Fake Nostalgia, Vol. 1: Grunge
do kids still get nostalgic over pretending to be nostalgic for the 90s?
Just a quick note: since there are seemingly tens of millions of published pieces about grunge, please take this piece in the casual spirit in which it was intended— as a collection of personal thoughts and not a work of rigorous critical analysis. I’m just a random person on the Internet and what I say only has as much meaning as you decide to give it. I’ve had a pretty rough last couple of weeks, mental health-wise, and just wanted to do something fun. With that said, I do hope you enjoy this. Also, yeah, this is more about Nirvana than any other band, and I’m sorry about that, but what are ya gonna do?
A specter is haunting DIY music— the specter of the 90s. As my essay on Green Day last week made clear, I’ve been busy doing research upon research upon research about the 90s, simply because it’s impossible to contextualize everything that has been happening in the emo and hardcore scenes in the years since, and without the massive evolutionary steps that were taken in that decade, there would be no scene as we know it today. When you read American Hardcore and see Stephen Blush callously announce that hardcore “died” in 1986, and that “today’s bands” are performing a pale imitation of what he grew up with, it’s undeniably laughable because if bands in the 90s, 00s, or the 10s were still playing stuff that sounded exactly like the Necros or whatever, people would justifiably think there was no reason to still care about this music.
But the thing about the 90s is that even though it’s easy for me to observe that the aesthetic impact of that decade is tangibly all around as at all times— not just on a DIY scale, but on a macro, pop cultural, and sociological level— I wasn’t around for it, not in a concrete way. But you don’t know how bad I wished that I was as a Youth who was into Alternative Music. Luckily, I never delved into that garbage “I was born in the wrong generation” stereotype that has been thankfully memed into non-existence, since I fairly quickly found out that I loved contemporary music too, but that “only 90s kids will remember this” bullshit that was also floating around all the time left a very weird stain of insecurity on me, one that still lies somewhere in my heart still and drives a lot of my obsessive drive to learn as much about music as possible.
But when I was an actual kid, it was genuinely difficult to access some 90s-kid pop cultural artifacts, and I treasured the stuff I was able to get ahold of— stuff like The Adventures of Pete & Pete or Animaniacs— which, in conjunction with the fact that my quite young parents were actually teenagers in 90s, resulted in both a deep emotional connection to and wealth of knowledge about the media of that decade.
I know now that I wasn’t the only person who had an experience like this, but when I was in high school, I only knew one other person like that— my friend Andi, who deliberately dressed herself up in 90s fashion hallmarks, constantly quoted Singles and Empire Records, and brought her guitar to school to play Marcy Playground songs in between classes. She very obviously wasn’t part of my immediate circle of dirtbag hardcore friends, but we hung out a lot nonetheless, and the main thing we connected on was grunge.
Nowadays, Nirvana is probably the most-written-about rock band of all time next to the Beatles, and people have published enough books and retrospectives about the grunge “movement” to fill a library, but none of that meant anything to me when I was nine years old and heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the radio for the first time. Again, like I wrote about last week, I was already in the process of clumsily discovering underground music, but it would be a lie to say I truly “got” all of it. When I heard that song, like so many millions of other people, the opening guitar riff perked my ears up, and then, when Dave Grohl’s iconically thunderous drums kicked in, I got chills down my spine. I understood it immediately. Kurt Cobain’s voice, which veered from lazy to emphatic near-screaming throughout the song’s simple loud-quiet dynamism, felt like it was holding me by my collar. I wanted to hear that song over and over and over again. I asked my dad who that song was by, and he looked at me, somewhat incredulously, and said “Nirvana!”
A few weeks later, I was visiting my maternal grandma in Utah. She knew that I liked books, so whenever I visited, she made a point to take me to Barnes & Noble and make sure I was able to get at least one thing. On this particular visit, I made a point to go to the music section— a not-very-exciting collection of CDs— and grab anything I could that had “Nirvana” on it, hoping to pick up the collection of songs that contained that four-chord riff and those pounding drums. What I got instead was a collection of 13 songs called Bleach.
To this day, I feel as though the entire world of underground music magically opened up and became knowable to me the moment I put Bleach in my grandma’s CD player on the way back home to Las Vegas. Krist Novoselic’s drop-D bass groove announcing the opening of “Blew” felt ugly and beautiful at the same time, as did Kurt’s strangled guitar work and churning, tortured vocals (literally tortured; the man had chronic bronchitis, which was exacerbated by his singing style. He also had scoliosis, which he again exacerbated by playing a left-handed guitar despite being right-handed).
When I informally asked a 90s hardcore group on Facebook for their opinions on Nirvana and grunge, the prevailing opinion seemed to be that Bleach was their best, and I’m inclined to degree; for as much as it’s bathed in their noisier influences, that makes the pop structure at the heart of nearly all their songs shine that much brighter. The diversity of styles represented is also pretty impressive— the scraping, droning “Paper Cuts” is made better because it sits alongside the gorgeous “About A Girl,” and the churning thud of “Floyd the Barber” (which my dad memorably once called the worst song he’d ever heard in his life) enhances the deep, twisting melodies in the chorus of “Sifting.” Bleach is also home to two of the hardest-hitting cuts in Nirvana’s catalog, the 70s-hard-rock-by-way-of-post-punk “School,” which contains the most conventionally impressive Cobain guitar solo, and the scuzzy ass-beater “Negative Creep,” whose riff is catchy as hell despite being simultaneously indiscernible and rudimentary— a traditional hardcore punk song being performed completely non-traditionally.
Bleach was, in a lot of ways, the moment where I began my journey into underground rock in true earnest, beyond just trying to find music by the bands I saw name-checked on obscure forums. Not only did I begin to explore the rest of Nirvana’s surprisingly vast catalog, but with Bleach as my Rosetta stone, I used books like Our Band Could Be Your Life as a sort of road map to trace back Nirvana’s influences and explore the wet and wily world of 80s American post-punk (subsequently discovering my love for Hüsker Dü and the Replacements, among hundreds of others, in the process). I still count myself as extremely lucky that my dad taught me how to pirate music at an extremely young age, because the burned CD-Rs resulting from all-night pirating frenzies were changing my life all over again every single week.
But on top of falling in love with the subterranean, listening to Las Vegas’s awful “alternative modern rock” radio station gave me a taste and appreciation for a wide variety of what I like to call 90s trash rock— not quite butt rock, but definitely not pop-punk or anything remotely approaching challenging. You know the names— the Gin Blossoms, the Goo Goo Dolls, Filter (another stellar dad quote about that band: “That’s why I say hey man, nice shirt”), Third Eye Blind. These are all fantastic bands, obviously, and I’m pleased to see that they’ve been experiencing a kind of critical reappraisal in recent years, but the fun of them was singing along to them in the car on long drives and not caring who sees you.
Another central appeal of 90s trash rock for me was also that me and Andi would often torture our other friends by loudly singing “Get What You Give” or “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” or “Bound for the Floor” at the least opportune times. For as much time as I spent in high school going to hardcore shows, recreating bits from Jackass with my buddies, and generally doing disservices to society, some of my favorite memories are just of hanging out with a slightly-left-of-normie friend waxing poetic about Daria and pulling up old clips of Beavis and Butt-head making fun of music videos.
But, again, it was grunge that really brought us together. Andi knew the entire history of Pearl Jam’s drummer difficulties the way I knew Saturday Night Live cast changes. And endemic of our entire dynamic was this odd sense that we felt out of time in some respects— that we potentially would have fit in more had we been going to high school together in the early 90s than in the early 10s (which of course, is just purely untrue). Eventually her and I just naturally drifted apart the way friends do when they cease to have things in common— we worked together at Starbucks for a while until she decided to move to New York, and we simply don’t talk anymore due to a variety of factors (although it was through her that I met my friend Kendra, who is one of my best friends to this day and recently got married— congrats, girl!).
Still, though, it’s often that I think about my experience as a teenager in the 2010s occasionally wishing that I was a teenager in the 90s. Although, again, I was smart enough to know that a lot of things had objectively improved since then (and bands like Balance & Composure and Superheaven— née Daylight— were doing their best to feed on the fake nostalgia), I think the thing about it that was irresistible was the aesthetic. I talk a lot about how much I love the proto-scene aesthetic of bands like Eighteen Visions, but my first fashion love was definitely flannel. Flannel shirts were extremely easy to come by— I got a ton as hand-me-downs from my dad’s father— and looked cool even in the dry heat of Las Vegas, although they were absolutely utilitarian in the cuttingly cold winter months. And listening to trashy 90s rock albums on a borrowed Discman on my walk to school in the morning just felt too perfect.
All that being said, it’s odd to me how the legacy of mainstream 90s alt rock has turned into something messy and muddled. For as much as the kids in the scene these days fawn over bands like Hum (who were regarded by most of pop culture as a one-hit wonder in 1996), most current bands who were sonically influenced by the Grunge Era are the butt rock bands that Finn McKenty lovingly refers to as Red State Rock— and that stuff is very much not my thing, outside of a couple undeniable jams (“I Hate Everything About You” by Three Days Grace is just a phenomenal song, come on). Nu metal, too, was very influenced by grunge (if I recall correctly, Chester Bennington even took over for Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots for a spell before his untimely death). Although I’m much more warm towards nu metal than I am to the white-collar coffee shop rock that took its place as the fake-alternative rock music of choice in the mid-late aughts, it’s pretty obvious that there was a lot of garbage in that field, too (please do not defend Coal Chamber or Disturbed in my mentions, thanks!).
Weirdly enough, the scene in recent memory that seems to have the most reverence for grunge is the SoundCloud rap scene— XXXTentacion and Lil Peep both idolized Kurt Cobain and you could hear that influence, more tangential than tangible, in their music. This might have something to do with the lengthy history of Kurt Cobain shout-outs in hip-hop (see this great article for more deets on that), but it also speaks to the legacy of the Grunge Era as a kind of final stand for “rock stars” in the traditional sense, before the zeitgeist moved on to hip-hop.
Partially erupting in popularity as a reaction to the deeply misogynistic and homophobic mainstream culture of rock in the 80s, the outspoken social progressivism of Cobain, Eddie Vedder, and even Scott Weiland (did you know that “Sex Type Thing” was satire?) as well as the eruption of popular woman-centric bands during the Grunge Era (to wit: Hole, L7, 7 Year Bitch, Veruca Salt, the Gits [RIP Mia Zapata], and Riot Grrl bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Babes In Toyland all enjoyed increased visibility thanks to their close association with grunge) seems in retrospect like a massive paradigm shift. No longer did white male rock stars brag about banging groupies, instead lifting up their female fans, peers, and tour-mates. Riot Grrl has a thorny legacy in regards to transphobia, but by the standards of the early 90s— when the bar was so low that the “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” episode of Seinfeld won a GLAAD award (and it’s a great episode, actually)— it was genuinely revolutionary. Race was a bit iffier; it’s pretty hard to look at the popular bands of the grunge era in retrospect and not be stunned by the glaring whiteness. That said, it’s worth noting that Cobain in particular was a vocal anti-racist, refusing to tour with Guns ‘N’ Roses on the basis of their lyrics for “One In A Million,” counting Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back as one of his favorite albums of all time, and often taking time to inform his listeners that if they were racist they were not wanted at his shows or as paying customers, which, again, was not a popular position to take at that time in the mainstream.
Nowadays, it’s taken for granted that popular musicians at the very least give lip service to progressive causes, but I feel like grunge was an important factor in raising the bar for what was and wasn’t acceptable for prominent entertainers to say with their platform. Of course, a lot of things were still “problematic” due to shifting standards, but I would go so far as to say that Kurt Cobain would probably be stoked that a sizable bloc of young rock fans might say he wasn’t progressive enough.
With the benefit of hindsight, one useful way of looking at the Grunge Era is as a period of transition. These bands had lead singers and guitarists who had the good looks and charisma of the rock stars of the 70s and 80s, but flipped the conventional presentation on its head, alternately embracing and rebuking the dynamic of rock stardom by presenting through a distinctly punk-informed lens. And when the grunge movement became a parody of itself, when the music and personalities started to mirror rather than mock the rock stars of the past, it was swept away by the mid-90s pop-punk explosion, which was swept away by nu-metal, which was swept away by the mall-emo explosion, and so on and so forth— generations of bands who continued to mutate prototypical rock star presentation due to their background in less egocentric forms of music. Accordingly, each genre faded away as it became self-indulgent and embedded in music industry machinations, but the contrasts between generations became clear: it’s impossible to argue that the way that Fred Durst or Pete Wentz expressed their distinct brands of outsized machismo, or their toxic and fraught relationships with their sense of masculinity, was anything like that of, say, Robert Plant. To a large degree, you have grunge to thank for first questioning and puncturing that dynamic in a mainstream setting.
Now with all that said, how does grunge really hold up as music? Well, that depends on how you really define “grunge”— for me, the 80s Seattle scene, diverse as it was, had enough things in common that I feel comfortable saying that bands like Green River and Mudhoney are “real” grunge. To me, grunge is a lot about muddy, sticky guitar tones, bonehead riffs, murky production, yelping vocals— a pretty succinct descriptor would probably be 70s hard rock and power pop played through the prism of side B of My War. Grunge changed definitions with the breakthrough of albums like Ten, Nevermind, and Dirt— it kind of became about a more gruff approach to classic rock staples, with a pretty distinct vocal approach (which someone called “yarling,” as apt a dismissal as any I’ve ever heard). But for a brief moment in the early-to-mid-90s, despite the pervasion of C-tier hangers-on like Live and Candlebox, and before the advent of the more trim and openly commercial bands like Bush and Silverchair, there was a plethora of excellent, diverse bands all operating beneath the broad banner of “grunge”; of these, I think that Paw’s Dragline is one of the most unfairly forgotten gems of the time, an extremely tight and unique blend of, I guess, Dinosaur Jr and Helmet?
But of course, when people hear the word “grunge,” the first bands they think of are probably the Big Six. There might be some confusion about the Big Six; in fact, when I first started brainstorming this essay, I was originally only going to talk about the Big Four— the explosively popular bands that came from the late 80s Seattle scene and are generally agreed to be Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains. But enough people have insisted on the popularity, influence, and musical quality of Stone Temple Pilots— from San Diego— and the Smashing Pumpkins— from Chicago— that I felt both earned some discussion here (although Smashing Pumpkins diehards might not be too stoked on my take). So how do they hold up? And if any of these bands are your favorite of the Grunge Era, what does that say about you?
NIRVANA
DISCLAIMER: I DEFINITELY TALK ABOUT NIRVANA THE MOST, AND I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE IF ANYONE IS DISAPPOINTED I DIDN’T GO INTO THE SAME DEPTH ON THE OTHER BANDS HERE. I’VE LISTENED TO THEM ON AVERAGE TWICE A WEEK SINCE I WAS NINE YEARS OLD, THOUGH, SO SUCK IT.
HOW DOES THEIR MUSIC HOLD UP? As if I haven’t talked about them enough— both in this newsletter and in my personal life— already, let’s just make one thing perfectly clear: Nirvana’s sonic legacy is, in my mind, downright unimpeachable. Yes, they are the Basic Bitch Band of this cohort (although, really, aren’t these all Basic Bitch Bands?). Yes, it’s kind of their fault that punk aesthetics fell victim to rabid commercialization throughout the 90s (although, as many would attest, the DIY scene was doing just fine). Yes, they’re overplayed. Yes, it’s annoying how some people think of Kurt Cobain as the second coming. Yes, they were less musically accomplished than the majority of their peers (although I think this framing misses a couple things: how tight of a utility player Krist Novoselic was and how his bubbly bass melody counterpoints were simultaneously simple and catchy; Dave Grohl’s eruptive and propulsive energy behind the kit; Cobain’s fascinating charisma as a vocalist as well as his subtly innovative playing techniques— all of which contributed to their unique sound and popularity). Are Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl both fairly embarrassing today? Yes (although for vastly different reasons— Krist became a weirdly libertarian and kinda-sorta? Trump supporter, while Grohl just coasts on his dad-punk credibility). But they were just fucking fantastic. Phenomenal pop songwriters who, even just through watching live sets years after the fact, put on one hell of a show, and without whom, I’d be willing to bet a shitload of you wouldn’t be reading this today.
As already discussed, Bleach is a masterpiece: aside from the songs already covered, you’ve got the obliquely political punk track “Downer”; “Big Cheese,” which masterfully manipulates feedback into an overbearing rawk track; the psychedelic peril (and underrated showcase for both Cobain’s guitar work and Novoselic’s bass work) that is their cover of Shocking Blue’s “Love Buzz”; and the fantastic three-song run of scathingly catchy punk tunes and satire that is “Scoff,” “Swap Meet,” and “Mr. Moustache.”
Side A of Nevermind— a breathless run of varied yet ineffably perfectly-constructed pop songs, from the literally-anthemic “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to the plodding, deeply sarcastic (down to the deliberately irritating guitar solo) “In Bloom” to the evocatively haunting “Come As You Are” to the overdriven irrepressible energy of “Breed” to the deceptively simple loud-quiet crowd-pleaser “Lithium” to the quietly righteous feminist fury of “Polly”— is in constant rotation on rock radio for a goddamn reason: those songs are fucking fantastic.
And dismissing them out of hand based on their popularity, or, somewhat more reasonably, Butch Vig’s gauzy and candy-coated production, would rob you of the divine pleasures of Nevermind’s second half. “Territorial Pissings” is a straight-up hardcore punk song featuring some of Cobain’s most funny and cutting lyrics (“Never met a wise man/If so it’s a woman”) as well as some of his most acidic and desperate screaming. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” wishes it could be as concisely catchy and affecting as “Drain You.” “Lounge Act” is a sexually-ambiguous poppy punk rager. “Stay Away”’s laconic, cynical lyricism belies its stellar self-destruction, and Cobain’s final shriek of “God is gay” is downright iconic in its own right. “On A Plain” might just be the most perfect power pop gem the band ever penned. And of course, the deeply unsettling melancholy of “Something In the Way” gives way to the out-and-out noise rock jam of “Endless, Nameless,” which has terrified many who absent-mindedly fell asleep with Nevermind on.
Of course, no discussion of Nirvana would be complete without some attention paid to their obscene wealth of non-album material, much of which was compiled on the With the Lights Out box set as well as the B-sides collection Incesticide (which is home to my absolute favorite Nirvana song, “Aneurysm,” as well as fan-favorites like “Sliver” and “Been A Son”). But Nirvana were as good, if not better, when not recording cohesive albums— one-offs that never found a home, like “Sappy,” “Even In His Youth,” and the Jack-Handey-quoting “I Hate Myself and Want to Die” are all among the best cuts the band ever laid to tape. This isn’t even mentioning their sublime ability as a cover band or their numerous live recordings, almost all of which show a band that was seemingly at the peak of its powers night after night.
And even though I disagree, the argument that In Utero is their best work is a very compelling one. It’s probably the most blatant example of Cobain’s pop aptitude standing at odds with his fuck-the-world ethos; how else can you square the beguilingly beautiful “Dumb” coexisting with the harshly angular noise rock of “Milk It,” or the buzzy sweetness of “All Apologies” capping off a record that also contains the stunningly heavy rhythms and modulated screams of “Scentless Apprentice”? “Pennyroyal Tea” is another all-time perfect song from the band that seemingly holds all of its sonic contradictions in the palm of its hand— veering from gentle, acoustic-driven verses to a woozy and asymmetrical bridge— that finds greater poignance when set against the backdrop of the driving harshness of “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” or the genuinely unnerving shrieking of “Tourettes.” Songs like “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle” find the band exploiting the formula of Nevermind to strong effect, while the defiantly oddball sensibility of “Very Ape” demonstrates they had no interest in simply vomiting up an easily-digestible follow-up to Nevermind at all. “Heart-Shaped Box” revels in its own ickiness, a contradiction of the song itself, which is probably the most polished of the In Utero set, and the pop-punk-by-way-of-Butthole-Surfers “Serve the Servants” forces the listener to parse the abrasiveness for the very real sticky melodies buried within. And, of course, there’s “Rape Me”— on the surface, a loud-quiet “Smells Like Teen Spirit” self-rip, but upon closer inspection, an excoriation and condemnation of both the music industry and misogyny that culminates in one of the best vocal performances of Cobain’s career.
If you’ve already made up your mind that you dislike Nirvana, I’m sure nothing in this section would convince you otherwise— but I believe that everyone can find something to love in their legendary Unplugged performance, which concludes with the most hair-raising rendition of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” since Leadbelly’s, and turns covers of Bowie, Vaselines, and Meat Puppets songs into Nirvana songs by sheer dint of their reverence and love for the source material. The only Unplugged performance that ever came close was Lauryn Hill’s.
IF THEY’RE YOUR FAVORITE GRUNGE BAND, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT YOU? Broadly, almost everyone loves Nirvana, unless they are a frustrating and rote contrarian— it would be easier to say what hating them says about you. But in the context of people who are deeply invested in grunge as a sound and style, it’s safe to say that people who prefer Nirvana are more likely to prefer the more punk-oriented sounds of early grunge, and tend to gravitate towards things that present a more defiantly DIY ethos and aesthetic in general. While grunge in general exposed a lot of people to the world of underground punk music— and in particular the American post-punk scene of the 80s that, in retrospect, looked like a linear evolution leading directly to grunge’s creation and explosion— Nirvana was the band that most blatantly repped punk and hardcore as their genesis. Untold amounts of people probably discovered SSD because of Krist Novoselic wearing their shirt onstage, not to mention Grohl’s past in DC hardcore or the frequency with which Kurt Cobain would shout out his seminal lesser-known influences. Plus, they played with Jawbreaker, for chrissakes.
ALICE IN CHAINS
HOW DOES THEIR MUSIC HOLD UP? Alice In Chains still exist— with Southern hardcore luminary William Duvall stepping in to provide lead vocals— but for all intents and purposes, the legacy of Alice In Chains lies in the material they produced in the early-to-mid-90s with Layne Staley, who, along with lead guitarist and co-vocalist Jerry Cantrell, consistently created some of the most thoughtful and personal music of the era. Alice In Chains is a fucking depressing band, and nowhere is that more clear than on their 1992 breakthrough Dirt— an hour-long tragedy in musical form, Dirt is the story of descent into heroin addiction, brought to life with some of the most deeply, intricately melodic metal laid to tape. Make no mistake— Alice In Chains were always far more of a metal band than their Seattle brethren, starting off as the thing that grunge ostensibly destroyed (hair metal) before developing into a twisting and spacious blend of gloomy, slowed-down, funked-up thrash riffs and intertwining vocal harmonies, evoking despair in the pit of the listener’s stomach.
Alice In Chains made beautiful music— “Down In A Hole” is my personal favorite example (one that Code Orange covered with shocking reverence on their recent unplugged record Under the Skin), but “Got Me Wrong” is another, more under-appreciated cut that emphasizes Cantrell and Staley’s gift for harmonizing along with soaring, gorgeous, melancholic guitar melodies. Even on heavier cuts, like the nauseating “Sickman” or the ass-kicking “Junkhead,” the power of their melodies transcends mere hooks, burrowing their way into your skin and hanging around for far longer than the songs in which they appear.
Alice In Chains have one of the best Unplugged performances as well, coming off the heels of a long period of inactivity thanks to Staley’s truly debilitating heroin addiction. It’s a harrowing listen, not least because Alice In Chains were already extremely adept at acoustic performances, flexing those muscles on EPs like Sap and Jar of Flies, but also because every song feels like the band is actively living through the misery as they play.
Say what you will about the other big grunge bands, but they had senses of humor and were often a blast to listen to when they simply rocked out. Alice In Chains definitely had a diseased, wizened sense of humor at their core (“What’s my drug of choice?/Well, what have you got?”) but all of their songs carry an unnerving weight that stands the test of time. Even their biggest, most accessible single— “Would?”— is charged with desperation and the sense that pure resignation is just around the corner. Alice In Chains’s music absolutely holds up, but it’s not casual listening. It’s something that, ideally, you should prepare for. Have some coffee and a feel-good movie ready to go after delving into Dirt.
IF THEY’RE YOUR FAVORITE GRUNGE BAND, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT YOU? You are probably more of a metalhead than a fan of punk— or the rest of the grunge bands in general, for that matter. A lot of the diehard Alice In Chains fans actually tend to look down on, in particular, Nirvana for being a lot more light and approachable. With that being said, and placing that unearned arrogance aside, you probably should seek therapy immediately because listening to “Nutshell” at 9 in the morning is an uncomfortable experience even for me. At the very least, wash those clothes you’ve been wearing for nine days straight and drink something that isn’t 100-proof.
SOUNDGARDEN
HOW DOES THEIR MUSIC HOLD UP? Honestly, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Soundgarden were without a doubt the most musically accomplished band of the Big Four— Chris Cornell had a ridiculous three-octave range, Kim Thayil was a ceaselessly creative and unconventional guitarist, and original bassist Hiro Yamamoto was one of the most compelling Seattle songwriters (and his successor Ben Shepherd was every bit as nimble and agile). But for as impressive as their musical feats could be (Badmotorfinger and Superunknown in particular are filled with stunning fusions of concise hard rock and mind-bending psychedelia) their vibe just had a bit too much cock-rock swagger for me to fully get on board with.
Their earliest material, especially Ultramega OK and Louder Than Love, is some of the most pure snapshots of the steamroller riff-heavy variety of early grunge this side of Tad or the Melvins, but Chris Cornell’s vocals in particular are the most hit-or-miss of acquired tastes, at times sounding beamed straight from the 70s. It can either make the entire song or sink it for me. The best example is probably “Big Dumb Sex”— it was meant to be a blindingly obvious parody of Aerosmith and the like, but the band plays it just a little too straight for comfort.
Still, though, when they succeed, they really succeed. Badmotorfinger is incredible in its ambition and scope, and songs like “Jesus Christ Pose” still hold up, as does their propensity for mid-song tempo and structure shifts. Just make sure you can handle Cornell’s vocals before you dive in.
IF THEY’RE YOUR FAVORITE GRUNGE BAND, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT YOU? You probably went through a lengthy period in middle school of wearing Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin shirts from Target. Alternately, you are very old and you’re probably upset that I didn’t spend a significant amount of time in this article talking about Screaming Trees and Steel Pole Bath Tub.
PEARL JAM
HOW DOES THEIR MUSIC HOLD UP? For a long time, Pearl Jam was the grunge band that I held out on the most— I liked most of their singles, but it was difficult for me to get past their explicitly classic-rock-indebted aesthetic, especially in contrast to the altogether punkier Nirvana, who I held in unimpeachable esteem (it definitely didn’t help that Cobain famously slammed Vedder and company as sellouts). But their pedigree is unimpeachable— Pearl Jam is mostly composed of ex-members of Green River and Mother Love Bone, and they were eventually conscripted as Neil Young’s backing band, which is an incredible cosign that’s difficult to ignore— and eventually I caved and gave them the listen they deserved. And honestly? Pearl Jam is a pretty fucking great band. (I recently told Deanna about this and she said, “Well, duh, of course you’d like them.”)
The thing about their debut record, Ten, is that it’s a lot more than just a 90s update on 70s AOR— it’s also deeply steeped in the grandiosity and grit of 80s-era U2, which is obviously difficult for a lot of people to get past, but it honestly kinda works for me. The biggest drawback on Ten is its overbearingly glossy, echoey production, and if that’s a bit much for you to get past, it’s very much checking out their follow-up, Vs— one of the best-produced albums of the 90s, up there with the self-titled Rage Against the Machine record, and the songs are a lot more tightly-wound and conservatively constructed— as well as Vitalogy, which is an extremely daring and weird masterpiece that features, in my opinion, their two best songs: the hardcore-influenced “Spin the Black Circle” and the immaculately-arranged and performed “Corduroy.”
No Code and Yield are just as weird and ambitious as Vitalogy, but I would recommend listening to their first 3 records first to get a taste for them. I haven’t really listened to anything after that, but shit, dude, 5 great mainstream rock records in a row ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
IF THEY’RE YOUR FAVORITE GRUNGE BAND, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT YOU? You are probably in your 30s and massively respect them for their longstanding connection to and respect for their fans (remember their Ticketmaster feud? That was rad!). Much like the aforementioned U2 and other legacy adult-alternative bands like R.E.M., you enjoy how deep and varied their catalog is and you’re a songwriting nerd. There is also a large probability that you don’t shave as often as you wish you did.
SMASHING PUMPKINS
HOW DOES THEIR MUSIC HOLD UP? I honestly fucking hated this band for the longest time and never understood why they were lumped in with the grunge movement, especially given Billy Corgan’s disgusting personality and their disavowal of punk influence for the most part. I also deeply disliked his voice (although eventually I realized I was pretty hypocritical, given that I love the equally-irritating Frank Black of the Pixies).
I recently did a sit-down listen of their first three LPs: Gish, which is a pleasant, if a bit boring, Midwestern take on shoegaze; Siamese Dream, which was actually pretty consistently listenable; and Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness, which is 40 minutes of incredible material buried within over 2 hours of exhausting filler and self-indulgence. While I definitely have a greater appreciation for the Smash Pumps than I once did, it’s hard for me to recommend them to anyone who didn’t grow up with them, especially since most of their best songs are already big hits— “Cherub Rock,” “Zero,” and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” among them.
IF THEY’RE YOUR FAVORITE GRUNGE BAND, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT YOU? Dude, have you ever heard of this band Coheed & Cambria? I swear you’d love them, bro.
STONE TEMPLE PILOTS
HOW DOES THEIR MUSIC HOLD UP? Stone Temple Pilots were one of the most pleasant surprises of this whole project. I’d always written them off as bandwagon-jumpers who managed to write a couple radio bangers, but as it turns out, their first three records are really, really fucking good. Like, some of the best albums of this whole era. Scott Weiland’s vocals are a lot less derivative of Eddie Vedder’s with the benefit of hindsight, and the DeLeo brothers are genuinely extremely gifted, versatile songwriters. The breadth of their influences comes through in practically every song on those early releases— hard rock, psychedelia, late-era Black Flag, and straight-up pop all merge into some of the most accessible songwriting of the Grunge Era, and I was both impressed and surprised at how much I was there for it.
I probably need to spend a lot more time getting to know their catalog, but Core, Purple, and Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop are all fascinating records, with tons of great small touches, particularly Tiny Music, which is a purely effervescent blend of neo-psychedelic and shoegaze influences with proto-punk glam rock tendencies and post-punk hauntology and discomfort. They were a truly singular band that really didn’t deserve my disdain nor the common allegations of copycatting leveled at them.
Honestly, I think Stone Temple Pilots were more of a piece with bands like Blind Melon (who, while more indebted to the Byrds and roots-rock than any actual grunge bands, were a big part of my adolescent 90s fetishism, and “No Rain” is one of my favorite songs of all time) than any of the more rawked-out grunge bands— very thoughtfully and carefully arranged songs with delicate structure and lots of personal flair that never dissipated even when they were at their most obvious and distorted. I might actually revisit them at greater length in a future newsletter, if anyone would be interested in that.
Side note: back when I was dating my first partner, I had a hand-me-down car from my dad that didn’t have an aux input, so we’d just have to listen to the radio any time I drove. (It also had no AC and was so beat-to-shit that I was almost relieved when it eventually got totaled, but that’s another story altogether.) One of the songs that came on pretty much every time we were on a date was Stone Temple Pilots’s “Creep,” and my partner was aghast at how well I could emulate Weiland’s vocal stylings on that track (although of course I always ended up exaggerating it to cartoonish proportions). TAYK TYEEM WIT UH WOONDED HAAYYAND, CUZ IT LYEEKS TOO HEYEAL…
IF THEY’RE YOUR FAVORITE GRUNGE BAND, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT YOU? You’re a lot less judgmental than me, and I’m low-key pissed at myself for not listening to you earlier!
That’s it for this installment. If you liked it, let me know, and I might revisit this premise of bands I’m fake-nostalgic for in the future, and I really would love to go in greater depth on Stone Temple Pilots. In the meantime, it’s October, which means you’re in for at least a couple ooky-spooky non-music installments— I have essays about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scream outlined already, and I hope you’re as excited for me to cover them as I am. In the meantime, thank you all for reading, and I’m sorry for the long wait. Hopefully this newsletter is of a high enough quality to make up for it, but if not, I totally understand. Don’t forget to check out my Patreon— $10 subscribers get to choose the topics I cover in the Patreon-exclusive newsletter coming at the end of the month. I love you all and I hope you’re doing well.
-xoxo, Ellie
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I’ve actually never heard of there being a Big 6 (and I considered myself pretty knowledgeable on grunge). I definitely see STP fitting in with the Big 4, but I have a hard time fitting SP into the mix. Either way, it was funny to me reading that you don’t like Corgan’s vocals, because prior to reading this, I actually didn’t know there were people out there that didn’t like his voice. Which is very silly, now that I think about it. Anyways, Adore is their best album, and I’ll stand by this forever.
"I might actually revisit them at greater length in a future newsletter, if anyone would be interested in that."
YES PLEASE! Would love to read an in-depth take on STP, esp. about "Tiny Music."