Grunge. Why?

[adaher]

Some people are stuck in a certain era and after that music was dead for them.

And except for people in their 50s or above, this phenomenon is really only seen in the hard rock and metal genre. Almost any R&B or rap or country or pop fan under 50 likes the stuff they grew up on AND the new stuff.

I think it's because the record companies created a gap of about 10 years where rock fans who didn't like grunge literally had almost nothing to listen to unless they worked hard to seek it out.

I was in that situation for awhile. Since I was still fairly new to metal, I spent the 1992-1998 period mainly catching up on what I'd missed. I'd buy about 10 tapes a month of what for me was new music. But except for the rare gem like Bruce Dickinson's Accident of Birth and Journey's Trial By Fire, there wasn't much brand spanking new music to buy, at least in the record store.

TheN I opened up a Hit Parader magazine one day for shits and giggles and saw an ad for Shrapnel records. The first band listed was some group called Artension. Supposedly, this band Artension had two albums out, and they had shredding keyboards, guitars, and a great Joe Lynn Turner-style vocalist. I thought, "I gotta check this out." I went to CDNow, ordered the first Artension CD, and then it helpfully gave me some recommendations: Stratovarius' Episode, and Shadow Gallery's Carved in Stone. I went for those as well. Absolutely stunning music.

Since then, I don't even go back to my 80s collection.

 

[adaher]

I will just never understand the hair metal love, period. I don't get why anyone complains about it losing airplay, it was generally pretty asinine, debased and a lot of 80's Hard Rock is laughably bad, perhaps even awful. But maybe I'm just too young to 'get' it?

I can understand that, it was pretty ridiculous, but it went way beyond rejecting hair metal and rejecting musicianship and melodies, in favor of raw emotion. There was just no reason for Dream Theater's rise to suddenly halt. Dream Theater didn't have a hair metal image, but they did have that extreme musicianship thing going, and the whole scene had just rejected that as surely as the hairspray. Other posters have pointed out Tesla as another example of a band that didn't deserve to get chucked.

 

[J. Golden]

Grunge didn't just lead to the death of hair metal. It led to the death of melodic hard rock and heavy metal in general, at least for a decade, and took hard rock from a widely popular and diverse fanbase to a niche market.

Jesus F&%kin Christ how many times must we go over this? Grudge did not kill metal it only made Jani Lane cry. And heavy metal was ALWAYS a niche market.
I id not have a problem keeping up with metal through the 90s and it was not even choice scene at the time. Still I could get what I wanted and knew what was going on, and even without the internet image that.
One effect grudge did have was on the people who did give up their metal albums, their Maiden, Crue, Metallica for the Pearl Jam CD. Years later they all realized they were trend jumping posers and they wanted their Motley Crue videos back on MTV. Now those people are in forums bitching about grudge and how "it killed rock" meanwhile in total denial of what they truly are. Seriously these guys should grow up and take some responsibility.
And he claims it was the cherry pie that brought a tear to his eye. Seriously thank the Gods that Nirvana got rid of that crap.

 

[Corsair]

I knew the musicianship argument was coming; Saying that all bands that fit into the 'grunge' label are raw emotion with no wizardry to back it up is rather heavily underestimating the talent - and dare I say virtuosity - of many of the musicians involved, especially in soundgarden's case, but it seems the general impression of "grunge" is basically "sounds like nirvana" which is silly. SG, however did have a much more subtle approach to it, but if you go in and actually listen to some of it, you'll discover an entire world of unorthodox time signatures, unusual chord progressions... I don't think it's entirely fair to cast it all under the same light without at least giving a few of the less...sterotypical artist and albums a shot. Granted I know that's asking a lot of some of the members; a few of which have readily admitted that they blanket anything that came out between '90' and '95 together, regardless of how it sounds; unless it was produced by a band that they were already in their comfort zone with.

Hell, a lot, of the stuff has more in common with old Garage/psychedelic rock than anything, some openly borrow thematic and sonic elements from Black Sabbath. Some even sounded like they could have -been- in Hair groups, like Mother Love Bone.


That's sorta why I tend to think that gate towards 'grunge' is often misdirected, or just plain ole uninformed.

 

[TwizstedJesus]

Exactly what I've been saying through the years. People seem to blame what's ever popular for the demise of their beloved genre. You CAN'T blame the bands. You can blame the fans, the record labels and you can even blame MTV even, but for crying out loud grunge did not kill metal. Sorry, this thread is really starting to get to me, and I'm sick of people making grunge to be the scapegoat when there were many other factors that contributed to metal's downfall moreso than bands that were creating something new and fresh at the time.

The advent of grunge killed metal. Plain and simple. The record execs pushed grunge and stopped pushing rock/metal. Its a fucking fact! It had nothing to do with poor musicianship or the "glam" image and everything to do with promotion. If MTV started playing a band such as Gotthard on a regular rotation, say every two hours, people would think the new BonJovi had arrived. You could push Charm City Devils, The Answer or Sin City Sinners and they would become successful acts. There has always been a handful of acts that could become huge with a strong marketing campaign, but the labels do not get behind these acts. How could a band like Guns & Roses be turned down by so many labels and then become a smash success only months later? Somebody believed in them and gave them some backing and,,,VOILA...instant success.

It was all controlled by the execs and they ran with the money...look where they are now...their precious industry has collapsed on top of them. They deserved it.

 

[Corsair]

You mean the guys that promoted Nirvana's image, right? Honestly, msot of that post is pretty illogical; since you basically confirmed that it's the record execs that signed them and promoted them in lieu of artists that you would rather hear. Hate to say it, but it was those same execs that put the music you -do- like into the spotlight in the first place. Easy come, easy go.

ANd please; nobody "killed" metal. It's very obviously not dead. Unless your definition of metal ended in 1989, which would be hilarious. But really, what made Bon Jovi so great? And why should we all be listening to bands that sound like 'em?

 

[TheLongshot]

Well, grunge killed something, because it has convinced a lot of people that the genre ended in the early nineties. All I need to know is what happened to hard rock and metal on SatRad. Most of what I'd call good hard rock has been relegated to oldies status, with no new bands allowed. Metal seems to be mostly limited to bands who grunt and scream for a living. Modern hard rock radio is a real mixed bag, which contains a lot of bands which just plain stink and won't last long.

I think some of us would like to think that some of the bands we listen to would at least get a chance to get wider air play. But, the days where Dream Theater could break through to the radio, even for a short time, has past. Personally, I think that sucks.

 

[adaher]

of many of the musicians involved, especially in soundgarden's case,

Your point is taken regarding Soundgarden. But although they were proficient, they didn't play nearly as well as they could have, they held back because that was uncool at the time.

I respect Pearl Jam a lot more. They aren't flashy, but they do challenge themselves musically. They take solos when they think it would be a good idea, they do whatever they want and always have. Meanwhile, Kurt Cobain was criticizing them for not sticking to the grunge formula, as if you're not "real" if you take solos.

I'd say a decision to stay within a framework, which is what Nirvana was doing, is the very thing he and others hated about the "formula rock" that came before. A truly creative band goes outside the formula, which is one thing I love about metal bands today. Even the most straight ahead power metal bands will throw a curveball now and then. heck, some of the best loved metal songs aren't even metal! They are ballads without even any guitars sometimes, or barely any! Would Nirvana ever have laid down a tender love song, you know, just for a change of pace? No, would have f$*ked up their image they were cultivating. Pearl Jam did do songs like that, Pearl Jam does whatever the hell they want.

 

[TwizstedJesus]

not sure why there is the hatred for grunge, but that era of music did have it's shining moments (i have dozens of albums that i still love because of it) it seems too many people only see the death of one genre leading to the rise of another and hating a whole genre because of it.


MY TOP GRUNGE ALBUMS (no order):
1) Pearl Jam - Ten
2) Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
3) Tad - Inhaler
4) Mother Love Bone - Apple
5) Mudhoney - Mudhoney
6) Sprinkler - Sprinkler
7) The Fluid - Purplemetalflakemusic
8) Alice In Chains - Dirt
9) Nirvana - Nevermind
10) Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen[/QUOTE]

For the record, I do NOT hate the grunge era. I simply believe that grunge killed the metal scene. If it wouldn't have been grunge it could have been any other genre the labels decided to push. Its all marketing.

Kurt Cobain, for all of his flaws, was an exceptional songwriter with a keen sense of melody.

Pearl Jam's 1st two discs were enjoyable (though I don't understand how they're still valid when they haven't put a good cd out in 15 years).

Soundgarden never released a "10 star" disc or even a 9 star. Everything they did was hit and miss, but when they hit they were good.

Sprinkler had an interesting style which held my interest briefly.

Temple of the Dog still gets airplay @ my house.
So does Mother Love Bone even though I don't consider these two discs as grunge...just grunge era from the grunge areas.

Paw was decent also.

My point being, because people feel that "grunge" killed metal doesn't mean that we're hating on the music. I feel that the grunge explosion, or more appropriately the grunge promotion, took all eyes away from hard rock and metal and the sheep followed to the next big thing. For those that stayed true to their music, good for you. I'm pretty sure nobody cares if you liked Nirvana, as long as you didn't toss your Dokken & Ratt cds away and start dressing in flannel and dissing the metal scene as a joke. Sadly, many people did just that.

 

[Magius]

The Glam thing was was winding down, but if Grunge hadn't been there the change wouldn't have been as abrupt as it was. As I said in the "No new great bands" thread. Grunge didn't in itself "kill" or at least badly wound Metal. It happened to be in the right place at the right time to become a catalyst for almost immediate change that took place. Without Grunge there wouldn't have been anything else to turn to so quickly. Whether that's Grunge's fault or the mainstream listener's fault can be argued until Armageddon.

I suppose one could argue that Poison "killed" Metal, and have an equally valid point. While I liked the music of the era, even I thought the image was just plain stupid. Worse, even if you attribute the look to on stage showmanship, was that there were young people emulating that look who had no association with bands whatsoever.
Suddenly, all these young people, especially guys to whom it should have been self-evident, realized that they were wearing eyeliner and nail poilish. What effect would that have on an already self-concious teenager? Is it any wonder that they all ran screaming into the night, to purge any evidence of their embarrassment. Evidence including hairspray, spandex, yearbook photos, and all those CD's.

Was it Grunge's fault or Poison's? Which of the two promoted the stupidity?

And yes. The new deglamorized image of Dream Theater, Tesla, and Jackyl was too little too late. The image damage was already done by the preposterous excess of Poison, Britny fox, and others, so the entire "genre" was summarily rejected. To quote Robert Duvall in Lonesome Dove: "You ride with and outlaw, you hang with an outlaw." Innocence is irrelevant.

I'd say that there was a large number of people who had nothing to listen to, but the labels just weren't going to go there. Meatloaf was an aberration. Metallica was an even later aberration. Metallica was never as popular in the heyday of Thrash as they became in the Grunge era. I know a lot of people that hoped that "Load" would mark the return of Hard Rock, but it didn't happen. The problem with pointing to exceptions that prove the rule is that in the end they are still just exceptions.

 

[adaher]

I don't think the grunge explosion took everyone's eyes off hard rock. My original point was that the music industry made a conscious decision to jettison melodic rock, and that I believe this was a mistake and unnecessary. there's no reason that Tesla, Firehouse, Meat Loaf, etc. couldn't have existed side-by-side with the Seattle scene. An equivalent I brought up before was, what if when rap got big, the industry had decided to no longer promote R&B? But R&B and rap exist side-by-side, and collaborate with each other, with no tension.

What happened just didn't have to happen, the industry MADE it happen. As long as the industry kept releasing melodic rock, melodic rock did well. Keep the Faith sold well, Bat Out of Hell II sold well, Firehouse's Hold Your Fire, and even 3, which came out in 1995, did well. Mr. Big did well. But then the supply just dried up even with that trickle of good releases and everyone just moved on.

The common belief is that melodic rock got tired, then grunge came out, and grunge then dominated. But that's not what happened. melodic rock was at its peak when grunge came out. 1991 and 1992 were great years for it, sales wise. And during the height of the grunge era, melodic rock releases, what few there were, STILL charted well, on both singles and album charts. And then the record companies just gave up on it for no particular reason.

 

[J. Golden]

Mother Love Bone was one of the beat bands to ever come out of Washington. Pearl Jam was the worst band to ever come out of Mother Love Bone.

 

[adaher]

Meatloaf was an aberration. Metallica was an even later aberration.

I'm not sure aberration is the word I'd use, so much as different cases. Metallica went out of its way to disassociate themselves from even the metal scene until And Justice For All, when they finally deigned to make a music video. I remember metalheads before then explaining to me how Ozzy wasn't metal, if it wasn't thrash it wasn't metal. Much like grunge, a lot of metalheads followed the Big 4 thrash bands and pretty much nothing else. So Metallica still had 'cred' that other metal bands did not. And Megadeth also managed to stay commercially viable during the 90s, or at least as commercially viable as a band like that can be.

Meat Loaf also had no relation to the hair metal scene, and Bat Out of Hell II was something a lot of fans were waiting for, so the label figured promoting the album was definitely worth their time. I doubt they expected that I Would Do Anything For Love would be a #1 hit. Historically, all of Meat Loaf's non-bat albums have been met with a collective shrug by the industry and the fans, but the Bat albums get some decent promotion. I think Bat III failed to set the world on fire because the big ballad they used to introduce it was something Celine Dion had already done.

What I don't understand is why the labels gave such shoddy promotion to the followups to the most successful releases from 1990-1993. The Scorpions had a huge smash with Crazy World, they were practically the Rolling Stones of metal, and Face the Heat just got a "meh" promotion and no MTV airplay. Props to Arsenio Hall for having them on though. Extreme followed up Pornograffitti with the amazing III Sides to Every Story. Meh again from the industry and MTV. Mr. Big followed up the smash hit Lean Into It with Bump Ahead. Double meh even though it was a great album. Wild World got a little airplay. Firehouse did VERY well as late as 1995, and then they just were quietly disposed of anyway. Why? These were all fantastic albums, without the ridiculous image, and the industry decided not to push them.

 

[adaher]

From Firehouse's wiki page:

For the band's third album, aptly titled 3, they changed producers. Ron Nevison, who had served as producer for Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osbourne, Europe, Heart, KISS, and many other groups, produced this album.[1] While the band's success had waned in the United States by 3's release in 1995, it brought them more success overseas than ever before. It was certified Gold in several Asian countries, giving the band an opportunity to tour in countries like India and Thailand. The lead single from the album, "I Live My Life for You", was the band's third Top 20 ballad in the United States.[4] Kenneth JP Locke remarked that despite drastic changes in the industry, FireHouse was the only band of its genre that managed to have a Top 20 hit as late as 1995, without having to make drastic changes to their sound.[5]



And then the label just gave up on them. No reason. What kind of a label stops promoting a band that's still producing hits? This ONLY happened to melodic rock bands! It would never happen in a million years to a country, R&B, or rap artist. You have to fail before getting dropped or not promoted. It's almost as if the industry was angry that people still wanted to listen to this kind of music and decided to just cut out the pretense and FORCE people to accept the new sound by taking away the old sound.

 

[Magius]

I seriously doubt that a bunch of record company execs sat around a table and decided that they needed to purge the music world of a particular style.

 

[adaher]

There was no collusion, no, but businesses end popular product lines to focus on a new line all the time, if they think the old line will distract from the new one they are trying to promote. The decision to do that generally fails.

Kinda like how Coke changed their formula even though there was no compelling reason to do it, and wanted to make sure consumers bought it by no longer selling the original Coke.

Apparently, the record company execs all came to the same conclusion: that if people could still buy melodic rock CDs, they might not buy as many grunge CDs. They evidently felt the two product lines couldn't be sold together. And resources are limited, so perhaps the success of a band like Firehouse was considered to be a distraction from promoting alternative bands that could be even MORE successful.

 

[Cheiron]

Mmm Coke changed their forumula because all taste tests indicated that people preferred Pepsi. People did like the flavor of "Coke II" (what it ended up being called) more than Coke; however, the emotional attachment to "Coke" was more important to people than the flavor.

 

[adaher]

I loved New Coke and I actually miss it. But now I understand why people were upset. I used to drink all sodas and didn't think much of the differences between them, but lately I've started drinking mainly Coke, and you start to expect that taste and get annoyed when you drink a soda that doesn't taste like that.

 

[Justin G]

Mother Love Bone was one of the best bands to ever come out of Washington. Pearl Jam was the worst band to ever come out of Mother Love Bone.

Totally agree on MLB. I still love Pearl Jam's first album though.

 

[Jasonic]

Everyone's lack of MELVINS discussion in a grunge thread is disappointing!