As the debate about is or is not grunge may have legs, I offer this:
We count down the 50 greatest grunge albums, from multi-platinum classics to underground essentials.
www.rollingstone.com
Some interesting selections here. Black Flag's My War? Veruca Salt's American Thighs? Would never categoriz(s)e either as grunge. If they are, then I was an early adopter, cuz I saw Black Flag on that tour (1984, or maybe 1985!). Yes, there's a Neil Young record. And Fun House by The Stooges. Badmotorfinger is #2, not Superunknown, interestingly, sandwiched by the two obvious ones -- Nevermind on top, and 10 at #3.
There's also Hole's Live Through This at #4, and one of my favo(u)rite records, L7's Bricks Are Heavy at #15. You go grrrrrrrrrrrrls.
There's also some mediocre music. Like -- IMO -- Stone Temple Pilots, who allegedly met while attending a show on that very same Black Flag tour, which I guess proves that even they had taste once.
Fun read that. There are 8 albums on that list that I haven't listened to. Including, ironically I guess, Neil Young's one. That really was my time of diving right into music, and just wanting more and more. 10, being a big part of that.
Don't exactly agree with all of them being Grunge, but more than that I don't agree with Nu-metal replacing it as Rock's shiny new object. That was Emo, after a brief period of 'post grunge' when nobody could come up with a better name for a slight pivot made. Which is a very pertinent point, in that All 3 suffered the exact same fate.
Which then makes that worth highlighting, that all the things we are all saying about Grunge as a genre, literally apply to to any other genre or sub-genre.
You could swap it out for any other lable, and the discussion would be identical. With different clothing of course.
I guess that means they all follow the same path. Come out as a reaction to something that has reached comical levels of saturation, by some talented nae-fucks given raw pioneers. Who may or may not find success. Followed by a few champions of the emergence, who will simply follow on and do it well, or maybe even just be at the right place at the right time. Followed by everyone wanting a go, everyone wanting more, and it becoming commercialised. And in turn comically saturated. Leading to, a reaction by some new talanted nae-fucks given pioneers. And of course, the inevitable nostalgia throwbacks when some late to the party will have a go at it years later, and find an audience in those craving one more round. With the purists rejecting it (in the case of Grunge, far more vehemently than others). And at some point, someone will stop and question, hang on, what really IS in the sound, that is that different to what it is borrowing from, going back to or morphing out of.
In that sense, Rob and Threespires are totally right with their comments. It is funny, that just this week on the new music thread I commented on a band releasing a new album at a time when that 'sound' has been done to death, and argued they were too early to the scene and then in the blink of an eye too late. Maybe that cycle of a genre happens a lot faster now. Which is why you see soooo many more lables emerging that it becomes hard to keep up.
Worth also mentioning, we are talking about it as if it only happens to Rock as the broader overarching category, and multiple ribbons of it. But the same happens elsewhere, maybe on a smaller scale. You have nu-jazz, acid-jazz, avant-garde, blues this and that, neofolk, anti-folk, folktronica and so on and on for almost any broader musical style. Probably driven by two things. The need of musicians to express themselves and feel indicidual with an identity, vs the need to sell and sell, and have more and more of what will sell.
