scriptgirl said:

I think STP had cross over appeal, cause they were really watered down grunge

STP was never a grunge band. They were lumped into that category because of the time of their debut was released.

I don't think neither group was really "grunge". That was just another title people put on these musicians. Kurt Cobain was one of the strongest critics against the name grunge.

BeautifulOneJem said:

BeautifulOneJem said:

I consider grunge something like AIC's first album or anything of the like. STP is more alternative.

BeautifulOneJem said:

I consider grunge something like AIC's first album or anything of the like. STP is more alternative.

So you're saying you don't hear any similarities between, say, "We Die Young" and anything from STP's first 2 albums? Really?

Nirvana... the others are boring.

Thursday last week was 10 years since the passing of Layne Staley and 18 since KC. Disturbing, especially the 18 part....

I take any one of Pearl Jam's first four albums over anything by STP or Nirvana.

scriptgirl said:

Rodeo, how come you only pop up in grunge related threads?

First of all, I pop up in all the cool threads!

Second, I feel it is my mission in life to let you young 'uns know that what you think is rock and roll is, in fact, crap and it's the actual crap that killed real rock and roll.

Then after you understand that, it's my hope that you will go listen to REAL rock - you know, music with guitars that are played above the fifth fret and aren't always tuned to drop D because the, ahem, "players" can't make real chords.

And you'll be so inspired that you'll spread the word to all the other young 'uns and you will all pick up guitars and learn how to play them first, and then hook them up to fuzz boxes second instead of the other way around.

So ultimately, your generation will bring back real rock and roll. That's all I want.

Well, that and world peace. I work on world peace in my spare time.

^ See above post. I have especially high hopes for you!

Gunsnhalen said:

RodeoSchro said:

No!

Oh HELL FUCKING NO!

And, NONONONONONO!

Grunge ruined rock. I fart in the general direction of all those alleged "bands".

People are still crying about this? come it's 2012 not 1994

RodeoSchro said:

Second, I feel it is my mission in life to let you young 'uns know that what you think is rock and roll is, in fact, crap and it's the actual crap that killed real rock and roll.

Oh, geez.... stop being so old. One can enjoy grunge and anything else that came before at the same time. And how did it kill rock and roll. Rock and roll is still here and never went away, it just became less popular for a short while.

BeautifulOneJem said:

scriptgirl said:

I think STP had cross over appeal, cause they were really watered down grunge

STP was never a grunge band. They were lumped into that category because of the time of their debut was released.

They all belong under the same umbrella of 90s bands whether you call it alt.rock or grunge. Smashing Pumpkins too.

Even Depeche Mode were grunge for one album.

PatrickS77 said:

RodeoSchro said:

Second, I feel it is my mission in life to let you young 'uns know that what you think is rock and roll is, in fact, crap and it's the actual crap that killed real rock and roll.

Oh, geez.... stop being so old. One can enjoy grunge and anything else that came before at the same time. And how did it kill rock and roll. Rock and roll is still here and never went away, it just became less popular for a short while.

Great question! (Even though you didn't use a question mark, but I got it!)

Grunge turned rock from being about partying and getting laid, to being about how much life sucks.

It's really as simple as that. If you like being depressed by music, then by all mean listen to all the grunge you can.

^^(Yeah! That was a typo.)

So? Is there a rule that rock n roll needs to have meaningless lyrics about partying and getting laid? Is that all there is to life? Life has all kind of spectrums, so rock n roll can cover all kinds of spectrums. And seriously, songs like "Smells like teen spirit" or "Alive", which are signature songs of the grunge genre, are not all that depressing. And it's not that there haven't been more serious subjects in rock n roll lyrics before grunge came along. So that statement that grunge killed rock n roll is just a stupid cliche really.

[Edited 4/7/12 20:48pm]

Considering rock and roll is more broad than just a guy playing guitar having long stringy hair and singing about "things that rock". I hate when people think that genre is basic like that. It has formed and morphed into so many things so-called respected music critics are confused as to what to call it hence all the "subgenres".

Timmy84 said:

Considering rock and roll is more broad than just a guy playing guitar having long stringy hair and singing about "things that rock". I hate when people think that genre is basic like that. It has formed and morphed into so many things so-called respected music critics are confused as to what to call it hence all the "subgenres".

exactly!

I mean it's 2012 and so many people saying Grunge killed metal, grunge kill hair bands, grunge killed rock

Ok take a look at say... hair bands. Great musicians, cheesy music simple as that. If poison where making hits well into 1995 then....... wel..... yeah just that

Gruneg had depth! Eddie Vedder was a poet, Kurt Cobain was a poet to imo & Jerry Cantrell

And Layne Staley/ Chris Cornell have some of the most unique voices in rock... Staley's haunting voice has not been matched since in modern rock.

And hell Eddie Vedder's vocals have been copied by many bands who shall...... remain nameless

Grunge was art, hair metal was art at times sure. But it was mainly over the top party music..... So people just need to give the grunge bashing a rest

I Have said my peace

Stone Temple Pilots for me. I'm glad to see them placing highly with lots of folks here. Sure, Nevermind was a great album and Pearl Jam are just the most earnest thing ever but Stone Temple Pilots had something important that the other two lacked: a sense of humour!

Camp fire girls make me feel alright!

[Edited 4/8/12 3:33am]

[Edited 4/8/12 3:35am]

mynameisnotsusan said:

Seriously, what are the good US bands now??? Anyone? Foo Fighters are inferior to all the above (and I LOVED the first Foos record) NOBODY is selling. It's either pop sluts or country pop. It's SO open for a f**kin' good band to come along.

I don't think mediocrity is limited to American bands, the whole rock scene really fell off in the late nineties/early noughties.

I'm desperate for great guitar based music to come back strong but it doesn't look like it is going to happen any time soon. Fortunately there is already enough great stuff from the fifties through the nineties that should keep me engaged till I am in the ground.

PatrickS77 said:

^^(Yeah! That was a typo.)

So? Is there a rule that rock n roll needs to have meaningless lyrics about partying and getting laid? Is that all there is to life? Life has all kind of spectrums, so rock n roll can cover all kinds of spectrums. And seriously, songs like "Smells like teen spirit" or "Alive", which are signature songs of the grunge genre, are not all that depressing. And it's not that there haven't been more serious subjects in rock n roll lyrics before grunge came along. So that statement that grunge killed rock n roll is just a stupid cliche really.

[Edited 4/7/12 20:48pm]

Great point! Let's compare:

REAL ROCK AND ROLL:

"We're An American Band" by Grand Funk Railroad. "We're coming to your town, we're gonna party it down, we're an American band"! There you go!

STUFF THAT KILLED ROCK AND ROLL

"Smells Like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana. "Here we are, entertain us". He's literally saying, "I can't entertain you. So you entertain us"! He was prescient, I'll give him that!

If you have to qualify your signature songs by saying they're "not all that depressing", then LOL.

I don't fully expect someone who grew up in the '90's to readily agree with me at first, because y'all think I am criticizing y'all. I'm not (unless you are a band member of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, or anyone connected with the rap industry).

You just don't understand, because your generation didn't have the beauty of rock that was built upon those who came before you.

Robert Johnson begat the Rolling Stones. Muddy Waters begat the Beatles. Little Richard begat Prince. Elvis Presley begat Bruce Springsteen. It was a great formula!

But for some reason, none of the above begat Nirvana. I can't even blame punk rock for Nirvana. As loud as punk was, it too was generally about getting laid.

There are way more than enough bad things happening in real life. The LAST thing I want to hear on my free time is about how much life sucks! I mean, really? Life sucks? You had to waste 2 gb on my hard drive to tell me that? Bollocks!

I never thought I'd be an "old" guy criticizing the youth. And in fact, I'm not. It's not like I'm saying that all the bands today suck. They don't. I don't think they're as good as they should be, but they are far, FAR better than any grunge band ever dreamed of being.

I waited more than 10 years to form my opinion on grunge. Closer to 20, is more like it. So this isn't a snap judgment. It's a judgment based on more than a decade of observation. It's based on the actions of the grunge band, and the consequences of what those bands did.

And I'm here to tell you, they killed rock and roll.

Timmy84 said:

Considering rock and roll is more broad than just a guy playing guitar having long stringy hair and singing about "things that rock". I hate when people think that genre is basic like that. It has formed and morphed into so many things so-called respected music critics are confused as to what to call it hence all the "subgenres".

Rock is obviously far deeper than what I've simplified it as for the purposes of this thread. There are plenty of examples of rock being used to change the political landscape, or address problems that affect the world (Live Aid, anyone? Where's grunge's version of Live Aid?).

But until grunge came and screwed everything up, the one thing rock generally did NOT do was tell everyone how much life sucks.

RodeoSchro said:

Timmy84 said:

Considering rock and roll is more broad than just a guy playing guitar having long stringy hair and singing about "things that rock". I hate when people think that genre is basic like that. It has formed and morphed into so many things so-called respected music critics are confused as to what to call it hence all the "subgenres".

Rock is obviously far deeper than what I've simplified it as for the purposes of this thread. There are plenty of examples of rock being used to change the political landscape, or address problems that affect the world (Live Aid, anyone? Where's grunge's version of Live Aid?).

But until grunge came and screwed everything up, the one thing rock generally did NOT do was tell everyone how much life sucks.

Many of the grunge/alternative bands were far more socially conscious than the eighties bands they displaced.

RodeoSchro said:

Robert Johnson begat the Rolling Stones. Muddy Waters begat the Beatles. Little Richard begat Prince. Elvis Presley begat Bruce Springsteen. It was a great formula!

Not a great comparison, The Beatles were one of the least blues influenced bands of the British Invasion. I'd have gone with Chuck Berry/Buddy Holly begat the Beatles.

I never thought I'd be an "old" guy criticizing the youth. And in fact, I'm not. It's not like I'm saying that all the bands today suck. They don't. I don't think they're as good as they should be, but they are far, FAR better than any grunge band ever dreamed of being.

I'm genuinely curious, which of today's rock bands do you rate highly? Odds are they were influenced by the big bands of the nineties.

Ah, yes... what an awesome piece of lyric. Nirvana can never compete with that!

Why should a bunch of people, who are not happy with their lives write lyrics about partying and getting laid, when they most likely have nothing to party about and are not getting laid. Why should they write lyrics that are not the truth and mostly bragging. They got successfull with what they wrote about, so obviously they struck a cord with the audience and thus had a valid reason to exist.

Ah, you're taking everything literally. I was trying to be a bit funny. In fact I meant that there is not much more powerful than a whole concert hall singing along to "Alive" and have that happening while it's not even a part of the concert, but just the tape running before the concert (of a different band... GNR in fact... starts). And even if a lyric is depressing or thoughtful it doesn't really make the song depressing or the listener more depressed as well. To the contrary, sometimes when you're depressed and have someone feeling the same it makes things a bit easier. And "Smells like teen spirit" may be depressing to you, to me it's powerfull song.

Again. Why act so old? If you were old already and set in your ways and happy when grunge came along, be happy about that and don't begrudge an audience, who was embracing that type of music at the time because that was what they wanted to listen to. Well, I also did some growing in the '80s and I used to listen to music before grunge came along. I didn't stop listening to the music I listened to, before grunge came along. I just widenend the spectrum of music that I listened to. And after, and I'm simplifying here, years and years of meaningless party music with bland lyrics, something came along with a lyric matter that was a little bit closer to what people were actually feeling and a little bit more substancial and rightly, was more succesfull and popular than the songs with the bland meaningless lyrics (again, I'm generalizing and simplyfying, the other stuff never went away, it just got less popular and since most bands are only about selling as much music as possible, they let themselves be affected by that).

And? What does that have to do with anything. Seriously I don't really understand your crusade. What's the point of it?? The (music) world is big enough for both to exist for both to be enjoyed, mostly by the same people. Rock n roll never went away and certainly didn't die.

Yall kill me...

PLUSH is a bona fide example of a classic grunge single, and Purple is a grunge album...

and who said that Pearl Jam is a pop band? WTF?

anyway, thanks for this thread, it brings back sweet early-90s memories...

[Edited 4/8/12 7:51am]

Nirvana.

The Pixies

Gunsnhalen said:

Eddie Vedder was a poet,