What are your thoughts on grunge? Grunge was a moment in time, it was a scene, an attitude, a marketing tool, a fashion shorthand and a banner for a generation. It was a lot of things at the time, and many of the primary parties involved didn’t even like the ‘grunge’ label.
Still, it stuck, and in the years since it has become a byword for a counterculture, an aesthetic, and a sound which could be described as anthemic-yet-melancholic heavy rock. It was the antithesis of the hair metal that preceded it, and it combined 70s hard rock with punk and 80s alternative music to bring around something that was simultaneously fresh and familiar. There were riffs, solos, noise, melodies and harmonies, all tied up with a particular angst and response to dire social situations.
It was powerful stuff, and that’s why we are still talking about it all these years later. We don’t always fully understand these moments as they are occurring, but with the three dances’ worth of hindsight we now have, we can see it for the significant cultural movement that it was.
What is Grunge?
But what was grunge? Did the music have to come from Seattle/Washington? Lots of purists would say that yes, it did. Location was important to the social situation, the housing, the clothing, the relationships and ultimately the music. Some people say that grunge was a buzzword for what locals called ‘the Seattle sound’, and therefore had to be from the Washington area to really ‘be’ grunge. The despair had to come from the rain and heroin of Seattle in the late 80s, or so goes the thinking.
I understand that and accept it all, but I’m not sure I fully agree. Some of grunge’s biggest acts were from outside the area: Stone Temple Pilots were from San Diego and the Smashing Pumpkins hailed from Chicago, for example. And how can anyone talk about grunge without mentioning Courtney Love and her band Hole? They were from Los Angeles!
So, for today’s blog, I am going to court controversy with the purists by including a few seminal records that did not appear from under the shadow of Mt Rainier, as it were. With an emphasis on Seattle but not strict rules on it, here are the greatest grunge albums of all time…
Contents
The 41 Greatest Grunge Albums EVER
Who Are the Most Significant Grunge Band?
The 41 Greatest Grunge Albums EVER
Meat Puppets II - Meat Puppets
If it’s a fair comment to say that most of us know about Meat Puppets thanks to Nirvana covering them multiple times on Unplugged in New York, then it's also fair to say that they should be checked out for their own merits by all grunge fans. Meat Puppets hailed from Arizona and blended some psychedelic hard rock into their punky sound, in a way that definitely predated the rise of the Seattle sound.
Bug - Dinosaur, Jr
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge - Mudhoney
Fun House - Stooges
Would you call this record, from a Detroit band in 1970 grunge? I would. I’d say it displays the art, attitude and stance (no BS, no fantasy) that captures the volatile band in fully violent glory. It’s a record where everything is in the red, achieved by the band ripping out everything in the studio that got in their way and recording raw, live power. It’s reckless, but in a way that would prove inspirational to the Seattle sound a decade and a half later.
Daydream Nation - Sonic Youth
Like The Stooges, it’s fair to say that Sonic Youth are not generally considered to be a grunge band, but everyone knows that they were a huge inspiration on the movement. Noise rock, avant-garde art rock, whatever you want to call it, Daydream Nation was proto-grunge, and a massive call-to-arms for the alternative nation. Both Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo were involved in producing albums that are on this list, so their grunge credentials hold!
American Thighs - Veruca Salt
Degradation Trip - Jerry Cantrell
8-Way Santa - Tad
This is a deep dive for grunge fans, but a rewarding one! Tad were tour mates with Nirvana, and though less well known, still contributed significantly to the Seattle vibe in the late 80s and early 90s. Lead singer Tad Doyle (actually TAD since it’s an acronym of Thomas Andrew Doyle) was a larger than life character, and several of his bandmates played in a number of underground Seattle bands. 8-Way Santa is the one to check out, whether you find the original cover art which got the band a lawsuit (it’s not shocking) or the replacement cover!
Hallowed Ground - Skin Yard
Hungry Ghost - Violent Soho
Smell the Magic - L7
Pink Pills - The Mavis’s
Bullhead - The Melvins
The Melvins straddle several genres (as many grunge bands do) but this record was then they took their thick, Sabbath-y riffs and slowed them right down. Everyone afterwards copied them.
Fontanelle - Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland’s frontwoman Kat Bjelland was once in a band with Courtney Love called Pagan Babies, and their on/off competitive relationship was brought to the fore in Fontanelle, the band’s second record. Bassist Michelle Leon left the band due to the murder of her boyfriend, and was replaced by Maureen Herman. This second record was their breakthrough, though it was no less ferocious than their debut album Spanking Machine. It was produced by Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo, which was seen as a response to Kim Gordon producing Hole’s debut Pretty on the Inside.
Ragged Glory - Neil Young & Crazy Horse
They call him the ‘Godfather of Grunge’ and I’d say the hat fits him well. Many would point to his earlier Rust Never Sleeps album as being the definitive ‘proto-grunge’ record - and I wouldn’t argue with that - but Ragged Glory from 1990 distills the sound in the moment, showing Young to be on the pulse and as relevant as ever.
Young & Full of the Devil - Magic Dirt
!Viva Zapata! - 7 Year Bitch
Throwing Copper - Live
Singles - Original Movie Soundtrack
The Singles soundtrack is an excellent snapshot of the grunge era. Whether the film successfully captured the era of early 90s Seattle or not is up to your own sense of perspective, but the soundtrack is notable for a number of reasons. Director Cameron Crowe was an ex-Rolling Stone journalist (Almost Famous is basically his biography), and his music choices are impeccable: there’s exclusive music here from Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Smashing Pumpkins and Chris Cornell amongst others. Great tunes that are not on studio albums! It’s an essential grunge document, quite apart from the movie itself.
Superfuzz Bigmuff - Mudhoney
Any band who names an album after two fuzz pedals is gonna get a mention with us, come on! Mudhoney have appeared on here already (as have a few significant bands), and are rightfully seen as an essential thread through grunge culture. Lead singer Mark Arm was in the seminal proto-grunge group Green River, and went on to create this seminal grunge recording. As influential within the actual Seattle scene as the more famous bands were outside the scene.
Apple - Mother Love Bone
Bleach - Nirvana
Come On Down - Green River
The thread that ties so many of Seattle’s best-loved bands together began with Green River. Fronted by Mark Arm (later of Mudhoney) and populated by future members of Pearl Jam (and therefore Mother Love Bone and Temple of the Dog of course), Green River are notable for their sheer significance as instigators. Named somewhat controversially after the Green River Killer - who was at large and being hunted around the Seattle area at the time - Green River were a mix of indie rock and something slightly more glamorous. This EP displays more of their special vibe than their one full album, if you ask me!
Gish - Smashing Pumpkins
Mad Season - Mad Season
Grunge’s other supergroup (alongside Temple of the Dog), Mad Season was as much an exercise in proactive therapy as anything else. Featuring Layne Staley (Alice in Chains), Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) and John and Barrett from the Screaming Trees, the band all had substance abuse problems and all met during stints in rehab. Realising that music was a potential source of distraction, support and recovery, the members wrote an album’s worth of original material. Subsequent activity was plagued by tragedy, leaving the sole album Mad Season as a worthy document of the band’s talent and potential.
In Utero - Nirvana
In Utero saw Nirvana faced with the weight of unbearable expectation and taking the only sensible route forward: noise. Whilst never relinquishing the melodic sensibility that got them to the top, In Utero contained caustic songs that fizzed with nihilism, surrealism and blasts of glorious, fuzzy noise. A real rock album, basically, and possibly Nirvana's ultimate statement as a band.
BadMotorfinger - Soundgarden
Ten - Pearl Jam
The album that for many is the definitive PJ record is perhaps second in line to its follow-up, Vs. That, however, is like arguing over which album is best between Nevermind and In Utero: both are top-tier classics, with a sound that’s shaded slightly differently to its sibling. Ten contains the trio of Pearl Jam singles that will never fade away: Alive, Even Flow and Jeremy. Even if the bombastic production is of its time (the Ten Redux release goes a long way to fix this), the songs themselves are as timeless as the greatest rock music in history.
Facelift - Alice in Chains
MTV Unplugged in New York - Nirvana
Celebrity Skin - Hole
If Live Through This was the raw document of Courtney Love’s life during her marriage to Kurt Cobain, then Celebrity Skin documented the aftermath of a life that perhaps nobody could really understand from the outside. Losing a husband to suicide and a band member to an accidental overdose, Love boldly made art of her difficult and tragic circumstances, incorporating bassist Melissa Aud der Maur into the group and turning in a career-best album in the process.
Deep Six - Various Artists
If one record could sum up the genesis of grunge, then it would have to be this one. Deep Six is a compilation from 1986, documenting the move from Seattle-based indie rock to the music that would become known as grunge. Deep Six was put together specifically to showcase the special scene that had been gathering momentum up in Seattle.
On this album are household names like Soundgarden and The Melvins, alongside Green River, the band that contained Temple of the Dog & Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, and also Mudhoney’s Mark Arm.
Also present was the band Malfunkshun, led by tragic scene luminary Andy Wood who later formed Mother Love Bone. As a document of a time and place, this is an essential artefact: it was the first grunge compilation, a time capsule of mid-80s Seattle, and the sound of grunge before it was grunge.
Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog
Temple of the Dog are simultaneously a grunge supergroup (though not by design) and a hugely influential force within the scene itself. Normally, a supergroup comes around after a scene has run out of steam, but these circumstances were different…
Mother Love Bone’s Andy Wood (heard previously in Malfunkshun) was the Seattle scene’s leading light, an artist whom all expected to become a huge, charismatic star. Sadly, his moment never came and he died from an accidental heroin overdose.
Instead of letting his memory die, his friends from his band Mother Love Bone (which contained ex-Green River members) and Soundgarden created a tribute band called Temple of the Dog to serve as his legacy. The short-lived collective also included Mother Love Bone’s replacement singer, Eddie Vedder, just as the band were changing their name to Pearl Jam. Temple of the Dog recorded one self-titled album and went back to their respective bands, leaving this album as a monument to their fallen friend.
Nevermind - Nirvana
Of course Nevermind was going to be included here. Of course it was! Maybe you prefer In Utero, or think that Bleach had better riffs (I wouldn’t disagree), but Nevermind was the record that caused the seismic shift in culture. It’s the one that put ‘Seattle’ on the map in a way that, really, no other music did.
The first half of this actually-quite-obscure sounding album is probably the most listened-to in Nirvana’s entire catalogue. Smells Like Teen Spirit is one of the world’s most recognised songs, to the extent that it may even have lost a little bit of its initial explosive power.
Be that as it may, it’s a primal roar, a generational flare in the sky that was never repeated, by Cobain or anybody else.
Dirt - Alice in Chains
It’s easy to use hindsight and ascribe Alice in Chains’ haunted, deathly sound to their doomed frontman Layne Staley. Certainly, the band sings about the hell of addiction on more than one occasion in Dirt, and there are song names like Godsmack and Junkhead. So you could think that, but you’d be missing the fact that all but two of the songs were written by guitarist and co-vocalist Jerry Cantrell, who also either wrote or co-wrote the lyrics.
Cantrell has spoken to the mixed messages sometimes received by listeners about heroin: “With Dirt, it's not like we were saying 'Oh yeah, this is a good thing.' It was more of a warning than anything else”. Certainly, the drug claimed the lives of two members, so its spectre is one that surrounds the album and leads to these assumptions.
What there can be no miscommunication on, however, is the quality of the songs onboard. Talk about starting strong?! The first four tunes on Dirt could go two to toe with any record in history, and the quality holds up for the remainder of the album. The band displays their knack for atmospheric vocal harmonies and grade-A riffs alongside Cantrell’s songwriting nous to deliver a grunge masterpiece.
Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins
Chicago's finest. Is this the greatest sounding grunge album of them all? Siamese Dream takes the Big Muff guitar sound to its zenith, with a suite of densely orchestrated songs that revel in drama, dynamics and texture whilst delivering some of Grunge’s best moments (example: Cherub Rock’s stuttering drum intro bursting into life with a glorious octave riff; the whisper-quiet intro to Soma; the breakdown in Hummer…the list goes on).
By all accounts, Siamese Dream was an agonising record to bring to life, but what a glorious life it has had!
Vs - Pearl Jam
Now this is a contentious one. Common consus might dictate that Pearl Jam’s debut record Ten belongs on this list. There’s no mistaking that it’s a great album, and it does contain the band’s strongest singles (Alive, Jeremy, Even Flow), but…Vs is the stronger record.
Vs starts off at full steam and never lets up on the quality, whilst also bringing more light and shade to proceedings. When it rocks, it rocks harder than Ten (Go, Animal, Blood) and when it calms down, there’s a stateliness present that was new to their sound. And it’s so full of great tunes that the band were confident enough to leave belters like Rearviewmirror until well into that latter half. Punch for punch, Vs defeats Ten.
Superunknown - Soundgarden
Soundgarden are easily one of the most significant grunge bands from the perspective of being inside the scene itself. They enjoyed success before any other bands, but they always made sure to collaborate with local musicians and build strength into the scene, helping to forge the Seattle sound. Vocalist Chris Cornell’s championing of newcomer Eddie Vedder (not a Seattle native) in the wake of his friend Andy Wood’s death spoke volumes to the rest of Seattle’s hard rockers, and about how to nurture the culture around them.
Early Soundgarden was definitely more metal, sludgy and Sabbath-influenced (no bad thing), but 1994’s Superunknown - their masterpiece - stands quite apart. Stylistically, everything they are known for remains, but is heavily expanded upon, with more disparate textures and rhythms involved. The writing is deeper, more arty, more oblique, and features some of grunge’s best known songs. The best grunge album ever? Maybe!
Live Through This - Hole
Live Through This was released only a week after the death of Kurt Cobain. Prior to this, Courtney Love had moved her band out of Los Angeles to escape the situation with the LA riots. Living in a house in Washington together with her husband Cobain, Love and her band members strove to deliver something that would compete with Nirvana: "I was very competitive with Kurt because I wanted more melody. But I already wanted that before "Live Through This."
This shift from noise to melody is perhaps significant in gaining Hole a bigger audience, and it’s certainly why this record is remembered as well as it is. Live Through This also saw Kisrten Pfaff joining the group. A classically trained cellist, Pfaff played bass for Hole and by all accounts upped their game as musicians. Love was still basing their songs on her life experience, but looked to expand her horizons: "You know, when women say, "Well, I play music, and it's cathartic," that applies to me to a degree, but I just wanted to write a good rock record. I would love to write a couple of great rock songs in my life, like Chrissie Hynde did. If you write something that will transcend a long period of time and make people feel a certain way, there's really nothing like that."
Purple - Stone Temple Pilots
San Diego’s Stone Temple Pilots committed the double grunge-crimes of being from outside Seattle and of being popular on MTV. Their quick mainstream acceptance turned the grunge gatekeepers against them, declaring them an insincere parody of grunge’s earnestness.
Looking back, it’s a bit harsh. Musically, they fit right in with the times, and their hard rock sound developed at the same time as those bands in Seattle, not after.
Their first record Core is regarded highly by many, but I believe most STP fans will be more than happy to accept 1994’s Purple in today’s list. The album initially didn’t even have an official name, and many called it ‘12 Gracious Melodies’ due to that slogan appearing on the album’s back cover. Still, it’s what’s inside that counts, and this album contains several of the era’s defining songs, from Interstate Love Song to Vaseline, to Big Empty which even appeared in the zeitgeist-forming movie The Crow.
Dust - Screaming Trees
Mark Lanegan’s voice is a most rare instrument indeed. Bruised, rusty and full of regret, his vocals sum up that elegiac, heartbroken end of an era that came around after Cobain died. He always sounded like that, but this close friend of Kurt’s (in his autobiography, Lanegan admits to ignoring phone calls from Cobain on the day Kurt shot himself) felt it more than most.
This last album from Screaming Trees evokes the cold tombstones and rainswept sadness like a direct dispatch from death. They were always a volatile band, and Lanegan arguably saw more measured success as a solo artist, but this album is a raw document of loss by those who have clung on and survived, at least for that moment.
Who Invented Grunge?
It’s difficult to say who invented grunge, since many established bands had delivered a similar sound prior to the Seattle scene emerging in significance. As I’ve mentioned today in the album rundown, artists such as Neil Young, the Stooges and Sonic Youth had provided artistic frameworks and sonic examples that proved to be inspirational for the nascent scene. As it developed, other influences came to bear, changing the sound of grunge in ever more expansive ways.
That said, I’d point towards Green River as being the Seattle band who brought a specific sound and sensibility to a scene, and did it before others. They formed in 1984, and so were early originators. If any one band ‘invented’ grunge, then I’m going to say it was Green River.
Who Are the Most Significant Grunge Band?
Which grunge band is the most significant? It’s easy to say Nirvana, since they were the ones to define the grunge look and attitude, and it was their zeitgeist moment in 1991 that brought grunge to the masses. However, in terms of scene significance - and long-term influence, I’d point towards Pearl Jam.
Why? Well, members of PJ were in Green River, whom I just identified as ‘inventors of grunge’, if there must be such a thing. Also, they went off to form Mother Love Bone, another important early grunge band. Then, upon the death of MLB’s vocalist Andrew Wood, the tribute album Temple of the Dog brought together many of the Seattle scene’s finest to get involved.
After that, several Temple of the Dog members effectively turned into Pearl Jam. PJ are also one of the few grunge bands remaining all these years later, with mostly original members in place. They were always in the centre of grunge discussions, and were one of the scene’s biggest local and international sellers, so for my money, the most significant grunge band is Pearl Jam.
Grunge is Timeless
So, what do you think of those choices? I wasn’t trying to be deliberately provocative (Vs IS better than Ten!) but I understand that some of you might have grievances about certain choices and ommissions.
You may also consider Grunge to only exist within the Seattle area, and I'm not going to be too quick in disagreeing with you. I do feel though, that the sound and - more importantly - the attitude spread like wildfire throughout the 90s, and it's perhaps being slightly elitist to insist on a band having a certain postcode in order ot be relevant to this discussion.
Grunge existed long before Nevermind changed the game, as we’ve seen, and it lasted in slightly other forms after the mid-90s (Alternative rock, post-grunge etc etc) but I suppose it’s all just rock music, right?
Still, what a collective body of work. It’s everlasting, and that’s somehow even more special given how many of those involved in the making of that music didn’t get to enjoy long lives themselves. As a body of work, it's pretty sacred stuff, and is now part of our collective history as musicians.
