I remember all that. Came out around the same time as the movie Swingers.
Let’s not forget the funk infused power of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus, Rage Against The Machine, 311. There was a lot of reggae, swing and funk influenced rock in the 80s and 90s. If your characterizing them, you can pick Ska, Funk Metal, Swing Revival, Ska-Pop, and so on.
STP is straight up grunge.
In retrospect, Smashing Pumpkins is alternative, but they aren’t grunge and they aren’t jangle power pop like Mathew Sweet or REM. They are almost like an offshoot of indie shoegazing noise rock like The Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth.
Yeah, SP is a mix of genres. They definitely do have a grunge element to their sound, but they’re not typical grunge. I do hear the shoegaze of MBV in them (though I wouldn’t call any of the other bands you listed “shoegaze”). I hear 70s blues rock riffs a la Zeppelin in them. I hear krautrock a la Neu! or Can in them. The dynamic change aesthetic of the Pixies I can see, too. There’s also a definite arena rock element to their work, and some element of prog rock. And a pop songwriting sensibility a la Cheap Trick. That’s part of what I really enjoy about those first few Pumpkins records–that wide range of influence.
Faith No More were closer to RHCP than grunge, I would agree. But there seemed to be a lot of crossover with Faith No More and metal fans in my neighborhood than there were with RHCP and metal fans. I think of Faith No More more as an offshoot of metal, really.
STP fit pretty squarely under the grunge descriptor as far as I recall. Never really heard them not being lopped in with grunge, unless you were being particularly parochial (geographically) with your genres.
I would agree, my daughter has a Pandora station that is set up to recognise songs like Little Birdy sings and I walk in the other day and its playing sweet chil of mine.
Ska was reggae that had migrated to England and mated with early punk.
Yep we listened to them down under, we even had shaved heads and suspenders but it was a uniquely English tradition. It lost a lot of it’s appeal when the neo nazi skins started to get media exposure via the soccer riots etc even though these new skins had moved onto their own unique form of metal (screwdriver etc).
We had some great Aussie Ska bands one that comes to mind is “The Porkers” their original name was The Pork Hunts but for some reason radio wouldn’t say it on air and of course there was the song “Montego Bay” forgot the bands name but a great ditty.
I still love to pop on some Madness or Specials and bop around the house!
I was and still fans of most of those bands before Nirvana exploded. When I first heard Nirvana it sounded more like punk rock with awesome melodies to me than alternative rock. I think that had a lot to do with the contrast of what was being played on radio and MTV at the time, cock rock.
Nirvana effectively killed that, which was a blessing because I hated all that crap.
Kurt was also a fan of alt rock, especially Killing Joke
