Teens React to Nirvana

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Not a huge fan, but definitely a fan. Not my favorite grunge band, that would be Alice in Chains, but they are a close second, and definitely better than most the stuff people listen to nowadays.

The ironic thing about Nirvana and Alice in Chains is that they both got lumped into the "grunge scene" kind of unwillingly. Nirvana essentially wanted to be a hardcore punk band with some pop sensibilities, while Alice in Chains started out parodying hair metal acts, and later moved in a more sludge metal-oriented direction. They both have songs with that sort of "grungy" quality to them, but I wouldn't really consider grunge to be so much of a genre as a scene that encompasses a number of late 80s/early 90s rock bands of varying genres.

But anyway, as far as "grunge" bands go, Nirvana and Alice in Chains are top-notch. I have a slight preference for Nirvana, though that's mainly because I've been a fan of them longer than I've been a fan of Alice in Chains. Soundgarden is pretty good too, though they don't have as many "classic" songs or albums. For some reason though, I could just never get into Pearl Jam.

Wow. I feel old.

I say grunge has enough similarities across the bands so it to be considered a genre eg. they all made use of dynamics more than other rock bands at the time and had gruff vocals, and considering they were a bunch of people with a similar fashion sense listening to similar bands from the same city it was clearly a scene. Sure, they all had their own peculiarities and aims, but they all ultimately mixed together a range of hardcore, alternative, and metal to create a distinctive sound. Sludge metal wasn't a thing before grunge, the only sludge metal band was grunge pioneer The Melvins and half an album by hardcore punkers Black Flag. It makes perfect sense to be lumped with Nirvana, who while they mainly took from hardcore they also took influence from doomier metal acts like Black Sabbath and Celtic Frost. Sure, one identified as a metal band while the other identified as a punk band, but they have much more in common with each other than AiC had with most other metal bands at the time, and Nirvana did with other punk bands. Yeah, they the label was placed on them unwillingly, but that's pretty much how every new genre forms, the media places a label on a bands with a new sound while the bands insist they are mere pushing the boundaries of the old sound and have no idea what this new label means.

On a side note, IMO 90's onward the hardcore/metal distinction is pretty much meaningless because both scenes have taken so much from each other. In the present metalcore serves as the popular face of both scenes, but the elitists on both sides deny metalcore is their genre and insist it's the others. I saw on some forum someone saying hardcore is slower than metal, while someone else said hardcore is more complex, and that sorta made me die inside.

Your theory on the creation of grunge as a genre actually makes sense now that I think about it, and applying the same logic, one could say that metalcore is really its own scene and genre, independent of hardcore and metal. Musically, I think one of the most significant things that sets metalcore apart are the vocals. Bands in other genres have mixed clean vocals with screamed/growled vocals before, but the particular way metalcore bands do it is actually quite unique. I can usually tell if I'm listening to a metalcore band just by the vocals alone.

Most people cite the use of breakdowns as the defining aspect of metalcore, though breakdowns are occasionally found in other metal genres as well. Eg. Pantera has quite a few songs with breakdowns. Generally metalcore is chuggier than other metal genres, which is characteristic of metallic hardcore, but some bands feature more winding lead guitar characteristic of modern post-hardcore. Both the vocals and instrumentation can very quite a bit, but yeah, the vocals are often pretty distinctive.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJD75yVRyg8[/youtube]

Nice version. The accordions on it kind of remind me of the sound Nirvana employed on MTV Unplugged in New York, though not of the specific version of All Apologies they recorded for it. I kinda wonder what Kurt would've felt about his face being splashed over those displays though, if he would've thought that they would be overly idolizing him.

I used to like Nirvana, but they are just too mainstream for me.

What's wrong with that? I listen to plenty of obscure artists, but some of my absolute favorite bands are in fact fairly mainstream. I mean, a lot of mainstream music sucks, but it doesn't suck because it's mainstream, it sucks because it sucks.