WHET Grunge?

It was a GenX thing, and as with all things GenX, it was overtaken by the preferences of Millennials (a much larger generation) in short order - Britney Spears and NSync.

I was grateful when Grunge killed Hair Bands overnight.

Grunge will be my next era!

Actually, there as a gap of a few years between the decline of grunge and Britney and N Sync.

Sadly, grunge unalived itself

I remember a lot of bubblegummy sounding rock in the mid and late 90s then the pop shit. There was some good stuff in the 90s like Brit pop and REM

It morphed into butt rock. Think bands like Creed or Puddle of Mudd that were treated as jokes.

R6 I never heard the term butt rock before but it’s perfect.

[quote] I remember a lot of bubblegummy sounding rock in the mid and late 90s then the pop shit.

The best example is Bush. They were nothing but a boy band version of Soundgarden.

ps. I didn’t connect with grunge that much but Hunger Strike was one of the few grunge songs I liked. I could recognize it on artistic terms.

I miss flannel shirts

It felt very Gen X - if hard Rock and punk rock had a more melodic and serious child. Very angsty, cynical and 'whatever'. I'm glad it destroyed those dumb hair bands with more makeup on than a Sunset Blvd hooker.

Thank god for Kurt Cobain. He made hair metal obsolete overnight. It was one of the worst genres of music of all time and it was EVERYWHERE when I was a teenager. I couldn't stand it. Nirvana was like a bright light.

Grunge was never a full fledged genre but a sound. It's a blend of hard and alternative rock and was the predominant form of post-punk at that time.

All those genres still exist, they just don't sound the same as 30 years ago because tastes and trends are always changing. It's the same thing with "disco," dance music predated it and still persists. It never died, it just changed and the new sound wasn't disco anymore.

It was very of it's time. For some reason the 90s lacks any distinctive attraction for me. I was working and then in grad school. Friends was on TV and movies like Singles and Reality Bites were in the theaters. I look back more fondly on the 80s.

[quote]All those genres still exist, they just don't sound the same as 30 years ago because tastes and trends are always changing.

Grunge was also very much associated with disaffection, lack of economic prospects and low expectations, a 'DIY' sensibility, and an overall lack of ambition ("slackerism"), and therefore very of its (economic) time, as R14 states. Wasn't this also the generation of musicians that birthed the cliché "We make music for ourselves, and if anyone else likes it, that's a bonus”?

I think any genre that’s attached to a specific place, such as Seattle or Jersey or San Francisco can have a relatively short lifespan. They spring from a particular local scene that’s not easily duplicated elsewhere, at least not with any authenticity.

[quote]of it's time

Oh, dear!

At the time as a Brit Pop fan, I hated grunge. And still do.

For R18:

Hearing grunge in Seattle definitely adds a new layer to it. I’m not a huge fan of the music but am also thankful for the end of hair metal

Grunge had more to do with the bands’ appearance rather than a particular genre of music. It was definitely not hair metal, but there was not much commonality among the stylistic approaches of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden other than serious topics and a healthy dose of depression.

Grunge turned to Alt Music in the 90s

....And to Creed and Nickleback music in the 2000s

Wasn’t it just a marketing term?

[quote]Actually, there as a gap of a few years between the decline of grunge and Britney and N Sync.

The female-dominated Lilith Fair era was squeezed into the years between grunge and Britney.

Grunge was a movement, not a distinct sound. When Collective Soul and Bush had their hits, you knew the end was near for grunge.

I hated Bush but god did I want to fuck Gavin Rossdale.

Eddie Vedder is the only one from that era still alive today.

Was Eddie Vedder not a serious drug user?

I never heard any drug stories about Eddie Vedder. He was apparently one of the few who didn't have a problem.

Eddie is a wino.

Strictly bourgeois