Forget about the Death of Grunge, Grunge Was Born Dead

Forget about the Death of Grunge, Grunge Was Born Dead

By: Ghost Writer

Rock n Roll Animal

“When it comes to grunge or even just Seattle, I think there was one band that made the definitive music of the time. It wasn't us or Nirvana, but Mudhoney. Nirvana delivered it to the world, but Mudhoney were the band of that time and sound.”

Eddie Vedder

Some will argue that grunge died with Nirvana's leader Kurt Cobain shooting himself in 1994, "rather be dead than cool" he sang on one of his songs, but honestly, I'm sure he wanted to be famous, he simply couldn't find a way to deal with it, also that same year, the last of the original grunge bands broke big as Superunknown became one of the highest charting albums from Soundgarden, a band that was part of the initial wave of the so called “grunge”, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains were no part of it, I think grunge (I always hated the word) was dead before it even broke big, Mother Love Bone's singer Andrew Wood died in 1990, a year before Nirvana's enormous Nevermind success, Wood was probably Seattle biggest star before Nirvana became famous, and he died just after finishing recording his band major label debut Apple, the true original fathers of the genre left Seattle before it broke big, the Melvins headed quickly towards San Francisco in order to stay away from the hype, and Mudhoney sang "Everybody loves us, everybody loves our town, that's why I've been thinking lately, about leaving it now" on Overblown, right before starting to make a bunch of more blues oriented records in order to stay away from "grunge" phenomenon, I never even liked the word “grunge”, Americans "macho" mentality forbid them to recognize androgynous influence of post punk (with bands like Bauhaus, Killing Joke and Joy Division)  as the base for their music, so they added up Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath "masculine" riffs to beef up the sound, added the “garage image” of the Stooges and the MC5 and hid the post punk shadow (just like Black Flag did with their Wire influence), and grunge was born, but neither Skin Yard, nor Screaming Trees, nor Tad, nor Green River ever broke big, they simply disappeared, Nirvana changed they down and dirty sound for the "alternative" sounds of R.E.M., Cheap Trick or the Beatles, Alice in Chains stopped playing glam rock and took Soundgarden as template for their sound and Pearl Jam was formed from the ashes of Mother Love Bone, even bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots were able to jump on the grunge bandwagon, I think that the fact that the Melvins and Mudhoney managed to stay away from all the hype helped them to stay alive and well, as they keep making great records in a yearly basis, success ends up destroying Nirvana, Alice in Chians, Soungarden and Pearl Jam (who tried later to run away from success like the Melvins and Mudhoney did), it bcame worse than Steve Albini (of Big Black fame) predicted, as the bands ended up not only without labels, and without money, they ended up dead, now as some claim these days that Eddie Vedder as the last grunge singer and with the second death of grunge near, let's not forget that Mark Lanegan (singer of the Screaming Trees) is also still alive and making amazing records away from traditional rock music, and that Eddie Vedder last great solo recording was done with the companion of an ukulele, so let's forget about the death of grunge and the last survivor of it, grunge was born dead and there are plenty of great survivors of a time when "grunge" was really good, down and dirty, independent and underground.