A subgenre of 1990s alternative rock. The term was originally used in Seattle to describe the slow punk metal of the band the Melvins. It spread as a label for other local bands, such as Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and TAD, who were forging a new sound out of the Heavy metal of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC and Kiss, combined with the post-punk styles of Sonic Youth, the Replacements and Hüsker Dü. Bands in other cities were also classified as grunge, especially Stone Temple Pilots and Dinosaur Jr; the genre also had links and affinities with female hardcore bands like L7, Hole and Babes in Toyland. Many of the Seattle grunge bands were associated with and first recorded on that city’s Sub Pop record label. The Seattle scene started attracting attention in the late 1980s, but grunge came to national and international attention after Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit was released in 1991 and achieved enormous success, pushing ‘alternative’ music into the mainstream.
Grunge retained the distorted guitar sounds and intensity of heavy metal but avoided its guitar solos and other signifiers of virtuosity. Similarly, grunge rockers and their fans avoided heavy metal’s spectacularity of dress and appearance, preferring unfashionable clothes and unstyled hair. The cynicism, pain, and bitter humour of many grunge lyrics reflected and spoke to generational malaise: rising service sector unemployment and other factors made it clear that this would be the first generation of Americans who would not, for the most part, be better off than their parents. The power of the music, however, supported the attempts of musicians and fans to fashion viable identities and find meaning and community within a social environment they saw as saturated by advertising, politically corrupt, in decline and unworthy of trust.
C. Humphrey: Loser: the Real Seattle Music Story (Portland, OR, 1995)
C. Peterson and M. Azerrad: Screaming Life: the History of Grunge (San Francisco, 1995)
R. Moore: Young, Gifted, and Slack: Social Crises, Postmodernity, and the Indie Rock Scene in San Diego (diss., U. of California, San Diego, 1999)
ROBERT WALSER