Just 20 years on, grunge seems like ancient history.
MakeMeCry43
Posts: 355
Here's a REAL good article and a great read and it's just perfect in expressing how grunge was and how it wasn't just a flash in the pan but something bigger, a phenomenon, I just recieved in my email through google alerts and it's damn good enough to share with you guys 
, it also expresses how most of us past grungers used to feel (If you were a grunge fan) and funnily enough I feel everything this guy wrote in that article, which is funny because I was just a baby in the grunge era, but atleast I got my half of it when my brother introduced me to it when I was ten...And I never forgot it, Atleast I got my share right? (And thanks bro! 
)
Anyway, here's the link to the article:http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/31/grunge
And here's the WHOLE article if the link doesn't work.
Just 20 years on, grunge seems like ancient history. (By Darragh McManus)
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.
, it also expresses how most of us past grungers used to feel (If you were a grunge fan) and funnily enough I feel everything this guy wrote in that article, which is funny because I was just a baby in the grunge era, but atleast I got my half of it when my brother introduced me to it when I was ten...And I never forgot it, Atleast I got my share right? (And thanks bro! )Anyway, here's the link to the article:http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/31/grunge
And here's the WHOLE article if the link doesn't work.
Just 20 years on, grunge seems like ancient history. (By Darragh McManus)
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.
"Does anyone remember laughter?"
"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
"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
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no more forever."
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Oh!! I didn't know that there was already a thread lol...well, if the mods can kindly delete this thread, one is more than enough, hehe, thanks for the heads up restless soul
"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