Anxiety said:

Agreed. Kurt's humourous loaded drag moment definitely cut the edge of the seriousness of the ball.

PFunkjazz said:

Another reason to loathe them in that case.

novabrkr said:

I grew up on it so I'm biased in that sense. But it was kinda cool that you had guys that actually thought about things other than drinking, fucking, and getting high being successful for once. Not that I don't like those things, but i can't imagine putting a whole lot of faith in a band like Poison when they're so shallow to begin with.

At least Nirvana had some depth. Nevermind was a very commercial record, but with In Utero, they moved in a different direction and in my mind, that was their best album. They even showed how good the songcraft was in the Unplugged album.

I heard that Courney Love once said that "funk sucks"

Meloh9 said:

She is an expert in funk!

Anxiety said:

I can pretty much agree with all of this.

PeteZarustica said:

Trust me, anyone who liked rock music then could tell the difference between those bands, and there was a big difference.

Moonbeam said:

me too, i wonder why hole and nirvana are the grand exception? they do sound different from the rest.

Cinnie said:

I can't really comment on Hole - don't know any of their albums - but I'll never complain when Nirvana comes on because - pace whatever else they were - they were a really great pop band. even at their noisiest, they almost always had really striking, interesting melodies.

Cinnie said:

Not sure, exactly, but I know Kurt was a very gifted melodist. I don't really know much by Hole, but I can see the link to Nirvana. Beyond that, it's pretty dismal for me, although I like a few STP singles, particularly "Sour Girl".

Soundgarden was metal, alt metal maybe. The whole grunge term cannot even be applied to these bands other than they became popular around the same time. None of these bands sound "grungy" if you compare them to the Melvins.
[Edited 11/12/07 16:35pm]

I don't know about the genre, but I like Nirvana.

damosuzuki said:

You beat me to it!

Moonbeam said:

See, I think STP easily eclipsed bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam as the best grunge had to offer. They were truer to melody and harmony than most. "Interstate Love Song" is easily the best grunge song IMO -- it's a great pop/rock song period.
[Edited 11/12/07 17:00pm]

Moonbeam said:

maybe we aren't as completely divergent in our tastes as I thought?

AlexdeParis said:

I do love "Interstate Love Song". I don't know if I consider it the "best" grunge song, but it is one of the best.

lilgish said:

That's a good point. It's funny cause a band like SOundgarden was almost not very commercial. They used a lot of odd meter riffs and Chris Cornell sang melodies that the average rock listener probably wouldn't have been able to sing along to, yet they were very successful. And yeah, they were a lot different from most of he other bands. Light years ahead in some ways.

It ruined rock 'n roll.

guitarslinger44 said:

Part of the reason for this is because grunge laid the platform for alternative music. Soundgarden may be a hard rock band but they are not metal, if anything they were an alternative band in the true sense of the term. I’m surprise that there is so much disdain on the org for grunge in general, mainly because there are so many fans of Radiohead here. Grunge and alternative music was the launching pad for bands like Radiohead and if it wasn’t for grunge replacing the hair metal scene, bands like Radiohead may have had a harder time getting established. There first album was Pablo Honey, not Kid A.

To expand on my previous post:

Rock used to be about getting wasted, scoring with girls, and having fun.

Grunge is about how much life sucks.

The guy who introduced me to Bruce Springsteen said, "You will love this guy! All his songs are about cars and girls."

That same guy would have to introduce grunge like this: "Here's a new band from Seattle. All their songs are about killing themselves because life sucks. Plus, they don't know how to play anything without maximum distortion and drop-D tuning, so all their songs sound exactly the same."

Axchi696 said:

AIC rules. I'd put 'DIRT' a notch above 'Jar of Flies', mostly because of 'Would?'

Layne Staley & Chris Cornell are two of the best rock vocalists ever, IMO.

FarrahMoan said:

Grunge "killed" heavy metal. That in itself made rock & roll turn for the worst.
Apart from two songs from the genre (Smell Like Teen Spirit, Black Hole Sun), I really don't miss grunge at all.

Anxiety said:

Right there was the real problem for you. You might have been listening to the wrong metal bands.

For myself, it's all about Poison, Guns-N-Roses, Motley Crue, & Ratt. I dare you OR anyone to try to tell me that they weren't rebels.

I like Pearl Jam and Everclear

TonyVanDam said:

I like most of those bands you mentioned, too. Although, those Metalheads that you favored wouldn't like some of the Glam-Rockers you mentioned in your list (Poision, Motley Crue, etc.). Well, Motley Crue is kind of questionable in that department. Then again, not really.....

TonyVanDam said:

Sure, I'll take the bait.

Regardless of their musical quality - of the four bands you mentioned, I find one to be very good, two sorta OK and one really dire - they're all pretty conservative. The clothes and the haircuts are total formula. The lyrics are all familiar from Kiss and AC/DC songs. All four are pretty similar in terms of music, nothing going on you couldn;t have heard in a Sweet album ten years earlier.

I heard all those bands when they first hit and only Guns And Roses was the least bit of a surprise.

And yeah they got real wasted and screwed a lot of chicks but how rebellious is that? That's living every school kid's dream.

Now Napalm Death, there's a rebel band for you.

I couldn't stand it. Middle class kids whining about how life sucks. The only band of the whole genre i liked was Soundgarden, they somehow managed to be part of the grunge yet remain outside it. Arguably the most talented of all the bands too with best vocalist.