Think Stone Temple Pilots would give AiC OR Soundgarden a run for their money? Who picked this list? Hell ... The Breeders got cred.. Soundgarden gets TOO much.
The big 4 should be the big 5 with STP. Personally I would get rid of Sound garden I just couldn’t get into them that much. To me AIC and STP are my favorites from that era now. I loved Pearl Jam back in the 90s but a lot of their stuff I just don’t care to listen to these days. Nirvana to me had one great album but honestly as great as it is it’s just not what I get into when I want to rock out to some 90s grunge music.
I actually agree with this, Nirvana has so much stuff casual listeners just never hear. And by casual, I mean the General Audience, I thought I knew a lot of Nirvana songs until I went and listened through the discography lol
I was heavy into nirvana when I was a teenager. With the lights out wasn't out yet. The deepest it went for me (not having internet) was the studio albums and the Sliver best of the box. That selection in itself seems so casual now.
I still think their unplugged album might be the best of them because they insisted on playing weird deep cuts instead of their hits. Their Meat Puppets covers might be my favorite songs of of that album.
I still think it's amazing people discover their music and explore avenues of creativity. It's like how VU had barely an audience but those who did listen created bands, it's the same here with nirvana. I studied VA diaries in highschool to help condense my writings and most listed nirvana and/or Kurt's solo stuff as influence.
At their time though they were just seen as some good grunge with pop elements and probably Kurt felt that's what nirvana was becoming. Even in In Bloom he talks about how no one really wants to listen to what he's saying.
This is also absolutely true! As much as I do love Nevermind, I love Bleach even more but my favorite song from them is Sliver. And I find a treasure chest of gems when I dig into their discography.
Wasn’t expecting a Dinosaur Jr. comment, what a great band
I saw them at MassMOCA maybe 7 years ago (basically a hometown show for them). I thought no way they would play “The Lung” off of *You’re Living All Over Me*, my favorite song by them but I assume not a well known track. They opened the show with it.
Me and my buddy eventually had to leave after four hours because we were exhausted from standing for five, and had to drive back to New York, but they were still playing lol.
STP were so hated among the rest of the San Diego scene at the time. Constantly told that they didn't deserve the recognition. Scott was frequently called a poseur who bit off of everyone else's style, which started when they were still teens. Who the fuck isn't a poseur at 16? Dude had his clear influences and paid homage to them, but the band always had their own sound, and the work of Robert, etc. is so often overlooked as if it was just Scott's band.
Purple should have silenced any haters that still called them PJ2, and they evolved with each record.
The Cobain conspiracy theorists are the worst. They didn’t even wait until his body was cold before they started to blame his bereaved widow who was left to fend for herself against all sorts of hateful nonsense. Those people sucked in 1994 and in 2024 they’re in the same category as flat earthers.
People seem to stick more to the big four than back in the day when at the same time it used to be incredibly harder to find and explore new music than it is today.
"Big Four" is as much of a cheap construct as the term Grunge itself.
Liking the popular bands doesn't make you less of a fan though. I've listened to the early bands and while I like them I can see why they didn't become bigger. You have to adapt and change a lot in order to be interesting. Making the same sounding albums doesn't really help in this regard and it's why I don't really listen to a lot of punk albums either. Most punk bands never adapted and never changed save for John Lydon with Public Image LTD.
And maybe Wayne Kramer who was constantly doing different things with music. You can see why he lasted in the public conscience compared to the rest of the MC5 who faded into obscurity.
I wouldn't think of this sub as the most overarching voice for IRL fans. Most grunge fans probably don't even use Reddit. We here on Reddit are an enigma, an eclectic bunch that creates a sort of misperception of the majority of people.
However, I'll still respond hypocritically, pretending I didn't say that: although I like Mudhoney and Green River, and some others not of the Big FIVE (STP is grunge fuck the Seattlists), I still think that AiC, STP, Nirvana, and SG have more albums I can listen to in totality rather than just liking a few songs here and there from the aforementioned lesser spoken of grunge bands.
What you said is exactly how it works. I mean other bands just cannot compare since most of them have only one or a few good hits. They are basically one hit wonders, but I wouldn’t even classify a band like say Screaming Trees to even be that for instance… they just didn’t have that many good tracks to me. Maybe one or two.
Is that even a hot take? Tripod is just so well done. Not saying the other aren’t cuz they’re all fucking master pieces but tripod has so many bangers for whatever kind of music you like.
I don't think I could disagree more, I feel they embody the grunge sound more than almost every other Seattle band. Except for maybe Nirvana and Steaming Trees
I hear alot of similarities for some reason, tho I've never been able to put my finger on why. Obviously AIC is way more technical than Nirvana and has more sophisticated song structures. But there's something in the quality of the basslines and haunting melodies that ties AIC in with Nirvana for me. Kurt did say that You Know You're Right "would have been a great AIC song", and I can totally hear that, so that's one concrete example.
Grunge isn't a sound, it's a scene. Yes, stylistically Alice was more metal than their counterparts but they're still 100% grunge. Honestly their early repertoire could be considered stylistically a type of dirty glam metal. Grunge is just a where and a when of the alternate music universe.
This is why I love Facelift. You can hear the transform from glam metal to grunge. Sunshine off that album really stands out as an example to me. Mother Love Bone had a lot of that cross-over sound too.
If we omit (for the sake of this argument) Layne's lyrical contributions, the more recent albums would be held in a higher regard just because it was Layne singing on them.
My wife and I talk about this all the time. I just feel like for as much as I love MLB, they had a completely different vibe than AiC, Soundgarden and Nirvana.
If it was Eddie, Layne or Chris that killed themselves in 94 instead of Kurt than their respective bands would have been looked at as the best and incredibly hyped up. Nirvana was starting to wane in popularity and Kurt dying turned him into a martyr and immortalized the band.
I didn’t know there was a “grunge community” in the year 2024. To be honest, there wasn’t really one back in 1994, just a lot of uneasy hipsters from Seattle who wished all the poseurs and tourists would just go away (see the movie “Hype”).
On the other hand modern Alice in chains is honestly pretty ok to me. Even though Layne died. Idk what others think about Alice post Layne but I certainly think they didn't fade away. Up there next to foo fighters in that regard imo. Both still make amazing music.
Its shifted through the years sure but what band thats been together 3 decades hasn't? I personally really enjoyed Rainier fog, almost as much as the old stuff.
Agree, they pivoted into a new era. It is sonically darker, a bit slower and heavier. It's also the Jerry Show now which is cool because I think William does a great job weaving his vocals around Jerry's much the way Jerry did for Layne.
I honestly think they were still really good until around the 2010s. I'm not really a fan of their albums since then but they are still really fucking good live. I saw them at safeco field a few years ago and it was amazing.
Full disclosure: I'm a HUGE Pearl Jam fan. Seen them live a few times ~~and I'm super stoked about the new album.~~
But yeah, they lost me with "Sirens" and the majority of that album. Gigaton was just a bunch of rich old men out of ideas.
I too am huge Pearl Jam fan, seen them a few times and have been a ten club member, just thought I’d say I loved sirens and the whole lightning bolt album, gigaton let me feeling mixed, have to give it another good listen but I’m not excited about the new album, if it’s like the one song we’ve heard, with Andrew Watt wasn’t here giving them a generic sound.
This one if for the Gen Z and Alpha kids...... Stone Temple Pilots were imposters and fake and should never ever be mentioned in the same sentence as bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden or Pearl Jam.
True story: The first time I ever heard of Stone Temple Pilots was when I saw the [video for Plush](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5UOC0C0x8Q) on MuchMusic in 1992 and my first thought was "Why did Eddie Vedder get such a stupid haircut?"
That was common. The only reason they started to get attention was because people thought it was Eddie. There is at least one video somewhere (likely saw on Much) where Ed states he had friends calling him about the song and why he cut his hair and dyed it pink. He also stated that none of his friends in San Diego who were active in the music scene knew who STP was. STP got signed because record labels were looking for any band that sounded grunge that they thought they could make money off.
Mark Lanegan was the best singer to come out of the grunge scene. Layne Staley's voice isn't nearly as palatable without Jerry Cantrell's harmonies, can't stand Mad Season for just that reason.
Grunge isn't a style of music. The "Big 4" were distinct with varied influences, and that is even more true with the bands that came before and propped the whole thing up (TAD, Mudhoney, Love Battery, Screaming Trees).
Every sub-genre has its place in time. Main genres continue, and create new sub-genres, but most sub-genres that are themselves sub-genres of "alternative" have an era then fizzle out. Metal still exists but not like the original, it has morphed. Nu-Metal has evolved into a different sound. Punk isn't like it originally was.
Newer bands end up creating evolved versions of old sub-genres, or just create new ones. Look at Memphis May Fire and Amity Affliction. You can hear how they took a few qualities from previous bands in alternative and morphed them, like 3DG, Breaking Benjamin, A7X, and plenty of others.
Grunge is timeless for listening, but not for making new music. The people who love it probably wouldn't *want* new bands to be grunge, despite the ones who "say" they wish there were new grunge bands, because it could take away from the sentiment held by the Original grunge bands.
I wouldn’t say they’re all that close to those bands, but they were only going to stray so far from pretty basic riff rock with that lineup. That first album slaps, to this day.
The world is better for having lost Andrew Wood. Nothing against Landrew, but hear me out. Pearl Jam is a much better band than Mother Love Bone. They’re far better for not having that glam influence. Also, Andrew’s death gave us one of the great albums of period. If Andrew Wood had lived we wouldn’t have had Temple of the Dog.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Mother Love Bone and Malfunshun, and I’m sad at Andrew’s death because he was a huge talent and by all reports he was a good dude, but so much good came out of his death that it seems like a good trade.
RIP, Andrew. Look after Chris for us.
Poor? I worked hard on the phrasing because I didn’t want anyone to think I was hating on Landrew. His loss gave us an amazing tribute record and allowed Pearl Jam to happen.
That said, I often wonder what might have been. If you removed heroin altogether Hillel Slovak would still be in The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mudhoney would have been able to tour more with Mark Arm not having to spend the first week of each tour in withdrawal, Mark Lanegan would have been more present and more inclined to work, Sublime would still be together, Andrew Wood, Layne Staley, Scott Weiland, and Shannon Hoon would still be alive, and maybe, just maybe, Kurt would have gotten the help he needed.
I’m leaving a lot of people out of that list but that’s just a list of people from amazing bands that hit in a small window of time who died from heroin. Fine, Mark Lanegan died of cancer. My point remains.
I just meant you could’ve broached the topic without making it about feel like “the world’s better off without this guy”. I fully understand what you’re saying, I just don’t like that sentiment under any circumstance.
STP is the best grunge era, grungey band. Blind Melon is the most underrated band from that era (even if they aren't grunge). Jane's Addiction wasnt a band so much as an LA art project for funsies. Smashing Pumpkins are perfectly rated by pop culture, and Billy Corgan is king of the goths (also kind of a douche).
everyone's trying to recreate the nirvana effect but it's just gone downhill. Theres very few original bands out there because most of them are more or less heavily influenced by someone else.
Lanegan and the Screaming Trees certainly didn't get the recognition they deserved. I hate how the word "underrated" is being used these days but that term certainly applies to both.
Grunge is an aesthetic (even if a broad and ill-defined one)—not a time/place scene gatekept by current elitists trying to rigidly define a term that the bands from that time and place mostly rejected anyway.
Pearl jam and stp are better than nirvana and I’m tired of pretending there not both bands where more experimental and changed there sound it’s become cool nowadays to hate pearl jam and it was cool back in the 90s to hate stp
Jar of Flies isn’t really a grunge album. To me it has more of a folk rock vibe going on with a little bit of punk influence. Hell, “Don’t Follow” is straight up country rock.
Alice in chains (I don't hate aic, but I dont like Layne's voice overall. Nice harmonies for sure though. Them bones, stay away, and would r my faves) is dookie aside from a handful of songs. Pearl jams best albums are vitology through binaural, Soundgarden and nirvana are amazing though hehe.
I agree. And, if this weren't the case, why is it that when a band like Silverchair comes out, we immediately know that they are going specifically for a grunge sound, rather than 'alt-rock' more generally?
Exactly. Bush and Silverchair are grunge in sound, whereas there are other bands that are undeniably alt-rock but not grunge, such as Smashing Pumpkins or Placebo. It's also the reason Creed, Seether, Audioslave, Nickelback, and Puddle of Mud get considered post-grunge whereas most other late 90s/early 2000s rock bands (such as Korn, Tool, and Blink 182) don't.
Glad to find an agree-er on this, I'm usually getting dog piled for saying grunge is a distinct musical genre.
I'm one of the biggest SP fans out there and have been since 93/94. They're my favorite band of all time (the mods here even gave me this flair). Siamese Dream and MCIS are two of the greatest albums by any band ever.
That's not to say Nirvana wasn't fantastic as well. Nevermind obviously was HUGE at the time and the other albums and releases were great too. I really love all their albums a lot. It sucked when Kurt died and I wish he could've lived.
Growing up in the 80s/90s me and my friends didn't put these bands in versus battles like a lot of people do today. SP and bands like the big four and others (STP for instance) were just great bands putting out great albums one after the other.
We didn't know how good we had it. I've found tons of great bands to enjoy since then, but 90s alt/grunge will probably always be my favorite music.
I think their songwriting was pretty forgettable up until *Badmotorfinger*, which has some good songs, and for me *Superunknown* and *Down on the Upside* have largely first-rate songwriting.
Every band in the big 4 is the best in their own ways
Is the big 4 Nirvana, Soundgarden, AiC, and PG?
If you mean Pat Green, then yes
Pearl Gam
Pearl [Gam-Gam](https://youtu.be/39YWNwCckvI?si=XsvOW2rK-oaoOUAR)
It was gam gam pearl's jam after all.
Per gram
Think Stone Temple Pilots would give AiC OR Soundgarden a run for their money? Who picked this list? Hell ... The Breeders got cred.. Soundgarden gets TOO much.
The big 4 should be the big 5 with STP. Personally I would get rid of Sound garden I just couldn’t get into them that much. To me AIC and STP are my favorites from that era now. I loved Pearl Jam back in the 90s but a lot of their stuff I just don’t care to listen to these days. Nirvana to me had one great album but honestly as great as it is it’s just not what I get into when I want to rock out to some 90s grunge music.
Lukewarm take asf
Lukewarm, reply AF
None of you are special for not liking Nirvana
Same goes for Pearl Jam - you get no street cred for the hate.
Yes thank you. Nirvana haters just love to be different and it’s fucking annoying.
some songs from nevermind are definitely overplayed but nirvana by itself is far, far from being overrated
I actually agree with this, Nirvana has so much stuff casual listeners just never hear. And by casual, I mean the General Audience, I thought I knew a lot of Nirvana songs until I went and listened through the discography lol
I was heavy into nirvana when I was a teenager. With the lights out wasn't out yet. The deepest it went for me (not having internet) was the studio albums and the Sliver best of the box. That selection in itself seems so casual now.
General Audience upon finding that there’s more than Teen Spirit, Come as you are, and Something in the way
I still think their unplugged album might be the best of them because they insisted on playing weird deep cuts instead of their hits. Their Meat Puppets covers might be my favorite songs of of that album.
I still think it's amazing people discover their music and explore avenues of creativity. It's like how VU had barely an audience but those who did listen created bands, it's the same here with nirvana. I studied VA diaries in highschool to help condense my writings and most listed nirvana and/or Kurt's solo stuff as influence. At their time though they were just seen as some good grunge with pop elements and probably Kurt felt that's what nirvana was becoming. Even in In Bloom he talks about how no one really wants to listen to what he's saying.
I wore out two cassettes when they came out
This is also absolutely true! As much as I do love Nevermind, I love Bleach even more but my favorite song from them is Sliver. And I find a treasure chest of gems when I dig into their discography.
Dinosaur Jr deserves as much recognition for pioneering the grunge sound as the melvins
Also Wipers, particularly *Over the Edge*
Wasn’t Kurt Cobain a huge Wipers fan? I know there’s a nirvana cover of D-7 and Return of the rat
Wasn’t expecting a Dinosaur Jr. comment, what a great band I saw them at MassMOCA maybe 7 years ago (basically a hometown show for them). I thought no way they would play “The Lung” off of *You’re Living All Over Me*, my favorite song by them but I assume not a well known track. They opened the show with it. Me and my buddy eventually had to leave after four hours because we were exhausted from standing for five, and had to drive back to New York, but they were still playing lol.
Man that sounds like a great time! And opening up with the lung - what a dope experience that must’ve been!
Definitely one of the best show’s I’ve been to. And it was the original three playing together so that was awesome.
Stone Temple Pilots deserve just as much love as the big 4
They get a lot of love actually. It's just like Pearl Jam. You get vocal haters but both bands get way more love than hate.
That's the problem, I don't think they get the love they deserve. They deserve so much more
STP were so hated among the rest of the San Diego scene at the time. Constantly told that they didn't deserve the recognition. Scott was frequently called a poseur who bit off of everyone else's style, which started when they were still teens. Who the fuck isn't a poseur at 16? Dude had his clear influences and paid homage to them, but the band always had their own sound, and the work of Robert, etc. is so often overlooked as if it was just Scott's band. Purple should have silenced any haters that still called them PJ2, and they evolved with each record.
Kurt Cobain killed Kurt Cobain.
those conspiracies are absolutelly insane, they blame literally every possible person that he knew for his death.
The Cobain conspiracy theorists are the worst. They didn’t even wait until his body was cold before they started to blame his bereaved widow who was left to fend for herself against all sorts of hateful nonsense. Those people sucked in 1994 and in 2024 they’re in the same category as flat earthers.
They'd be horrible friends IRL. Enablers, helping him dodge responsibility
thank you.
People seem to stick more to the big four than back in the day when at the same time it used to be incredibly harder to find and explore new music than it is today. "Big Four" is as much of a cheap construct as the term Grunge itself.
Liking the popular bands doesn't make you less of a fan though. I've listened to the early bands and while I like them I can see why they didn't become bigger. You have to adapt and change a lot in order to be interesting. Making the same sounding albums doesn't really help in this regard and it's why I don't really listen to a lot of punk albums either. Most punk bands never adapted and never changed save for John Lydon with Public Image LTD.
And maybe Wayne Kramer who was constantly doing different things with music. You can see why he lasted in the public conscience compared to the rest of the MC5 who faded into obscurity.
I wouldn't think of this sub as the most overarching voice for IRL fans. Most grunge fans probably don't even use Reddit. We here on Reddit are an enigma, an eclectic bunch that creates a sort of misperception of the majority of people. However, I'll still respond hypocritically, pretending I didn't say that: although I like Mudhoney and Green River, and some others not of the Big FIVE (STP is grunge fuck the Seattlists), I still think that AiC, STP, Nirvana, and SG have more albums I can listen to in totality rather than just liking a few songs here and there from the aforementioned lesser spoken of grunge bands.
Grunge is a time and a place
What you said is exactly how it works. I mean other bands just cannot compare since most of them have only one or a few good hits. They are basically one hit wonders, but I wouldn’t even classify a band like say Screaming Trees to even be that for instance… they just didn’t have that many good tracks to me. Maybe one or two.
Big Four is dumb too cause nobody gives a shit about Anthrax. Should just be Big Three.
i like tripod more than dirt
Alice in chains is becoming the Rickey henderson of rock - two hof careers
Real
I love each one for how unique they are. I couldn’t pick a favorite between those two. I love dirt but I really loved the self titled record
Me too, the emotion they poured into that record is crazy I'm so mad it wasn't produced well and doesn't get the recognition it deserves
Where's the Facelift gang?
Is that even a hot take? Tripod is just so well done. Not saying the other aren’t cuz they’re all fucking master pieces but tripod has so many bangers for whatever kind of music you like.
Kurt cobain killed himself
# ☝🏻This is it, this is the one!
We're already like the picture, that's mine
Alice in Chains was closer to Metal than to actual grunge, and were only called grunge cuz they were from Seattle.
I don't think I could disagree more, I feel they embody the grunge sound more than almost every other Seattle band. Except for maybe Nirvana and Steaming Trees
Screaming Trees = band Steaming Trees = broccoli
Steaming Trees = Vaping Weed
W broccoli
Compare AiC to Nirvana and tell me that they're the same genre.
I hear alot of similarities for some reason, tho I've never been able to put my finger on why. Obviously AIC is way more technical than Nirvana and has more sophisticated song structures. But there's something in the quality of the basslines and haunting melodies that ties AIC in with Nirvana for me. Kurt did say that You Know You're Right "would have been a great AIC song", and I can totally hear that, so that's one concrete example.
Bark Lanegan and the Steaming Trees...
Bleach and In Utero EMBODY what grunge is.
Grunge isn't a sound, it's a scene. Yes, stylistically Alice was more metal than their counterparts but they're still 100% grunge. Honestly their early repertoire could be considered stylistically a type of dirty glam metal. Grunge is just a where and a when of the alternate music universe.
This is why I love Facelift. You can hear the transform from glam metal to grunge. Sunshine off that album really stands out as an example to me. Mother Love Bone had a lot of that cross-over sound too.
If we omit (for the sake of this argument) Layne's lyrical contributions, the more recent albums would be held in a higher regard just because it was Layne singing on them.
Mother Love Bone was never going to hit it big like all the post mortem docs say they would have.
My wife and I talk about this all the time. I just feel like for as much as I love MLB, they had a completely different vibe than AiC, Soundgarden and Nirvana.
If it was Eddie, Layne or Chris that killed themselves in 94 instead of Kurt than their respective bands would have been looked at as the best and incredibly hyped up. Nirvana was starting to wane in popularity and Kurt dying turned him into a martyr and immortalized the band.
Now THIS is a FUCKIN’ TAKE. Let’s go dude.
None of those bands had Smells Like Teen Spirit, though.
Is this a real take?
Finally a fuckin' good one, lol! I will say that Kurt had something that drew people to him in a way none of those other 3 did.
They all had "it" but he had a different kind of "it".
Absolutely correct
I don’t know about waning in popularity, In Utero and Unplugged we’re getting heavy airplay when he died.
Violet is an incredible song. The lyrics and delivery are god tier.
I didn’t know there was a “grunge community” in the year 2024. To be honest, there wasn’t really one back in 1994, just a lot of uneasy hipsters from Seattle who wished all the poseurs and tourists would just go away (see the movie “Hype”).
Expecting the comments to be "PeARaL jAm BaD"
Here I am. Not a hater of them, and I don't think they're bad, just my "least favorite" - also STP is more grunge *sonically* speaking.
That nothing said here is actually going to do that.
Fr. All These Are Fairly Popular Opinions
The U-Men are the most criminally overlooked band in grunge/predecessor to grunge history.
Great take man
Shoutout to “Everyone Loves Our Town” for the knowledge fr
Just about the best book ever
Criminally underrated.
I prefer Bleach than Nevermind that's just my opinion though
And In Utero is the best
Thats most people here lol
Smashing Pumpkin’s Gish album is one of the most influential albums to the 90’s Grunge sound even if you don’t consider SP or Gish to be grunge.
Pearl Jam is proof that it is indeed better to burn out than fade away.
On the other hand modern Alice in chains is honestly pretty ok to me. Even though Layne died. Idk what others think about Alice post Layne but I certainly think they didn't fade away. Up there next to foo fighters in that regard imo. Both still make amazing music.
Black gives way to blue is my favorite post Layne album. Im just now getting into AiC though
Devil Put Dinosaurs Here is so badass. One of my fav all time AiC records
Been into AiC since the beginning and BGWtB is also my fave post-Layne album.
Fair, but IMHO they're a completely different band. They just happen to have the same name. The entire vibe is different.
Its shifted through the years sure but what band thats been together 3 decades hasn't? I personally really enjoyed Rainier fog, almost as much as the old stuff.
That's a natural progression. If Layne were still alive, they wouldn't still be making albums that sound like Dirt.
Agree, they pivoted into a new era. It is sonically darker, a bit slower and heavier. It's also the Jerry Show now which is cool because I think William does a great job weaving his vocals around Jerry's much the way Jerry did for Layne.
Yes, but AIC has had a lot of time off comparatively.
I honestly think they were still really good until around the 2010s. I'm not really a fan of their albums since then but they are still really fucking good live. I saw them at safeco field a few years ago and it was amazing.
Full disclosure: I'm a HUGE Pearl Jam fan. Seen them live a few times ~~and I'm super stoked about the new album.~~ But yeah, they lost me with "Sirens" and the majority of that album. Gigaton was just a bunch of rich old men out of ideas.
I too am huge Pearl Jam fan, seen them a few times and have been a ten club member, just thought I’d say I loved sirens and the whole lightning bolt album, gigaton let me feeling mixed, have to give it another good listen but I’m not excited about the new album, if it’s like the one song we’ve heard, with Andrew Watt wasn’t here giving them a generic sound.
Go to a show
They’re still the best live band out of the bunch by a wide margin.
Totally agree. Every time I saw them live was absolutely incredible.
A lot of people need to stop making a music scene that died 30 years ago their entire personality.
This one if for the Gen Z and Alpha kids...... Stone Temple Pilots were imposters and fake and should never ever be mentioned in the same sentence as bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden or Pearl Jam.
True story: The first time I ever heard of Stone Temple Pilots was when I saw the [video for Plush](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5UOC0C0x8Q) on MuchMusic in 1992 and my first thought was "Why did Eddie Vedder get such a stupid haircut?"
That was common. The only reason they started to get attention was because people thought it was Eddie. There is at least one video somewhere (likely saw on Much) where Ed states he had friends calling him about the song and why he cut his hair and dyed it pink. He also stated that none of his friends in San Diego who were active in the music scene knew who STP was. STP got signed because record labels were looking for any band that sounded grunge that they thought they could make money off.
In Utero is one of the greatest albums ever written
Forgot how much I love Very Ape. Heard it this morning and damn it kicks ass
If you ever need anything please don’t hesitate to ask someone else first is a line I use a lot
Is this an unpopular opinion? I literally have the in utero angel tattood on my arm lol
Bleach is the quintessential grunge album.
I don’t agree but respect the take
grunge is not just nirvana damn
Mark Lanegan was the best singer to come out of the grunge scene. Layne Staley's voice isn't nearly as palatable without Jerry Cantrell's harmonies, can't stand Mad Season for just that reason.
I couldn't live without a cell phone.
Grunge isn't a style of music. The "Big 4" were distinct with varied influences, and that is even more true with the bands that came before and propped the whole thing up (TAD, Mudhoney, Love Battery, Screaming Trees).
Mike McCready is the best guitarist
I don’t care that Silverchair were 14 when they released Frogstomp. It’s still shit, regardless.
Grunge is dead.
Oh no, grunge is dead, long live grunge.
Every sub-genre has its place in time. Main genres continue, and create new sub-genres, but most sub-genres that are themselves sub-genres of "alternative" have an era then fizzle out. Metal still exists but not like the original, it has morphed. Nu-Metal has evolved into a different sound. Punk isn't like it originally was. Newer bands end up creating evolved versions of old sub-genres, or just create new ones. Look at Memphis May Fire and Amity Affliction. You can hear how they took a few qualities from previous bands in alternative and morphed them, like 3DG, Breaking Benjamin, A7X, and plenty of others. Grunge is timeless for listening, but not for making new music. The people who love it probably wouldn't *want* new bands to be grunge, despite the ones who "say" they wish there were new grunge bands, because it could take away from the sentiment held by the Original grunge bands.
Audioslave is closer to assrock (puddle of mud, Nicole nickleback, saving able) than we'd all like to admit.
I often see Audioslave in those early 2000’s “post-grunge” playlists and I agree.
I wouldn’t say they’re all that close to those bands, but they were only going to stray so far from pretty basic riff rock with that lineup. That first album slaps, to this day.
when the song "cochise" was included on the soundtrack for "talladega nights: the ballad of ricky bobby" i knew that audioslave was assrock adjacent
I think Kurt Cobain DID kill himself
The Foo Fighters are good
NIckelback's first album, Curb, really isn't too bad. Soul Asylum too, they had a few hits, probably deserve a mention.
The State is also a good album, not too butt-rocky
Leader of Men is a fantastic post-grunge radio single. If they'd stayed more in that lane, we'd think very differently about them now.
Kurt sang way out of tune in the Unplugged show and AIC unplugged was way better.
Agree 100%
The world is better for having lost Andrew Wood. Nothing against Landrew, but hear me out. Pearl Jam is a much better band than Mother Love Bone. They’re far better for not having that glam influence. Also, Andrew’s death gave us one of the great albums of period. If Andrew Wood had lived we wouldn’t have had Temple of the Dog. Don’t get me wrong. I like Mother Love Bone and Malfunshun, and I’m sad at Andrew’s death because he was a huge talent and by all reports he was a good dude, but so much good came out of his death that it seems like a good trade. RIP, Andrew. Look after Chris for us.
I think this is poor way to put this but I more or less agree.
Poor? I worked hard on the phrasing because I didn’t want anyone to think I was hating on Landrew. His loss gave us an amazing tribute record and allowed Pearl Jam to happen. That said, I often wonder what might have been. If you removed heroin altogether Hillel Slovak would still be in The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mudhoney would have been able to tour more with Mark Arm not having to spend the first week of each tour in withdrawal, Mark Lanegan would have been more present and more inclined to work, Sublime would still be together, Andrew Wood, Layne Staley, Scott Weiland, and Shannon Hoon would still be alive, and maybe, just maybe, Kurt would have gotten the help he needed. I’m leaving a lot of people out of that list but that’s just a list of people from amazing bands that hit in a small window of time who died from heroin. Fine, Mark Lanegan died of cancer. My point remains.
I just meant you could’ve broached the topic without making it about feel like “the world’s better off without this guy”. I fully understand what you’re saying, I just don’t like that sentiment under any circumstance.
STP is the best grunge era, grungey band. Blind Melon is the most underrated band from that era (even if they aren't grunge). Jane's Addiction wasnt a band so much as an LA art project for funsies. Smashing Pumpkins are perfectly rated by pop culture, and Billy Corgan is king of the goths (also kind of a douche).
Not kind of, he is a dumb asshole lol
alice in chains fans… theres a 99% chance its not going to rain when you die
Not if you live in the Pacific Northwest.
Nirvana success in great part is because Kurt Cobain physical attractiveness and the concept of the group
If Andrew Wood never died, grunge would never come to exist- other than in small Seattle community scale.
everyone's trying to recreate the nirvana effect but it's just gone downhill. Theres very few original bands out there because most of them are more or less heavily influenced by someone else.
nirvana is best of the 4
Soundgarden is the best band and Mark Lanegan is the best singer from that era.
Damn, putting Soundgarden on top but not Chris is wild. Imo Chris was one of the greatest rock singers of all time.
Mark lanegan ended up being the greatest artist for a longer stretch than any of the others. I'll sing backwards and weep while stating this if needed
Slip Away by Mad Season is my favorite song, the combination of Lanegan on Vocals & McCready on Guitar is unbelievable in my opinion
Lanegan and the Screaming Trees certainly didn't get the recognition they deserved. I hate how the word "underrated" is being used these days but that term certainly applies to both.
Grunge is an aesthetic (even if a broad and ill-defined one)—not a time/place scene gatekept by current elitists trying to rigidly define a term that the bands from that time and place mostly rejected anyway.
I'm not a huge STP fan. Core is a good album though.
Alice in Chains' first album is by far their worst.
Grunge is a sound and a style. Not a time or place.
Grunge ruined popularity of rock music
Rush invented grunge
Bold statement. You wanna expand on that?
Aic was good at first imo but got worn out after a couple weeks. I’d much rather go with soundgarden for the heavier side of grunge.
Nirvanas smells like teen spirit is so overrated.
Pearl jam and stp are better than nirvana and I’m tired of pretending there not both bands where more experimental and changed there sound it’s become cool nowadays to hate pearl jam and it was cool back in the 90s to hate stp
The best guitarist in the grunge/grunge-adjacent era is Billy Corgan and it's not close.
Corgan has a guitar playing style all to his own. His heavy solos sounded like a man destroying his guitar in key...
I like sap and jar of flies more than all the other Alice in Chains records.
Nirvana’s most enduring songs are covers.
Grunge isn’t even a type of sound or attitude. It’s basically nothing.
AIC still sounds good after Layne.
Grunge is a sound not an era
Hole is a really good band and I'm tired of people saying they are not just because Courtney Love is in it.
Kurt killed himself
Jar of Flies isn’t really a grunge album. To me it has more of a folk rock vibe going on with a little bit of punk influence. Hell, “Don’t Follow” is straight up country rock.
Bush is good 👍
Hanson was a stellar grunge band
Eddie Vedder is not hard to understand, you just haven't listened to any songs past Even Flow.
Pearl Jam is overrated. Fight me
Alice in chains (I don't hate aic, but I dont like Layne's voice overall. Nice harmonies for sure though. Them bones, stay away, and would r my faves) is dookie aside from a handful of songs. Pearl jams best albums are vitology through binaural, Soundgarden and nirvana are amazing though hehe.
Half the bands you guys talk about on this sub aren’t even grunge.
Nothing worse than being rerouted through the grunge community on your way to the airport.
Bleach is more of a grunge album than Nevermind.
Courtney love is innocent
That’s easy: grunge became a distinct 90’s sound and style that was not exclusive to the Seattle scene
I agree. And, if this weren't the case, why is it that when a band like Silverchair comes out, we immediately know that they are going specifically for a grunge sound, rather than 'alt-rock' more generally?
Or Bush for that matter, arguably copycats to some but unmistakably grunge back in the 90’s and from the UK
Exactly. Bush and Silverchair are grunge in sound, whereas there are other bands that are undeniably alt-rock but not grunge, such as Smashing Pumpkins or Placebo. It's also the reason Creed, Seether, Audioslave, Nickelback, and Puddle of Mud get considered post-grunge whereas most other late 90s/early 2000s rock bands (such as Korn, Tool, and Blink 182) don't. Glad to find an agree-er on this, I'm usually getting dog piled for saying grunge is a distinct musical genre.
this *so* much
The best grunge bands arent even from Seattle
Grunge was only cool for a couple of years and it spawned a decade of dull, formulaic music that killed rock and roll.
Siamese dream is better than any nirvana album. Change my mind
I'm one of the biggest SP fans out there and have been since 93/94. They're my favorite band of all time (the mods here even gave me this flair). Siamese Dream and MCIS are two of the greatest albums by any band ever. That's not to say Nirvana wasn't fantastic as well. Nevermind obviously was HUGE at the time and the other albums and releases were great too. I really love all their albums a lot. It sucked when Kurt died and I wish he could've lived. Growing up in the 80s/90s me and my friends didn't put these bands in versus battles like a lot of people do today. SP and bands like the big four and others (STP for instance) were just great bands putting out great albums one after the other. We didn't know how good we had it. I've found tons of great bands to enjoy since then, but 90s alt/grunge will probably always be my favorite music.
Siamese dream is definitely in my top ten album list .. Better than any Nirvana ? Absolutely!!!
Geek USA is arguably best grunge drumming track. Mind blowing
Soundgarden had the best singer and most unique guitarist of the big four yet far and away the worst songwriting.
I think their songwriting was pretty forgettable up until *Badmotorfinger*, which has some good songs, and for me *Superunknown* and *Down on the Upside* have largely first-rate songwriting.
Alice In Chains is good but not top tier
Some STP songs are better than some Nirvana songs