What is the beauty of grunge?

beauty of grunge = abandon

you've got to be fucking kidding me

Even flow, John. Abandon. Yeah. *dies*

There is no fucking beauty in grunge, man. That's why it's so repulsive!

it'll come back in fashion, just hold on, we have get thru this period of faggotry. the wheel it goes round and round.

50s: awesome 60s: faggotry 70s: awesome 80s: faggotry 90s: awesome 00s: faggotry -- just HOLD ON MAN

fuzz peddles

i will begrudgingly admit that grunge probably contributed to the explosive growth of electro-harmonix, which is a good by-product.

oh course, you know, controlling the tube supply helped as well

having come of age in the early 80s .. the appeal was just that there were fantastic riffs that were redolent of beloved Zep and Sab but didn't have the "silly" quotient of the hair bands who also mined similar territory, tho I dig a ton of those guys too. .. but that's just my perspective because I am a guitar / riff guy. can't remember the last time I even *owned* a flannel shirt let alone wear one. like, maybe never? maybe my parents bought me one when I was a kid. I saw Nirvana/Tad at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor 1990 though and it ruled.

also, ha, forgot to mention .. this thread appears as I am actually right now listening to Mudhoney 'Since We've Become Translucent' LP, which I had never owned and just picked up last weekend. and it fukin RULES!

I compare grunge to the the end of the Metric song 'Hardwire' when she sings 'I'll try to play the guitar.' The way she sings it is off-key or off-pitch or something. Anyways, thats what makes the song pretty good.

Feeling the beauty of grunge, is like knowing the beauty of the blues, which I could never find. I think a lot of it has to do with the truth it conveys - sad, dark, and grungey, but honest and 'real'.

fucking hell.

loooooool

my truth is so grungey

I like the slow hardcore that morphed into grunge

like flipper and hose which was the roots of the u men and early melvins

I'm basically nails and dirt myself. Grunge speaks my language.

Oxymoron of the week?

Please don't get me wrong _ I did like some erm'grunge' but when the scales were tipping towards metal rather than punk in that fine balance , I started to fell a bit queasy in a world of denim jackets,huge iron maiden patches, bum fluff and hot dogs - and probably the quest for note perfect pentatonic scales.

http://www.jessefrohman.com/IntroPhoto/KurtCobain_glasses.jpg

Stormy, I was just trying to explain the greatness -- the beauty -- of the post-Sub Pop Mudhoney to someone else the other night.

Of course, it's late Thursday night and if I'd let my original typing go on the above, it would've looked like:

stpe,u i w as just truipmg tp a[;oam tj etgreatmess - the gouty o f- the post=sub ppoo musdney to another [ert tje ptjer mogjt/

electricsound OTM, would you believe what this shit is going for nowadays?

http://www.muzoborudovanie.ru/equip/instr/pedals/dod/pict/dodfx69.jpg

who cres? rpcl pm!!!

iiss grebt shht11!

I thought the DOD grunge pedal was still actually available?

Last Mudhoney rekkid I bought was "Under a Billion Suns" a couple of years ago, I had it on in the car last week, it's still great, and what's good about it is indeed the sense of abandon, like they're only just managing to stop themselves from flying off in all different directions, what a blast.

Oxymoron of the weekYEAR!

In saying "abandon" up there , I'm not talking about moany, gloomy shit plod - AIC, Pearl Jam, whateverthefuck. I'm talking about punk shows and house parties in Olympia and Seattle in the late 80s. Melvins, U-Men, Green River, Accused (different scene, whatever) Tad, Nirvana, Mudhoney. At their best, fucking GREAT live bands. Big, loud, sweaty, messy rock and roll spectacle. Went well with booze and out-of-towners like Scratch Acid or the Butthole Surfers. To my mind, good rock and roll = total chaotic abandon.

Whether or not there's any "beauty" in that is up to you.

http://bp0.blogger.com/_haBx4x6f1vs/R594hiXtYmI/AAAAAAAAA98/lKwFaDQ21xE/s1600-h/vlcsnap-34177.png

try that again:
http://bp3.blogger.com/_vj2e1m7Hlgw/R41vrr--srI/AAAAAAAAGcQ/3JlzYZdVEO4/s1600-h/sad.jpg

Just pretend there are two pictures of Sadgasm above, OK? Sheesh.

no

getting serious deja vu from this thread. not because of the other recent grunge threads, I feel like this EXACT thread, post for post, already happened 2 or 3 years ago.

Went well with booze and out-of-towners like Scratch Acid or the Butthole Surfers. To my mind, good rock and roll = total chaotic abandon.

-- contenderizer

Yes! I was a teenager living in Texas when I first started hearing the term "grunge" from friends. For us, the Seattle stuff went right alongside Scratch Acid/Jesus Lizard, the Buttholes, and even early Painteens, Pussy Galore. Tar, Sugar Shack, old L7, and various other rude, loud, overblown, noisy, rock stuff from that time.

We called it all 'grunge' until Rolling Stone and MTV types got a hold of the term and started using it to describe Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and fucking Pearl Jam, whose first album was like the polar opposite of the attitude I associated with the term up 'til then.

But yeah, definitely for me "abandon" is a great word for the early stuff.

early Painteens, Pussy Galore, Tar, Sugar Shack, old L7

Yeah, that's exactly the context for what I think of (thought of) as grunge. Good list.

THIS IS MY GRUNGE, SHOW ME YOURS

also: revitalized the wide-wale corduroy industry

haha, I had a Pain Teens 7". I should see if it's still around and give it a listen.

(I don't remember being that into it at any point, though.)

If it's that C/Z thing ("Sacrificial Shack") it blows. Sub Pop 45 ain't great, either. The Born In Blood and Stimulation Festival LPs are pretty damn good, though, especially the former - if you can deal w/ the goth-outsider, "industrial culture" vibe.

S: "It Will", appearing on Trance Syndicate's first Love & Napalm comp. Favorite Pain Teens track.

someday somebody will look back on this thread as the glory days of ilx

It's "Sacrificial Shack". I think "goth-outsider vibe" was what I was looking for.

(So I'll make a note of those LPs.)

I think maybe the grunginess is what makes it good.

Oh, wait. It isn't good.

If you really want the spook show, Sundar, you might wanna start with Case Histories (previous album, less rock band, more Nurse With Wound). Creepy soundscaping w/ sexy-scary vocals. Good stuff.

what I like, and mentioned many times before, grifters and red red meat, don't seem to fit in the grunge category anymore, and I don't know why. Maybe cuz most other grunge bands suck?

...maybe because both were neither grunge but rather "indie rock"?

?? why would you say that

Cuz fhuzz guitars and gnarly, blues/punk influenced bands were EVERYWHERE back then. What was going on over here blended with what was going on over there, but that doesn't make everything the same. Grunge started off as this intentionally dumb & ugly heavy rock style that wallowed in the sleaziest aspects of 70s metal and 80s noise.

Grifters and Red Red Meat had sounds in common, esp at first, but they weren't coming from the same place, and they didn't operate the same way. Which is probably why you find them "beautiful" while hating grunge.

yeah grunge sucks then. ha

Grifters and Red Red Meat had personality and they were intentionally something or nother even if wasn't "dumb & ugly". I'd say they are just musical artists with a knack at doing everything gritty and complex/artsy at the same time. The grunge bands didn't really have complexity or artsyness or most importantly, great singing and lyrics that these bands have. Although I'm bothered that they are not technically grunge, I realize now that grunge ain't worth shit anyways (except maybe the scene).

I like breaking music down into terms that disgust people.

Feeling the beauty of grunge, is like knowing the beauty of the blues, which I could never find. I think a lot of it has to do with the truth it conveys - sad, dark, and grungey, but honest and 'real'.

you disgusted me plenty at this point, you could have just stopped there

saved us all some time at least

It's not my sole intention by any means. I just try to spread the truth as I hear it.

(I only lend my 2 cents as often as you all do. I don't make a habbit of being a troll or anything. I just think everyone should be able to judge music for themselves.)

I personally never saw The Grifters anyway near GRUNGE but maybe it's cos I'm a loser limey outsider.

Grifters were as GRUNGE as Big Star. Another overlooked band.

Maybe in 2047 da Grifters will rise again.

Tripp?

Best Nirvana = Bleach
Best Paint Teens = Destroy Me Lover
Best Scratch Acid = Berzerker
Best Soundgarden = Screaming Life
Best Mudhoney = Superfuzz Big Muff
Best post-Sub Pop Mudhoney = Tomorrow Hit Today
Heaviest Sub Pop album ever = Tad - God's Balls
Heaviest Seattle band ever = Burning Witch

As for the beauty, it had to do with heavy music being played without the operatic vocals, guitar wank, and overdone fashion shoots that pop-metal was running into the ground. Plus it was way more catchy and direct that most punk/thrash/crossover at the time.

It was basically ear candy covered in (as Cat Butt put it:) mud, blood, urine, and whiskey.

Of course, it only took Nevermind and Ten to fucking blow it for everyone.

The only band that made a graceful transition from indie to major that year was Babes in Toyland.

beauty of grunge = abandon

i want this on a shirt

Maybe the beauty of grunge is like the beauty of the yugen aesthetic (in japan). But once again, I might be describing red red meat and grifters, so I don't think I'll post here anymore. I don't listen to anymore grunge than Alice in Chains.

The beauty of grunge is in the wink of a young girl's eye.

a book of matches in a puddle by the corner store

Pop-metal was not really all that big on operatic vocals and guitar wank. (Getting rid of stuff like that is part of what made it "pop" in the first place.)

Though I dunno, maybe by "pop-metal" you mean W.A.S.P. more than Poison or Bon Jovi or Def Leppard or Warrant? (But hardly anybody talks about grunge supplanting W.A.S.P.) (It's dumb enough when they say it supplanted hair-metal, but at least that line comes closer to the chronology.)

Or maybe you mean Queensryche? (Which would be weird, since they came from around Seattle, and since "Silent Lucidity" was the same year as "Smells Like Teen Spirit". And they presented themselves as an artsty concept-album band, not a pop band.)

As for the beauty, it had to do with heavy music being played without the operatic vocals, guitar wank, and overdone fashion shoots that pop-metal was running into the ground.

As for the beauty, it had to do with heavy music being played without the annoyingly shrill vocals, hired studio session guitar wank, and overdone fashion shoots that pop-metal was running into the ground.

BTW, I'm not trying to say this is how I feel now. It's more a reflection of where I was at when grunge was happening. At 18, it just sounded so much better to me than radio music at the time.

A year later, (old) Metallica, Slayer and Voivod were way more important to me than Nirvana.

I don't hate on the (better) hair bands.

grunge = my fav

I stumbled out of the metal scene into Mudhoney and the rest due to the energy and lack of pretense that the bands had. Screaming Trees and Soundgarden had solid albums in the 80's. I bought all the Sub Pop stuff.
Cosmic Psychos, Afghan Whigs, The Fluid, Tad, Nirvana. By the time of Nevermind (Fall of'91) Alt rock was about to take off and everyone would get a major label deal. To me grunge was the excitement of making noise, drinking beer and and talking about the cool new bands.
Mother Love Bone and Alice in Chains never fit that category to me.
I do like the Grifters and Red Red Meat though. Just never saw them as Grunge even though early Meat was talked about that way.

sitting on an uncapped 1cc 28ga BD insulin syringe someone left in your couch.

FUKKING LOVE THIS THREAD <3<3<3<3

i might grunge the fuck out 2nite.

went to a house of large sizes reunion show, g-damn they fucking rocked it.

my friend said "i miss the days when bands like this were a dime a dozen"

House of Large Sizes = awesome.
I used to see these guys at Gabe's Oasis in Iowa City all the time.

People have recd this band to me a number of times over the years, but I've never followed up. S/D?

I was always a fan of the first two records.
One Big Cake and Heat Miser.
I saw these on itunes along with some later work. I guess they're still available.

there's a self-titled one from like 97 or 96 after no one cared that i like best...

to be honest though, they were always 10x better live than on wax for me

Live was definitely the way to hear them.

to be honest though, they were always 10x better live than on wax for me

I think this is true in general of the post-HC "grunge" type bands.

The good ones, at least.