f0a364/32.png) [@widdershins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdershins)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-grunge/203939/23 "2003-09-27T14:13:57Z")
**cletus** , you sometimes still hear Nirvana on the radio? The two modern rock stations I get in my area never stopped, they get played in such regular rotation along with more recent stuff like Linkin Park, Maroon 5, Creed, Fuel, Jimmy Eat World, Staind, Foo Fighters and nu-metal or whatever harder rock is being called this week. You could say that’s a sign their music endures, but considering what else they play, I call it boring programming. As for what killed grunge? My guess was when it became widespread enough that Radio and MTV called STP and Candlebox “grunge” or “alternative music”. Just as Punk was ruined/tamed by the term New Wave, could we say that when “grunge” became “alternative music”, the party was over? I always hated that label, alternative to what - this was the closest to real rock music the mainstream had had in years. Grunge was already dead by the time the Spice Girls came along, rock had shifted to the “geek rock” of bands like Weezer, the psuedo-ska revival of Sublime and No Doubt and more mainstream bands like Better Than Ezra and Everclear. I want to place some blame on Smashing Pumpkins for some reason, but that’s probably just because I never took to anything of their’s besides _Siamese Dream_. Big YMMV on all of this obviously. ---
**Author:** ![gex\_gex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-grunge/203939/24 "2003-09-27T14:48:18Z")
I certainly thought, and did so for many years after, that grunge existed. Mind you, I was seven years old when Nevermind came out. But I still recognised the greatness of _Smells Like Teen Spirit_. That song really introduced music to me (except I remember being pretty impressed with Warrant’s _Cherry Pie_… oh the shame!). But now, as I look back on it, I really think grunge didn’t exist as a form of music. That bands like R.E.M and Blind Melon are being lumped in with the scene surely proves that. When I think back on Nirvana and Pearl Jam and all those bands, I don’t think grunge, the way I think punk in response to the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Ramones. I only think rock. Or alternative rock. Or, if I’m in a really nostalgic mood, alt.rock, with the de rigeur period. If grunge was anything, it was a societal response to the transition of alternative rock to the mainstream. Hence, grunge was born when it first made that transition: with the release of _Smells Like Teen Spirit_. _Bleach_ wasn’t a grunge album, because grunge wasn’t music. Grunge was the wider population discovering that music. That grunge was just a catch-all term for anything alternative rock is evidenced by the number of people, who would tell you until the late '90s, in all earnestness, “I like grunge. Korn rock.” > [@](#): > > _originally posted by Guinastasia_ > What killed grunge? I like to blame the Spice Girls. Around the time they came out, grunge started to die. > > Damn you, Spice Girls! Damn you! Grunge was long dead by the time the Spice Girls came around. It had gone through the pale imitiation stage (Bush, Live) and emerged on the other side. I’d pin the death of grunge at 1994, the time when alternative rock had truly become mainstream. No more Guns N Roses albums, no more girls dancing in cages, no more indulgent guitar solos. Only singers with gravelly voices, dad problems and descending riffs. Of course, none of this changes the fact that there was some great music in that period, and that even the pale imitators were better than the best hair metal. Grunge symbollised punk winning the war. It also doesn’t change the fact that this… > [@](#): > > _originally posted by widdershins_ > It’s sad to think that the Gen X equivalent of the question “Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?” might very likely be “Chris Cornell was in a band before Audioslave?” …is the most horrific music-related thing I’ve heard in a long time. P.S. > [@](#): > > _originally posted by unwashed brain_ > “Low End Theory” by A Tribe Called Quest was the last great rap album. The vast majority of rap is crap and has been since about 1994. The vast majority of rock is crap and has been since about 1996. I’m always in search of new, inspirational, rebellious music. Since you’re from Atlanta, I doubt you haven’t heard Outkast, and hence I’ll concede that I’ll be unable to convince you of the greatness of their album _Stankonia_. But great hip hop is still being made. Try the Roots, MF Doom (aka Viktor Vaughn), Dizzee Rascal or Sage Francis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-i-ever-tell-you-about-grunge/203939.md?page=1)