Grunge, Alternative, Seattle rock,Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains et al

[moktan]

I was a huge fan of Rush, especially their drummer. Other bands that I recollect listening to in the eighties and nineties include the REM , Stone Roses , The Guess Who , The Waterboys , Camper Van Beethoven , The Tragically Hip, Cowboy Junkies , YES, Thin Lizzy, there were so many of them. My neighbour used to moonlight as the manager of a local band in Darjeeling called The Forbiddn Fruit. So he introduced us to loads of bands - Uriah Heap, Ten Years After, George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers , Canned Heat, Grand Funk Railroad,not to mention classic acts like Lynrd Skynrd, Allman Brother’s Band, The Who, The Band, The Beachboys, Mamas and Papas, The Animals, Fleetwood Mac, Sly and the Familystone, Hendrix, Fairport Convention , Traffic , Blind Faith , Derrick and the Dominoes, Frank Zappa, CSNY, The Grateful Dead , Jefferson Airplane etc. Sorry to digress on this thread on grunge.

 

[Sushant Sharma]

I was a huge fan of Rush, especially their drummer. Other bands that I recollect listening to in the eighties and nineties include the REM , Stone Roses , The Guess Who , The Waterboys , Camper Van Beethoven , The Tragically Hip, Cowboy Junkies , YES, Thin Lizzy, there were so many of them. My neighbour used to moonlight as the manager of a local band in Darjeeling called The Forbiddn Fruit. So he introduced us to loads of bands - Uriah Heap, Ten Years After, George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers , Canned Heat, Grand Funk Railroad,not to mention classic acts like Lynrd Skynrd, Allman Brother’s Band, The Who, The Band, The Beachboys, Mamas and Papas, The Animals, Fleetwood Mac, Sly and the Familystone, Hendrix, Fairport Convention , Traffic , Blind Faith , Derrick and the Dominoes, Frank Zappa, CSNY, The Grateful Dead , Jefferson Airplane etc. Sorry to digress on this thread on grunge.

Wow..that list you mentioned is long.. As long as we are talking about music, it's more converging then digressing. this thread should take a life of its own..

 

[jls001]

Never did warm up to Seattle grunge with the exception of Soundgarden. Here's Postmodern Jukebox's epic cover of Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun:

(and I still haven't figured out why Neil Young came to be looked up as the godfather of grunge - I'll be glad if someone could explain).

 

[moktan]

Never did warm up to Seattle grunge with the exception of Soundgarden. Here's Postmodern Jukebox's epic cover of Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun:

(and I still haven't figured out why Neil Young came to be looked up as the godfather of grunge - I'll be glad if someone could explain).

Some folks will cite the distortion and dissonance in songs like Powder Finger ( Rust Never Sleeps) and it's purported influence on acts like Eddie Vedder's Pearl Jam...

 

[Sushant Sharma]

And then for a short while there were Presidents of the United States PUSA with their self titled album in 1995. Infectious hooks and catchy and goofy lyrics. Songs like "Peaches" "Lump" "Kitty" were simple and quite cool.

 

[Sushant Sharma]

Never did warm up to Seattle grunge with the exception of Soundgarden. Here's Postmodern Jukebox's epic cover of Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun:

(and I still haven't figured out why Neil Young came to be looked up as the godfather of grunge - I'll be glad if someone could explain).

Joshua, i will try and warm up to this cover of black hole sun.wink wink..
While we are talking about him, Chris Cornell covers Nick Lowe's Peace Love and Understanding. I first heard it on soundtrack to the movie Lost in translation which if I may add is a fantastic movie. And Michael Jackson's Billie jean by Chris Cornell.

 

[malvai]

Did any one mention Jane's Addiction ?
Used to have a Ritual La Habitual (hope I got the name , correct ) cassette that I listened to at one time in college ...

yeah! I used to listen to them! Awesome album!

 

[malvai]

Rush is the greatest prog band ever...even though I am a die hard Iron Maiden fan, from a musicianship perspective no one in the rock scene can come close to touching Rush.

totally agree with you!

 

[sameer kumar]

And the list goes on.....King krimson,Gentle Giant, Triumph Octopus,Alice cooper, Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep, Jethrotull.....feel happy when I recall the past group listening sessions with school mates... and in some ways ..... wish that things had not changed. Thank you Sushanth.....nice thread.

 

[Sushant Sharma]

And the list goes on.....King krimson,Gentle Giant, Triumph Octopus,Alice cooper, Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep, Jethrotull.....feel happy when I recall the past group listening sessions with school mates... and in some ways ..... wish that things had not changed. Thank you Sushanth.....nice thread.

Some music takes you back to a specific time and place and acts like a doorway to lost or old memories.

 

[asliarun]

Any other 90s kids who were inspired and listened to bands like Nirvana Pearl Jam Blind Melon Soundgarden Bush Moist Alice in Chains Live Weezer Spin Doctors Stone temple Pilots Collective Soul and the like..it was so long ago. was a time just before cds became popular in India..I bought all of these on tape/cassette..it would be nice to discuss these bands and albums and see if we were listening to them at the same point in time. Please feel free to add any bands or songs or albums from this time that you were into.

Holy mackerel. This was exactly the music I grew up listening, and is still my favorite. If there is one album that distils and defines grunge and Seattle sound from that era, it would be the Singles - Motion Picture Soundtrack. For example, Chloe Dancer / Crown Of Thorns by Mother Love Bone is quite possibly one of the greatest ballads I have heard. And it went completely unknown and undiscovered. Mother Love Bone was also the band that gave birth to bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Screaming Trees for example was fronted by Mark Lanegan, who arguably has one of the deepest, grungiest, and most powerful voices I have heard. He also fronted Queens Of The Stone Age for many albums and now has a solo career. See his cover of Tim Buckley's Cafe. On a good sound system, this song alone with sound so surreal. Interestingly, Kurt Cobain did a guest guitar and vocal on Mark Lanegan's first album for the song, Where Did You Sleep Last Night, which Nirvana later covered in their Unplugged album too. But speaking of Queens Of The Stone Age, they are another iconic band from that era. Check out Go With The Flow. And they even kick ass when doing live acoustic.

Veering a bit away from grunge but from the same era - I would also add Faith No More to it. Their albums, AngelDust, King For A Day, and Album Of The Year are phenomenal works of music. And they are funny, irreverent, and experimental. Their music and lyrics still hold their own over time. See RV or Midlife Crisis or Stripsearch or Evidence or Helpless. And they continue to write songs.

Another band from that era is Incubus. Songs like Drive, Pardon Me, Wish You Were Here, Nice To Know You.

Other big bands from that era would be Radiohead and Tool and A Perfect Circle.

Edit: I almost forgot Live. It was such a powerful iconic band from that era. White Discussion, Lakini's Juice, Lightning Crashes, I Alone.

 

[plasmoid]

And the list goes on.....King krimson,Gentle Giant, Triumph Octopus,Alice cooper, Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep, Jethrotull.....feel happy when I recall the past group listening sessions with school mates... and in some ways ..... wish that things had not changed. Thank you Sushanth.....nice thread.

+1 to that! Music is so powerful, it's like time travel...listening to a particular album or track takes you back to that exact point of time in your life.

 

[Sushant Sharma]

Holy mackerel. This was exactly the music I grew up listening, and is still my favorite. If there is one album that distils and defines grunge and Seattle sound from that era, it would be the Singles - Motion Picture Soundtrack. For example, Chloe Dancer / Crown Of Thorns by Mother Love Bone is quite possibly one of the greatest ballads I have heard. And it went completely unknown and undiscovered. Mother Love Bone was also the band that gave birth to bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Screaming Trees for example was fronted by Mark Lanegan, who arguably has one of the deepest, grungiest, and most powerful voices I have heard. He also fronted Queens Of The Stone Age for many albums and now has a solo career. See his cover of Tim Buckley's Cafe. On a good sound system, this song alone with sound so surreal. Interestingly, Kurt Cobain did a guest guitar and vocal on Mark Lanegan's first album for the song, Where Did You Sleep Last Night, which Nirvana later covered in their Unplugged album too. But speaking of Queens Of The Stone Age, they are another iconic band from that era. Check out Go With The Flow. And they even kick ass when doing live acoustic.

Veering a bit away from grunge but from the same era - I would also add Faith No More to it. Their albums, AngelDust, King For A Day, and Album Of The Year are phenomenal works of music. And they are funny, irreverent, and experimental. Their music and lyrics still hold their own over time. See RV or Midlife Crisis or Stripsearch or Evidence or Helpless. And they continue to write songs.

Another band from that era is Incubus. Songs like Drive, Pardon Me, Wish You Were Here, Nice To Know You.

Other big bands from that era would be Radiohead and Tool and A Perfect Circle.

Edit: I almost forgot Live. It was such a powerful iconic band from that era. White Discussion, Lakini's Juice, Lightning Crashes, I Alone.

Arun, somwhow i never find too many fans of the band Live. Throwing Copper was such a great album and I liked each song on it. I followed this band through and through on albums like Secret Samadhi, Mental jewelry, Birds of Pray and Distance to here and V. I remember my introduction to this band was a video of Ed Kowalczyk shirtless on the song I Alone and bouncing around with his thin little braid of hair which seemed to have a mind of its own I thought the man was mad.
Screaming trees were a great band of this time and slightly underrated. Mark LameganS voice was quite powerful as you mentioned. Incubus was quite a hip band and I did follow them too and the songs you mentioned. Only addition being Aqueous Transmission.
I have a little bit of confession to make here about how at the time i thought was so cool and above all others who were listening to the same old GnR and Metallica and the like. Dont intend to start an argument here and i just mean it was an opinion i held in my teenage years. Good times these were.

 

[reubensm]

Some great stuff mentioned, especially for the 90s generation but for guys of my generation who grew up in the 70s and hit the late teens in the 80s, it was the British invasion and the Sunset Strip Glam scene, of course in separate phases. Then when grunge showed up and the Glam scene ended (or got truncated), we moved to the thrash big-4 and of course to Pantera. But all these phases are great pieces of rock music history with perhaps the only aberration being Tull winning the Metal Grammy in 1990 (my apologies to Tull fans, they were great but they belonged to a different Genre)

Edit: talking of Pantera,
Darrell Abbott (August 20, 1966 – December 8, 2004) - RIP
Vinnie Paul Abbott (March 11, 1964 – June 22, 2018) - RIP

 

[peace_sells]

Grunge, in my opinion, was more of a point in time, rather than a genre. Because the composition of the so called "grunge" bands wasn’t anything new. Bands like Melvins, Soundgarden were already trying to mix Sabbath, AC/DC and Sex Pistols in the mid-late 80s. For some reason, Nevermind became an overnight sensation in 1991; they were all over the television, news reports, etc. So the media had to call this sensation something. Some guy called it Grunge, and that was it.

Anyway, I dig most of these bands (yes, including Nirvana). My favourites from this scene would be Melvins, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and The Smashing Pumpkins.

 

[plasmoid]

Holy mackerel. This was exactly the music I grew up listening, and is still my favorite. If there is one album that distils and defines grunge and Seattle sound from that era, it would be the Singles - Motion Picture Soundtrack. For example, Chloe Dancer / Crown Of Thorns by Mother Love Bone is quite possibly one of the greatest ballads I have heard. And it went completely unknown and undiscovered. Mother Love Bone was also the band that gave birth to bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Screaming Trees for example was fronted by Mark Lanegan, who arguably has one of the deepest, grungiest, and most powerful voices I have heard. He also fronted Queens Of The Stone Age for many albums and now has a solo career. See his cover of Tim Buckley's Cafe. On a good sound system, this song alone with sound so surreal. Interestingly, Kurt Cobain did a guest guitar and vocal on Mark Lanegan's first album for the song, Where Did You Sleep Last Night, which Nirvana later covered in their Unplugged album too. But speaking of Queens Of The Stone Age, they are another iconic band from that era. Check out Go With The Flow. And they even kick ass when doing live acoustic.

Veering a bit away from grunge but from the same era - I would also add Faith No More to it. Their albums, AngelDust, King For A Day, and Album Of The Year are phenomenal works of music. And they are funny, irreverent, and experimental. Their music and lyrics still hold their own over time. See RV or Midlife Crisis or Stripsearch or Evidence or Helpless. And they continue to write songs.

Another band from that era is Incubus. Songs like Drive, Pardon Me, Wish You Were Here, Nice To Know You.

Other big bands from that era would be Radiohead and Tool and A Perfect Circle.

Edit: I almost forgot Live. It was such a powerful iconic band from that era. White Discussion, Lakini's Juice, Lightning Crashes, I Alone.

Faith No More'

Some great stuff mentioned, especially for the 90s generation but for guys of my generation who grew up in the 70s and hit the late teens in the 80s, it was the British invasion and the Sunset Strip Glam scene, of course in separate phases. Then when grunge showed up and the Glam scene ended (or got truncated), we moved to the thrash big-4 and of course to Pantera. But all these phases are great pieces of rock music history with perhaps the only aberration being Tull winning the Metal Grammy in 1990 (my apologies to Tull fans, they were great but they belonged to a different Genre)

Edit: talking of Pantera,
Darrell Abbott (August 20, 1966 – December 8, 2004) - RIP
Vinnie Paul Abbott (March 11, 1964 – June 22, 2018) - RIP

Some great stuff mentioned, especially for the 90s generation but for guys of my generation who grew up in the 70s and hit the late teens in the 80s, it was the British invasion and the Sunset Strip Glam scene, of course in separate phases. Then when grunge showed up and the Glam scene ended (or got truncated), we moved to the thrash big-4 and of course to Pantera. But all these phases are great pieces of rock music history with perhaps the only aberration being Tull winning the Metal Grammy in 1990 (my apologies to Tull fans, they were great but they belonged to a different Genre)

Edit: talking of Pantera,
Darrell Abbott (August 20, 1966 – December 8, 2004) - RIP
Vinnie Paul Abbott (March 11, 1964 – June 22, 2018) - RIP

We must be the same age Reuben. For me too it was Brit classic metal and then to thrash-megadeth, exodus, overkill and pantera...skipped the glam part except for Motley Crue...grunge for me was mostly Alice in Chains...the rest I just found boring.

 

[asliarun]

If we're going to talk about metal, besides Metallica of course, I always preferred Sepultura and Slayer over the other big acts like Pantera or Megadeath. By the way, do check out Gojira if you haven't already. They are a one of the best metal acts I have heard. Period. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I feel that Flying Whales is one of the best metal songs ever written. Along with Metallica's One, i guess.

 

[plasmoid]

If we're going to talk about metal, besides Metallica of course, I always preferred Sepultura and Slayer over the other big acts like Pantera or Megadeath. By the way, do check out Gojira if you haven't already. They are a one of the best metal acts I have heard. Period. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I feel that Flying Whales is one of the best metal songs ever written. Along with Metallica's One, i guess.

Sepultura was great till they got into that tribal sound. Arise and Beneath the Remains are classics.

 

[peace_sells]

Sepultura was great till they got into that tribal sound. Arise and Beneath the Remains are classics.

Everyone has a different favourite Sepultura album Mine is Schizophrenia. I actually prefer their first two albums to BTR and Arise. Maybe because I'm more of a death/black metal guy than thrash. And I love Chaos A.D. and Roots as well.

 

[peace_sells]

By the way, do check out Gojira if you haven't already. They are a one of the best metal acts I have heard. Period. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I feel that Flying Whales is one of the best metal songs ever written. Along with Metallica's One, i guess.

I agree. Gojira is one of the best bands out there today in popular metal. They have grown from being a very underground band starting in the early 00's, to now sharing the stage with bands like Metallica, Mastodon, etc. Their sense of melody and dissonance is somehow very accessible and yet really heavy! France (a country that was hardly ever known for good musical acts) has started producing some amazing experimental bands since mid 00's.