ไม่สามารถเล่นวิดีโอนี้
ขออภัยในความไม่สะดวก
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2021
- In episode three of 30 Years of Grunge, we look into a year that changed popular music like no other - 1991.
If you're new, Subscribe! → bit.ly/subscrib...
Go here → loudwire.com/
Like us → / loudwire
Follow us → / loudwire
Follow us → / loudwire
Get our newsletter → loudwire.com/ne...
#Grunge #30YearsofGrunge #Loudwire #Nirvana #AliceinChains #Soundgarden #PearlJam #Rock #Metal
Alice in Chains - Facelift ... One of the best debut albums of all time .....
Yes agreed 😊☺️💯
Never liked it. It was a cheap Guns N’ Roses Worked record store back then and was aware of everything way early. But then I loved Dirt.
Dirt. One of the greatest albums period.
bleed the freak is my favorite song
@@frankshouldice2490 It Ain't Like That
Layne Staley had an amazing voice that really shined for a few years. AIC were & continue to be awesome 👌
Aic probably sounded the best but I would say Chris Cornell with Temple of the dog and Soundgarden was better they had songs with different feelings/moods it wasn't all drug songs
@420 rgb i was a true AIC fan i thought at least but Dirt was like literally a heroin album and damn was i bummed i had to go listen to pop punk to get out of depression. lol and my favorite album is Facelift i'll name every song if you want
@420 rgb Wake Up is epic 😎
@@leahflower9924 yes Dirt was mostly about Heroin, but it was also about Jerry's dad and other struggles, and about Layne's girlfriend Demri. Some songs sound like their about drugs, but they are actually about other people.
@@wesrogers7630 what was dam that river about lol
It was Badmotorfinger for me. Dennis Hopper said it best in Flashback.."The 90's are gonna make the 60's look like the 50's." And we certainly tried. It was an amazing time to be in your late teens/early 20's.
Gotta give it to Loudwire for recruiting this group of people to talk about this stuff. Matt Cameron, Matt Pinfield, Buzz Osborne, Kim Thayil, Jonathan Poneman, Susan Silver... all massive figures in this scene/era. Even the "newer" era peeps like Shaun Morgan, Taylor Momsen, Myles Kennedy - it's cool to hear their perspectives because they were obviously very influenced by grunge music.
It breaks my heart how drugs took so many.. I like to think treatment is more accessible today but we still have a long way to go. I wish the best to anyone struggling out there.
@Ken Krackers I understand or they're jobs, people here still equate treatment drugs to street drugs.
Drugs made them
@ghost mall the general view of mental illness has come a long way since the 90s. Drugs was the biggest influence for Alice in Chains along with Layne's off and on relationship with Demri, that pain from both is why we have the Dirt album. Layne went to over 20 treatment centers, so he had every opportunity, way more than most could ever hope for. Why he didn't get sober, well their are millions of opinions. Heroin was the biggest factor. Got to have it daily to survive, it's a full time job alone. I wish we had better ways of helping people, but ultimately money is the main reason we haven't progressed. Addicts as a group, rarely have money to pay for treatment and the reality is money is the driving force for any advancements. I don't believe we should do more research and the government should fit the bill, because that's not how the world works.
Quick success and money, combined with the recklessness of youth.
If I had had the money, I might be dead now too.
Smells like teen spirit is what made grunge popular. The Song, the Video, The Voice. I was hooked!
Facts!
Very simple question to answer. Smells Like Teen Spirit came out, game over. Job done. We NEEDED an answer to hair metal and Kurt gave it to us. I know they were far from the FIRST grunge band, but that was not the question.
Yeah.... You honestly can't really argue with this statement. LOL plain and simple. 🤷♂️😜
a lot of metal bands were shifting by the late 1980's from glam...you also saw early success by alternative bands in the 80's like REM. It's not that simple.
@@Ishbu101 It actually is. I've been a fan of the alternative and the loud side of music my whole life. While a few kids like me knew the bands you talked about, the vast majority didn't know they existed. The day AFTER Teen Spirit dropped all of those kids knew who Nirvana were. It was an overnight musical transformation from the bright shiny excesses still hanging on from the 80s to a darker dirtier more introspective era of music all over the world. Ask any member of a hair metal band from that time and they will tell you the same thing. They were made artistically redundant immediately their music careers over.
@ghost mall but we would never have heard of Nirvana if it wasn't for Jane's Addiction's Jane Says, and Been Caught Stealing, Chilly Pepper's Higher Ground, and mostly the first alternative break through that really sold records was Faith No More's Epic and their video. These were the first to break the airwaves in heavy rotation that allowed Nirvana to even exist and record on a major label. Very important songs that started to crack the Hair Bands and show much different styles. Just my opinion Peace
I recall being starved for music with relevant meaning throughout the 80s. There was a whisper in 87 but it grew into a holler in 91 with Temple of the Dog.
Alice In Chains already had a big hit with Man in the Box by the time Smells Like Teen Spirit came out.
But that didn't change the rock scene like smells like teen spirt did
@@somethingsomething9008it probably had something to do with the direction things were going tho. Never mind was the cherry on top. MTV quit picking new hair bands and chose the man in the box video. Layne is kinda grundey looking in that video too.
Yeah and before became "big hit" the radio stations at the time was not playing it because they was thinking, Layne's Voice was not good.. imagine that 😂
@@somethingsomething9008
Them and Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails were changing the idea of what commercial Rock could sound like. It’s also not true that hair metal died out as soon as Nirvana hit. It wasn’t over night.
Never Mind came out in 91. Hair Metal was still big until about mid 93. That’s when it started to die out. By 94 it was dead. 3 years isn’t over night. Skid Row, Motley Crew, Poison, Saigon Kick and Firehouse were still extremely popular in 92-93. It was all of the so called “grunge” bands, as a collective among other things that helped kill hair metal. I lived through it.
For me, bands like Faith No More and Jane's Addiction showed me there was so much more than basic metal....but it was Soundgarden who first got me attention to the Seattle bands.
Yes because Faith No More and Jane's Addiction had drastically different styles. That was the perfection of the underground laid forth in the early 80s you played to no one but for yourself
Some perhaps lesser known brilliant grunge albums -
Bundle of Hiss - Sessions
Mudhoney - Superfuzz Bigmuff
Mudhoney - Mudhoney
Tad - Salt Lick
Tad - 8-Way Santa
Blood Circus - Deadbeats
Hater - Hater
Green River - Come on Down
Melvins - Gluey Porch Treatments
Melvins - Bullhead
My Sister's Machine - Diva
Sceaming Trees - Sweet Oblivion
Love Battery - Dayglo
Rein Sanction - Broc's Cabin
L7 - Smell the Magic
Gruntruck - Inside Yours
Paw - Dragline
Pond - Pond
Fire Ants - Stripped
Truly - Fast Stories From Kid Coma
Mad Season - Above
Skin Yard - 1000 Smiling Knuckles
Mono Men - Bent Pages
Brad - Shame
Janitor Joe - Big Metal Birds
Sweet Water - Ter
Dandelion - I Think I'm Gonna Be Sick
Veruca Salt - American Thighs
The Fluid - Purplemetalflakemusic
Coffin Break - Crawl
Hammerbox - Numb
Pile Up - Norwalk
Some Velvet Sidewalk - Whirlpool
Sprinkler - More Boy, Less Friend
Smile - Maquee
Daisy Chainsaw - Eleventeen
Calamity Jane - Martha Jane Cannary
Thrillhammer - Giftless
AIC started it for me!! And can’t get enough!! Layne Staley voice cannot be matched still to this day!! Powerful
Kim thayil, is an absolute god on the guitar
Had to drive all over town to find the Nevermind CD when it first dropped. A month later, they had stacks of them 2-3 feet high, in those same record stores.
Mother Love Bone was gonna be the band to break but sadly their singer Andy Wood died of a heroin overdose when he was just 24. They were an incredible band. I recommend checking them out. I haven’t watched the video fully yet so I don’t know if they mention him on here.
I agree. MLB wouldve been the biggest band of the Seattle scene and Apple is easily one of the best albums of the 90’s. Definitely the most slept on. lol I was 12 around the time Andy passed and watch MTV religiously. I can promise you that Andrew Wood wouldve fit MTV like hand and glove. Really sad that he died right before the album was set to drop.
Chris Cornell was Andrew Wood’s Roommate at that time. Music impacts everyone differently.
No doubt! Right?
Gone too soon. Andy had so much potential.
Mother Love Bone? Not even close. They were basically a solid hair metal band that wore a Seattle sound. Even if they had made it big, their Apple LP wasn't even remotely similar to releases by Mudhoney, Nirvana, Soundgarden, or even AIC and Pearl Jam. I understand why they're lumped in because of the shared band members and scene notoriety - God rest Andy Wood, but they certainly didn't have the power to change the whole bloody industry like Nirvana did.
There’s more to it than Teen Spirit blowing up. This is a question that can’t be answered with one single person or band. A lot of bands paved the way and set the stage for Nirvana to knock it out the park
"Ten" of Pearl jam changed my life
To be honest, all of these bands are responsible for this huge movement. Some of the greatest music in the world came from Alice,SG, Nirvana , PJ, Melvins, etc… I remember how exciting it was to live in Aberdeen as a kid during this time… which is something I can’t say now because it really is a depressing area. But I give all of these guys credit 🤘🏻
I know who is responsible… Henry Era Black Flag and Flipper. Melvins too!
Just finished Part 2. Really good so far, being that I was there and involved in the Music Industry. I worked in Retail Administration and tried to get direct distribution of the Sub Pop catalog and pushing for a Seattle Scene Music section started in the store. We were the 5th Biggest Music store in the Country. I go back to Green River shows. I saw Nirvana open for Tad in 89.
I attended the Jane's show with MLB and Soundgarden at The Paramount. I was Backstage. To this Day in my Top 5, maybe #1. These were some of the Best Times in My Life. I'm Blessed to have been there.
Soundgarden and Alice In Chains were the first.
I think y’all are talking mainstream but the Melvin’s mother love none and anything Chris Cornell was doing along with Layne and jerry prior to fully becoming A.I.C are really what got the ball rolling
I personally feel that the sort of redundancy of the late 80s set up the whole explosion, i like a good power ballad as much the next guy, but from 86 to 90 it started to get kinda old, and then the pure rage of Nevermind opened up the door to a shitload of great bands. Gee, Stone writing great songs, not really surprising. I really think Black kinda sealed the deal, it's the grunge power ballad that brought everything together.
The punk scene was still happening that whole time grunge was like a spin-off of punk with a more heavy metal feeling
Don't forget Alice in Chains!
They always do
Best band that came out of the whole scene.
They were doom metal .... just joking. They were a death rock goth band. 😅
Andrew Wood. RIP 💗
Definitely Lauryn is one of the greatest rock journalists of this times. Those Grunge series videos are amazing.
While Soundgarden and AIC were both technically and vocally superior to Nirvana, I appreciate that Nirvana can be credited for introducing grunge to the masses
I think the explanation as to how grunge killed hair metal is pretty simple. Hair metal was all happy, girls, cars, and faster lifestyle. While grunge had earlier roots when it started to peak was right around when the first Gulf War broke out. So that happy go lucky life of cars, coke, and girls turned real somber real quick. Also a lot of those hair guys started their own downfalls as their addictions became known. This further turned the mood into a darker place looking for a voice that the Seattle scene seemed to capture and be ahead of the curve on.
This is a great series, thanks a lot
Nevermind
Great journalistic work here and great commentary from the people interviewed…and as always, don’t look over your shoulders because here comes the grunge revival…just check out our first 3 releases 🖤
Alice in Chains.
Record companies and MTV
AIC had been there for a bit but when Pearl Jam Ten and Nirvana nevermind came out the whole ERA changed
I remember 91 well and AIC Facelift was the first to hit the radio with Man in the Box. I bought Badmotorfinger before anyone else including AIC. Then the loc as l Tower was playing this badass band and had them on the playing now cue next to Butthole Surfers called The Melvins. King Buzzo sounded like he played guitar with an earth mover and I fell in love. Economy tanked and I started delivering pizza after laid off from Chevrolet. I woke up to open the restaurant and turned on mtv to hear this odd song about teen girls deodorant and an albino mosquito with a libido.....yeah. that was my intro to Nirvana but it was almost 92 around 6 months after Alice in Chains and Soundgarden
Nevermind was released a week before Badmotorfinger, though. BMF was scheduled to be released on the same day as Nevermind and Blood Sugar Sex Magick (both released on September 24, 1991). Basically, the Autumn of '91 changed everything about mainstream rock music. AIC's Facelift was a chink in the armor prior to all this, but things only really changed after Nevermind dropped.
That doesn't change your experience. Obviously, it makes sense if you had your ear to the ground. Soundgarden was bigger than Bleach was going into the '90s, but that 1991-1992 was a real sea change, and Nirvana was leading the charge.
great grunge content lately thanks.
I love this series so much! 🖤🤘🏽🖤🤘🏽🖤
I miss soundgarden so much....
They need some editing: the origin of the name "Pearl Jam" was discredited by the band. I think I saw that in this channel too.
Perl jam is a porographic term for sperm.
Perl jams joke on the world.
Hey Kathy, don't think I missed that Short Bus Disc on the wall...!Love IT!
Soundgarden
AIC
It's always rankled me that Nevermind is credited with creating Grunge. I remember wearing out Louder Than Love the entire fall and winter of '89 and realizing that something different was in the air _long_ before I had any idea who Kurt Cobain or Nirvana were.
Just got back from London Bridge Studios in Seattle!
I remember we had a advance copy of never mind. We played it over the sound system at tower records
Love this series!
Nirvana, Alice and.Pearl Jam arr the biggest reason
'91-'93 was such a magical musical explosion 💥 We thought it would go on forever 😭 Beautiful time for music lovers.
We called it "Radio Music". Music for the Masses. Top 40 Mainstream.
Jane's Addiction paved the way
Although it’s briefly touched on in a tangential manner here and there, I think it would be valuable for this series to dedicate a bit more time to how songwriting went from cars, girls, and partying, to the abstract, complex, and much darker lyrics found in grunge- it seemed as if it happened overnight to someone who only was exposed to mainstream music at the time- it seemed like a huge 180- but that type of songwriting had been developing for several years prior to the explosion in ‘91. So how did so many artists, in such a concentrated locale, all of a sudden have a mind shift of hey, let’s not do hair metal lyrics anymore? What was the trigger, it’d be great to explore how this phenomenon took place. There’s the new style of music that hit the scene, but the other half is how this shift in content came to be. Please consider @Loudwire!
Andrew Wood and Mother Love Bone set everything up for grunge
Not at all. I was there.
Janes addiction even Guns N’ Roses set it up also. Metallica even. They were are small once. Nirvana was truly amazing live. Mother love bone were like david lee Roth n queen meets Guns. I have an unopened mother love bone album. Bought the day it came out. Worth about 800$.
@@nicholaskruger9460 MLB had elements of grunge in their music. Andy’s death led to the creation of the Temple of the Dog album, formation of Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains biggest hit “Would?” was a tribute to Andy and so was “Far Behind” by Candlebox.
Alice in chains!!!
Funny how Alice In Chains is the best band out of that era and yet nobody gives them the respect they deserve. Nirvana this .. Kurt cobain that… shut upppp
It's "Nirvana this and Kurt Cobain that" because that's reality. Denying it is not gonna do anything for AiC standing in history.
@@wantutosigh1117 I’m not denying the popularity, I’m saying it’s funny because AIC and SG were better and doing it before nirvana but hey..
@@OscarOffTheCuff saying they were better is just your personal taste. Not actual fact. Nirvana is what exploded those bands into the mainstream. So you can't talk about this subject without giving Nirvana their due for putting a ton of bands out there for mass audiences. Including the other 3 of the "big 4".
Totally agree!!! Still the best and gaining younger fans!! My grandson digs it and my son played it all thru Iraq war especially rooster
Alice in Chains introduced us to the true grunge.
Why so many repeats of clips? This isn’t tv coming back from a commercial break. The same clip with the woman talking about overnight success plays twice in the first 1/8 of the video lol.
The people who appreciated genuine music.
This is great! Thanks.
Never got on the grunge train. It was depressing, it took all the fun out of music. In the 90s I left rock for Bjork and other electronic music.
Same
Green River rocks
King's X? Bueller? Bueller? King's X? King's X? King's X?
The band "NITRO" was the definitive end of hair-metal. The biggest hair, the fastest drums, the highest vocals, the fastest guitars, and multiple neck guitars!! Check 'em out,you'll see why!
Easy. Record company execs and effective marketing -- MTV in this case. "New" sounds and scenes are cheaper to produce, and you can easily rip off the eager-to-sign "new" bands and their management/producers and with fewer artists profits are high. Several years later the Seattle "scene" became too expensive, there were a glut of releases (most of which unprofitable), and it was time to move on to Nu Metal and start the process again. Similar cycles happened in pop, rap, rnb and country.
Yeah that's true...and we had the stooges and some other early punk in early 70s that could rival all those grunge bands
Love this series
There was my life before I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit and my life after I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit. Nirvana literally changed my life.
Nirvana might have gotten the credit for the " grunge " explosion . But King's X lit the flame... Still one of the greatest bands ever ! Gretchen Goes to Nebraska PURE MAGIC !
King's X. That's who.
ABSOLUTELY !!!!!!!!!!
Louder Than Love IS THE GRUNGE OF ALL GRUNGES
What is the song that is playing when they part about Andrew Wood’s death comes up?
Say hello to heaven
@@kevinmiler6063 I was talking about the piano track.
Kurt Cobain killed that abomination called Hair Metal. Will someone please end today’s abominations?
You are wrong, Hair metal is just freaking amazing ( the real bands like Motley Crue, Cinderella, Faster Pussycat, WASP, Skid Row, Ratt, etc....) obviously the copycats, like Winger, Trixter, Danger Danger, Bang Tango arghhhhh they gave a terrible image to Hair Bands.
I love Hair Metal as much as ai love Grunge. Motley Crue and Alice in Chains are my favorite bands of all time.
@@rogeliofernandezjimenez3053 yeah lol I have to admit there were some good tunes in hair metal didn't know skid row was part of that they had deeper lyrics. I actually really like Van Halen now, love some grunge but don't always wanna be depressed lol
@@leahflower9924 Exactly.
Dokken was a decent band, I remember their song from Elm street 3
@@nonameman7114 i don't know them...I like that anything anything song from Dramarama because they grew up like right near me so did the Misfits anyway i swear they played that song in one of those movies
Then, round about 1995, Grunge imploded. It was time to pack up the flannel.
It’s fire was still burning in 97 but went out when Soundgarden called it quits.
No the alt kids already wore flannel as children
Only those not from alt cultures early on thought it was new
L O L
Soundgarden started it all and if anyone wants to argue with me i will physically accost you! Not really we all have opinions and they're all strong. Unless you think nirvana started it all, because then i really will fight you.
No you are right definitely..I'm more of a punk fan but Cornell was great and he was friends with Johnny Ramone. Yes Cornell was making that doom metal sound in like 83 or 84
@@leahflower9924 that doom sound! That's why grunge. But i can dig the fuck outa some punk. Social distortion and x take me to another time. But the true grunge scene was something else entirely.
@@hadleytorres8171 everything chris did was good he could do acoustic bluesy country whatever you wanna call it that's what i like that he could switch it up but it always sounded sincere
i actually didn't really watch this video yet but maybe i should because i see his ex wife and bandmate and damn is that matt pinfield shit lol
Agreed,..Temple of the Dog also came out months before Nevermind so that was part of what made grunge explode the way it did.
Black Flag was definitely a band that kicked it off. With My war, Slip it in, Loose nut, In my head, and the process of weeding out. They were huge in making grunge a thing.
i dont know if you mean the song but the my war album did sound like grunge to me and i was like wait what was the year of this and i think 1983 lol greg ginn and henry rollins said they liked metal
In all fairness, Hair Metal was about to implode anyway cuz it became repetitive, bland. I love both 80s rock and Grunge, just for the record.
I remember what ruined grunge was the record companies jumped on the bandwagon and signed everyone and anyone. Diluted the product. Today people talk about only the top bands from that era.. plus to much drugs and death.
Pearl Jam never get anywhere near the credit they should. They are and have been for 30 years, A F**KING JUGGERNAUT!
Also what the name of the song at 1:03 when episode 3 comes up?
Pearl jam sucks. They wouldn't even been know without ALICE bringing them on tour and letting them open for them back when they called themselves mookie Blaylock😂
Not true. I like PJ but they were pushed on us back in the day. They were the band that mtv told you to like. Nirvana was the same but Kurt Cobain was self aware and didn’t take himself seriously but he did call out Pearl Jam for being careerist and not artist. Billy Corgan even called them out back in 93 by saying that the only reason people bought VS was because Nirvana created a thirst for that music and while fans were waiting for In Utero they went and bought VS because of hype.
Still cant understand why pj receive soo much hate nowadays, maybe is the fact that eddie is the only one still alive so there is no problem on criticising, otherwise people would threat them like legends just like kurt, Chris or layne, but anyway, they are one of the main grunge bands of the 90s beside nirvana, aic and soundgarden but people is just too hypocrite
The Melvins and Black Flag started it. Nirvana made it explode for the masses. For me, Soundgarden was the best....
Absolutely.
I was a musician who liked some of the 80s metal, but I always busted on it, and would play early Sabbath for my friends to show what cool music really was. I was in a used record shop and saw an old New York Dolls album in 88, from there Iggy & the Stooges, the Grunge coincided with where I was organically. I was not the only one who had "grown up" and grew tired of the phony LA thing. I did not care for Nirvana at first, but everything else blew me away, and eventually Nirvana really grew on me. STP, Alice Chains, Pearl Jam, etc. It was the first time in 20 years that mainstream rock radio was great.
Mark Lanegan sounded more grunge before it was grunge…the better term is punk metal…..I don’t remember Pink Floyd singing about cars, strippers or parties.
Record labels so they could compartmentalize and monetize the music.
Links for episodes in description would be nice.
It’s scary how much grunge fanatics downplay what Nirvana did for the grunge scene. THEY blew it up. That’s coming from a diehard SG and AIC fan. It died when Kurt died
What made grunge grunge
The founding men and woman of grunge who else
Ughh, the name Pearl Jam was not named after Aunt Pearl's jelly. That was a joke Eddie told someone back in the day. I thought everyone knew that was not true by now
God father of grunge, is Andrew wood. The person responsible for making it trend into popular culture id say Kurt
Was the cult also considered alt or grunge? Also did mud honey and cult sound similar even tho they came out around the same time?
alt i would think
no they didn't sound very similar
only some parts maybe
Drugs took too many great talents still does
Jesus Christ Pose is about famous musicians always posing with their arms out like Jesus. That came from Chris himself.
Who even came up with the title grunge? I called it Seattle sound....
Estará este documental en español?
Great documentary but Eddie has later said that's not how PJ was named..
If you like grunge music, check out the band Drab from New Orleans in my videos. They're one of a handful of bands still carrying that torch.
Uh
The grunge generation is still very much around
Carrying their own torch
THANKS !
Stop erasing people from THEIR fucking Cultures !
lol You're styled like OUR DADS Cultures
i prefer Jesus Lizard - Goat from 1991, beside soundgarden the best album of all these bands came later.
I was born in 1976 so I was growing up during this time and my friends and I got sick of the bands looking like our aunts and singing happy fuckin tunes when we were going through hell to me that is why Grunge was a hit but so wasn't Nu-Metal when it hit and Gangsta Rap was a hit too that became angry. Look at models that were call heroin chic was a hit too
"looking like our aunts..." So true. Hilarious 🖤
grunge kids are 80s highschool
Interesting, but where are the names of all the people that are speaking?
The first time the came on screen their names were shown.
Nirvana, NEVERMIND,,,, SMELL LIKE TEEN SPIRIT
I never understood “mookie blaylock”? Why not Gary Payton? I hate how Creed just ripped these guys off.
Asking "wHo iS ReSpOnSiBLe fOr ThE gRunGe eXpLoSiON?" in 2021 is akin to asking "What color is mustard?" or "Who is responsible for raising their children?" It's Nirvana, point blank period. Would bands like Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden had still been successful without Nirvana? Yes but nowhere near as successful. More to the point, we wouldn't see "grunge" through the lens we see it today. A'la more closely associated with things like punk rock, indie, new wave, feminism, indifference and opposed to the typical "stadium rock," uninformed masculinity musings of bands like Guns N Roses and Metallica. Who, were it not for Nirvana, those other aforementioned Seattle bands would've been more closely associated to in genre, style and culture. Simply look at those bands anytime from the spring of 1991 and backward; you'll see they're much more closer to Guns N Roses and other "stadium/radio rock" bands than they are Nirvana and the style/culture we now know and associate with grunge. A simpler way of saying it is before Nevermind and the Teen Spirit video dropped in the fall of 1991, those other Seattle bands were much more leather jackets, big hair, whiskey and guitars with pointy headstocks than they were cardigans, ripped, thrift store jeans, marijuana and "pawn shop" guitars. Nirvana is not only the biggest catalyst for commercial viability of all those bands but for the creation of the culture that we say is responsible for "killing off" the "cock rock" of the previous era of rock n roll.
The thing is though that they did it by taking a style of music that was 10 years old, going back to Mission of Burma, through Husker Du and the Melvins, and dropped all the dumb humor, shitty production and arty passive aggression and made a record that ripped off Boston. He would go back to trying to alienate people on the later records but for Nevermind they fully embraced arena rock. Kurt was also a better singer than Grant Hart or Peter Prescott but I think just dropping the indie baggage (while still acting the part in interviews) was the key to Nevermind blowing up.
Love Andrew Wood, Mother Love Bone was more glam, classic rock, and a new breed of Psychedelic, they still stand out of all the Seattle bands! They were so fresh, Andrew had he lived I believe he would have been a Superstar bigger then Kurt Cobain, I truly hope someone takes his story and Xanas and makes a movie about them. It's a Love story with a Shakespeare's tragedy ending. There were so many songs written for Andrew besides the Temple of the Dog album, Candlebox Far Behind. Alice and Chains Would.
I look back at that time and say we fucked with the devil and it bite some of us and we died of the flesh but not of the memories of those people who didn't make it