The sound of Grunge, sometimes referred to as 'The Seattle Sound', drew heavily from the local Punk scene, comprising of fuzzy electric guitars and thrashy drums. The riffs were often very simple powerchords being bashed out, with very little emphasis on technical ability on the instrument. This was one of the important attitudes of the grunge movement; anyone could go into their garage, pick up a guitar, turn up to 11 and thrash out some Grunge music. Another important influence on the Grunge sound was the sound and image of 80's Metal and Glam Metal music. Alice In Chains for example, a prominent Seattle Grunge band, were visibly and audibly influenced by Heavy Metal, wearing black leather and dark colours, and with a sound that was more riff-orientated, very much a Heavy Metal style, rather than just playing Punk powerchords. In fact it could be argued that Alice In Chains were more a Metal band than a Grunge band, but were categorised as such due to their Seattle roots and introspective lyrics. Other Grunge-Metal bands include Gruntruck and Melvins, the former from Seattle and the latter coming from Montesano.
The lyrical themes of Grunge music were often quite depressing, as if the writers weren't happy with their situation, and wanted to break away from the wet, damp monotony of Seattle. For an example of some typical grunge lyrics, check out Lithium by Nirvana: http://www.algonet.se/~kenta/music/nirvana.html#Lithium
These people were very working-class, many coming from the most prominent industry in Seattle, that of logging. This shows in the fashion that many grunge rockers adopted, going for very every day looks, wearing flannel shirts as worn by the lumberjacks at work. This image is very important to grunge music, the fact that the artists look like your everyday Joe from down the pub, and that they didn't really care what people thought of them. Grunge shows had a similar attitude to the artists - no expensive pyrotechnics or lighting effects, just a bunch of people on stage playing their music. None of the crazy tapping-filled, whammy-abusing solos or spandex to be found here, in fact many grungers were pretty scruffy, especially in comparison to the Glam Metal explosion of the 80's. Here another comparison can be drawn with Punk music, the fact that the musicians didn't care about fancy outfits or showing off, or what people thought of them, they just wanted so make some noise and say what they wanted to say. The difference was that Punk was very much about rebellion and politics, whereas Grunge was more laid back in it's attitude, and much less angry.
In 1991, Grunge really exploded on a huge scale, with the release of Nirvana's "Nevermind" on the Geffen Records label. This marked the band's move from independent label Sub Pop, based in Seattle. Sup Pop was started in 1979 as a fanzine, alternating issues with audio cassette tapes featuring upcoming underground rock bands. The project was cancelled after a few issues, but when the founder, Bruce Pavitt, moved to Seattle in 1986 he released the first Sub Pop EP. In 1987, Pavitt was introduced to Jonathan Poneman by Kim Thayill (guitar player in Soundgarden) and the pair released Soundgarden's EP "Screaming Life", thus becoming a record label. In the following years Sup Pop released records from many artists, including Mudhoney, Tad and Nirvana. Nirvana were by far the most commercially successful grunge band, having shifted more than 50 million albums across the globe. The band was first formed in 1985, when guitarist/vocalist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic met. After a succession of band names, the band settled on Nirvana in 1988, and played their first show as Nirvana in March of that year. In 1990, the band left Sub Pop wanting to move to a bigger label do due increased interest, and were signed to DGC Records and released Nevermind, their first major label album, produced by Butch Vig. The first single, the now legendary "Smells Like Teen Spirit", sold way more than expected, partly due to much play on music channel MTV. By the end of 1991, Nevermind was selling over 400,000 copies a week in the United States. By April 2007, the album had sold 26 million copies worldwide.
Pearl Jam were another major milestone in the story of Grunge, as the first Grunge band to sign to a major label. They were formed from the remains of two influential grunge bands, Mother Love Bone and Green River. The former split up after the band fell apart following the Heroin-induced death of singer Andrew Wood. Pearl Jam aren't as heavy as many Grunge bands, drawing more influence from the rock music of the '70s. They were signed to Epic Records in 1991, and released their debut album, "Ten", on August 27th '91. The record was slow to take off, but by the end of 1992 it was certified gold and reached number 2 on the Billboard charts. Ten stayed in the charts for over two years, and remains one of the best-selling records of all time, going twelve times platinum.
The influence of grunge is still alive today, not only in the popularity of early Grunge such as Nirvana and Alice In Chains, but in more recent, 'post-grunge' bands such as Nickelback, Puddle Of Mudd and Chevelle. These bands retain the dirty angst of Grunge, but are arguably more commercial and marketable, and could be seen as sell-outs by fans of original Grunge. Personally I think this is ridiculous considering the enormous success of records such as Nevermind and Ten, but I can see where these fans are coming from, since Nickelback's single 'Rock Star' seems to be being played pretty much every other song on music TV channels such as Kerrang and Scuzz at the time of writing.
Word count: 1030
Useful pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub_pop
Information and figures researched on Wikipedia.org
