Article: 20 years of Grunge music seems like Ancient History
whitepants
Posts: 727
I'm 42 years old and I know that the time period of the height of Grunge music was my most favorite time of my life. There will never be another era of music like the grunge period where a cross section of people, intelligent people, will appreciate the same sounds of music. I will always have grunge music in my life and it's so wonderful to still have Pearl Jam around after all these years.
peace -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/31/grunge
Twenty years ago this weekend, Nirvana released Love Buzz, the first single by the band who would ignite grunge from an interesting local scene to a global phenomenon.
And this is significant why? Because grunge wasn't just another musical or youth trend - it was the ultimate expression and fusion of most of the defining cultural, ideological and social threads of the modern western world. Feminism, liberalism, irony, apathy, cynicism/idealism (those opposite sides of one frustrated coin), anti-authoritarianism, wry post-modernism, and not least a love of dirty, abrasive music; grunge reconciled all these into a seminal whole.
For Generation X-ers, male grungers represented all that is good in men. They were the fabled "New Man" with the volume turned up to 10, gentle-natured but discordant and angry. The women were intelligent, non-conformist, cool. Each took the best aspects of their opposite gender and retained the best of their own. Grunge took back loud music from poodle-rock and gave it a heart, soul and brain. It married a love of noise with thoughtfulness and sensitivity, putting a trash soundtrack to lofty principles and uncommon erudition. It turned old paradigms on their head, like the one that said rock music was made by "real men" and feminism was for ball-busting harpies and emasculated weirdoes.
Grunge wasn't nihilist or moany - they really did want a better world for everyone. It was misrepresented as being self-absorbed, but actually addressed big themes, things outside the artists' private concerns - a rare thing in popular music.
These bands weren't restricted by the limits and ideologies of genres like punk, which insist that you write certain kinds of music and lyrics. They didn't recycle banal cliches but tackled weighty subjects - one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.
So Pearl Jam wrote about domestic abuse, illiteracy, the maltreatment of the mentally ill. Nirvana looked at alienation, rape, stultifying conformity. Alice in Chains dug deeply into the black hole of addiction. Soundgarden pondered the search for meaning in an indifferent universe. Courtney Love wrote ferocious lyrics about misogyny, eating disorders, sexual predators.
Aesthetically, they eschewed babes, booze and fast cars for cropped hair, college degrees and ever-present frowns. And they lived out their principles in concrete, courageous ways.
Most grunge bands were politically active. Lollapalooza combined music with information stalls on everything from organic food to voter registration. Pearl Jam fought a ruinous battle with Ticketmaster and refused to make promos; Nirvana constantly antagonised their new, macho audience.
It was a long way from Axl Rose thrusting his crotch in your face on MTV, and of course it couldn't last. Grunge was replaced by frat-boy rock, pimp-wannabe gangsta rappers and hyper-sexualised Britney/Barbie dolls. Plus ça change ...
For my generation, grunge was more than just music: it was subterfuge, knowledge, philosophy, empathy, wit, courage, love, desire and anger, and it saddens me that nothing has truly replaced it. Sure, there will always be musicians who are politically aware, socially concerned, risk-taking; not everyone is Fred Durst. But the days when gender constructs became virtually meaningless, when brains and coolness and sex appeal weren't incompatible, when mass popular culture transcended humble origins to become something profound, subversive and greater than itself … those days are gone. They're in the grave with Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley and Kristen Pfaff.
peace -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/31/grunge
Twenty years ago this weekend, Nirvana released Love Buzz, the first single by the band who would ignite grunge from an interesting local scene to a global phenomenon.
And this is significant why? Because grunge wasn't just another musical or youth trend - it was the ultimate expression and fusion of most of the defining cultural, ideological and social threads of the modern western world. Feminism, liberalism, irony, apathy, cynicism/idealism (those opposite sides of one frustrated coin), anti-authoritarianism, wry post-modernism, and not least a love of dirty, abrasive music; grunge reconciled all these into a seminal whole.
For Generation X-ers, male grungers represented all that is good in men. They were the fabled "New Man" with the volume turned up to 10, gentle-natured but discordant and angry. The women were intelligent, non-conformist, cool. Each took the best aspects of their opposite gender and retained the best of their own. Grunge took back loud music from poodle-rock and gave it a heart, soul and brain. It married a love of noise with thoughtfulness and sensitivity, putting a trash soundtrack to lofty principles and uncommon erudition. It turned old paradigms on their head, like the one that said rock music was made by "real men" and feminism was for ball-busting harpies and emasculated weirdoes.
Grunge wasn't nihilist or moany - they really did want a better world for everyone. It was misrepresented as being self-absorbed, but actually addressed big themes, things outside the artists' private concerns - a rare thing in popular music.
These bands weren't restricted by the limits and ideologies of genres like punk, which insist that you write certain kinds of music and lyrics. They didn't recycle banal cliches but tackled weighty subjects - one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.
So Pearl Jam wrote about domestic abuse, illiteracy, the maltreatment of the mentally ill. Nirvana looked at alienation, rape, stultifying conformity. Alice in Chains dug deeply into the black hole of addiction. Soundgarden pondered the search for meaning in an indifferent universe. Courtney Love wrote ferocious lyrics about misogyny, eating disorders, sexual predators.
Aesthetically, they eschewed babes, booze and fast cars for cropped hair, college degrees and ever-present frowns. And they lived out their principles in concrete, courageous ways.
Most grunge bands were politically active. Lollapalooza combined music with information stalls on everything from organic food to voter registration. Pearl Jam fought a ruinous battle with Ticketmaster and refused to make promos; Nirvana constantly antagonised their new, macho audience.
It was a long way from Axl Rose thrusting his crotch in your face on MTV, and of course it couldn't last. Grunge was replaced by frat-boy rock, pimp-wannabe gangsta rappers and hyper-sexualised Britney/Barbie dolls. Plus ça change ...
For my generation, grunge was more than just music: it was subterfuge, knowledge, philosophy, empathy, wit, courage, love, desire and anger, and it saddens me that nothing has truly replaced it. Sure, there will always be musicians who are politically aware, socially concerned, risk-taking; not everyone is Fred Durst. But the days when gender constructs became virtually meaningless, when brains and coolness and sex appeal weren't incompatible, when mass popular culture transcended humble origins to become something profound, subversive and greater than itself … those days are gone. They're in the grave with Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley and Kristen Pfaff.
~*~Me and Hippiemom dranketh the red wine in Cleveland 2003~*~
First PJ Show: March 20, 1994 | Ann Arbor | Crisler Arena
First PJ Show: March 20, 1994 | Ann Arbor | Crisler Arena
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Comments
I think you kind of missed the point.....
But even though I'm loving a lot of new bands, there definately doesn't seem to be a 'scene' like Seattle, at least not to my liking
I don't think it's about changing the world, but it was a huge cultural shift for the youth at that time, and the music was at the centre of it all.
2) Anytime I read an ignorant comment about PJ from a Nirvana fan I say this to myself: PJ stopped doing videos and interviews when they couldn't handle fame, Kurt blew his fucking head off. Gee...I wonder which had the better turnout.
8/7/08, 6/9/09
Anyway it just shows how underated they are and how unknown they are nowadays, especially in the UK where they are only remembered for the song Jeremy, which isn't even one of their best songs. They've moved on and it's about time the meeja caught up. But unfortunately that will probably never happen.
---
London, Brixton, 14 July 1993
London, Wembley, 1996
London, Wembley, 18 June 2007
London, O2, 18 August 2009
London, Hammersmith Apollo (Ed solo), 31 July 2012
Milton Keynes Bowl, 11 July 2014
Did you not see them play at the Reading Festival in 2006?! I think plenty of people remember more than just Jeremy - they pulled in a HUGE crowd.
Yes I saw them on the TV. They had a huge crowd, but I bet many of them were already fans that would have followed them anyway. I just get annoyed by ignorant comments by non-fans who know nothing about the band yet spout opinions based on outdated notions or lack of knowledge about them.
---
London, Brixton, 14 July 1993
London, Wembley, 1996
London, Wembley, 18 June 2007
London, O2, 18 August 2009
London, Hammersmith Apollo (Ed solo), 31 July 2012
Milton Keynes Bowl, 11 July 2014
and i've never really understood the antagonism towads the word "grunge." who cares? it's just a mostly meaningless label. i mean, sure, giant corporations co-opted the word a long time ago and made a buck...but why hate on anyone who uses the term...whatever, it's just a word, and when a writer uses it, everyone knows what s/he means...
Wembley 18/06/07
If there was a reason, it was you.
O2 Arena 18/09/09
ah, i see. i just read the article in this thread. thanks for the clarification...
I thought it was. Good article but I disagree with him. I think to say that grunge is ancient history is a little untrue. Sure the whole scene has died down and it will never be what it was but what about when you turn on the radio. You can hear the "grunge" influence in almost every band out there. The Seattle scene couldn't have gone on forever and if it did, it would lost the passion in it. But the influence it had on music and culture in general is still around today.
MSG 1+2. 2010
Wrigley. Brooklyn 2. Hartford. 2013
St. Louis. Denver. 2014
Global Citizens Festival. 2015
MSG 2. Fenway 2. Wrigley 1. 2016
Safeco 2. Missoula. 2018
My sentiments exactly, except now I know where all the Nirvana/PJ talk came from, there are some really ignorant assholes that commented there, but that's their opinion and their loss, But hell, I was the UBER Nirvana fan, I was introduced to them when I was ten and man was I brain-washed! Any grunge band that came after, I either accused them of copying Nirvana or I just didn't even give them the light of day, which is insane, sure, Maybe Nirvana is the one who started grunge, but then all the other bands that came after it became this whole other monster that was just a revelation....I do cringe sometimes at the word Grunge, because it reminds me that it's a media creation, but what else can you call it? and it is just a word after all....But I liked the article, he did exaggerate a little too much about how grunge was, but it's not too shabby, I like that he praised every single band in that era and didn't have any biases....So it's good....But I think there are several other eras that were more incredible than grunge....But ofcourse I'm a fan and without a doubt it has it's place in recent musical history....
"Where's Mike McCready? My god he's been ate!"
"If you're an Elvis fan, there's no explanation necessary; if you're not, there's no explanation possible."
"Sometimes God makes perfect people and Paul Newman was one of them." - RIP Paul Newman