Is "grunge" really that interesting?

[Angst]

This thread is not a challenge of or an attack on your personal tastes. But I'd like you to describe your position on my following thoughts. Simply answer my questions.

I'd like to know why that particular movement of anxious rebellion stood out as the prime nineties rock movement. For that's what I've understood of people's consideration of nineties rock, they think of grunge and the faux-Beatlesness of britpop. That's kind of the two bigs that got a legacy in rock music consumption today, and that's fine. But I don't get it. Neither feel particularly groundbreaking or rebellious; I wouldn't consider that particularly relevant to the value of a piece of music in itself, of course, but the problem comes to me when people romantize it as such. I don't understand people's criteria and wish to know whether I've gained the wrong impression of people's general tastes or not. Why do they find grunge groundbreaking, well, do they even do that?

My befuddlement concretely arises when people discuss grunge as a genre. It's pretty much secluded to the nineties; if someone plays 'grunge' today, they are just playing rock. Grunge varies so little from the alternative rock in general - both prior and post nineties - that it's a kinda pointless term to use about a musical style. Or am I wrong? I'd prefer if I were. I like when people in general turn out to be smarter than me. It's always a good thing when people are smart.

I personally consider the two fundamentally groundbreaking rock movements of the nineties to be post-rock and shoegaze, and when I casually mention those two to people they go like

I personally like both britpop, "grunge", post-rock and shoegaze as well as plenty of other musical movements of the nineties. I have no aesthetic necessity for music to be rebellious or groundbreaking. I just listen to music for the sake of itself. I don't want to promote specific aesthetic criteria, nor to convert people into embracing them. People may like what they want. I find issue if their aesthetic preferences aren't internally consistent, however. Liking Miles Davis because one thinks he is a great folk singer, for example, is pretty dumb.

 

[illram]

I don't think grunge is that groundbreaking. But I would imagine the current demographic of bloggers, writers, and general Iinternet commenters is disproportionately represented by 30 to 40 year old white men who have fond memories of growing up listening to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, et al. Like me. So I would say it's more of a generational bias than anything particularly special about grunge music.

 

[Tycho Brahe]

I have no idea what post-rock and shoegaze is.

Grunge was meh. I mostly remember it for the ugly plaid flannel shirts alle the girls where wearing.

The faux-Beatlesness of britpop is more down my alley. But then again, i like the genuine beatles.

 

[azzaman333]

Britpop and Grunge both hit the mainstream, and caused noticeable changes to the mainstream music that followed. That's pretty much why they stand out.

 

[Kyriakos]

In terms of musical composition, Grunge most of the time is very simple and rather crude. It does seem that the only thing it had going for it was a certain popular attempt by its main bands to come up with more (un)characteristic sounding guitar-work, albeit nothing technically impressive. Often the riffs just failed, but sometimes they had a somewhat darker quality to them.

I do not think it is any better than other types of alternative modern music. Then again i am not much of a fan of music anyway. I even have stopped listening to classics, like Prokofiev's dance of the knights, which surely is a lot more interesting as a composition than any Grunge song.

 

[kramerfan86]

Honestly when it comes to 90s music I much prefer the britpop tto grunge. Only grunge bands I particularly care for are Nirvana and Screaming Trees, the rest is fairly meh to me. The bias of the age group that grew up in that time certainly helps grunge. it also gets a fair amount of credit due to the fairly poor musical trend it replaced.

 

[Kyriakos]

Some britpop was interesting in my view, but not really the main bands (Oasis and Blur, the latter of which i find to be utter crap as i have said before ).

Although i have seen it mentioned that Britpop started with Suede, who had a few good songs, before their guitarist quit the band.

 

[Gamemaster77]

I have no idea what post-rock and shoegaze is.

Grunge was meh. I mostly remember it for the ugly plaid flannel shirts alle the girls where wearing.

The faux-Beatlesness of britpop is more down my alley. But then again, i like the genuine beatles.

If you haven't heard of post-rock you NEED to listen to it. It's not for everyone, but if it is, wow, there are some great songs out there.

 

[Angst]

I'm gone till Thursday (way to start a thread lol) but I just wanted to do this:

I have no idea what post-rock and shoegaze is.

Exactly!

You should know these two though. I think.

Post-rock:
Link to video.

Shoegaze:
Link to video.

Less known are stuff like... Well. These are major bands within the genre:

Post-rock:

Link to video.

Link to video.

Shoegaze:

Link to video.

Link to video.

I understand why post-rock might be inaccessible to people. It's more often than not driven by large, wide progressions and is just so damn long. It really savours the repetetiveness as part of its style, and it's often instrumental. But shoegaze is often catchy and has often used quite upbeat beats and is often utilizing very simple popular chord structures which it melds into a dense noise wall of beauty. Shoegaze is not particularly complex. In fact, it was apparently quite popular before grunge showed up, and for example My Bloody Valentine's Loveless is a genre classic. Both fields just disappeared into the undercurrents of subcultures: They are very much alive today, in fact, there's an overwhelming mass of shoegaze-based rock 'genres' today - basically shoegaze as the differences are miniscule and not really worth mentioning. Post-rock is still widely played in subcultures as well, but has pretty much leaned itself onto Explosions in the Sky's style rather than, well, Mogwai, Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and so on. Explosions in the Sky is a band everyone I play them to like as well. Just take a while and listen to this:


Link to video.

Also, I think we need people from the grunge thread in here.

EDIT: Slight edit for shoegaze.

This is early Lush:

Link to video.

This is later Lush taking heavy inspiration from britrock. It's a pretty fun hybrid.

Link to video.
The song might be annoying to some.

The fast-paced sorts of shoegaze can be quite upbeat (and dancy!) while the slow-paced have sometimes been called dream pop, and there's a reason for that: It's basically soft ballads with lots of guitar effects.

If you haven't heard of post-rock you NEED to listen to it. It's not for everyone, but if it is, wow, there are some great songs out there.

This indeed! It's one of those things that just hold you there when you've been pulled in. It's intimidating at first (especially the lengthiness of the songs) but oh god when it gets under your skin its sooo good.

 

[Yoda Power]

I think much of the popularity of grunge can be found in the fact that it was a reaction to all the 80'ties rock bands. The new generation of teenagers needed to define themselves against the Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and GnR of the 80'ties that their older siblings had loved.

 

[warpus]

Can we get a description of what post-rock and shoegaze are, rather than just music videos? Cause I listened to most of the posted videos, and I still don't really know what they are.

As for grunge, it was the "punk" of the 90s. It was a rebellion against the mainstream. It has generational value to some people, like someone has said.

Is it interesting? Well, what do you mean by interesting? If I were a musician trained in music theory, I might say no.. but I really have no idea, as I'm not.

 

[Dachs]

Can we get a description of what post-rock and shoegaze are, rather than just music videos? Cause I listened to most of the posted videos, and I still don't really know what they are.

Most of this genre nonsense is just so much navelgazing.

 

[sophie]

Most of this genre nonsense is just so much navelgazing.

Um, yeah, well you see...it's actually, uh navel-gazing with a hyphen.

 

[illram]

Is navelgaze a sub-genre of shoegaze?

 

[downtown]

I don't think grunge is that groundbreaking. But I would imagine the current demographic of bloggers, writers, and general Iinternet commenters is disproportionately represented by 30 to 40 year old white men who have fond memories of growing up listening to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, et al. Like me. So I would say it's more of a generational bias than anything particularly special about grunge music.

That seems completely reasonable to me.

 

[CocoIsKing28]

Being a big grunge fan, I would say that grunge was another angst-driven movement that went mainstream, popularizing the likes of Kurt Cobain, who's death made him become more of a legend who people still see as one today. Some of it still resonates with the people of today (being a fan who wasn't there for the grunge explosion, I can say so). Also, this:

I think much of the popularity of grunge can be found in the fact that it was a reaction to all the 80'ties rock bands. The new generation of teenagers needed to define themselves against the Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and GnR of the 80'ties that their older siblings had loved.

Grunge killed glam. The spawns of glam were never heard because it was destroyed. The terrible spawns of grunge, however, still cause ears to bleed worldwide, because grunge wasn't destroyed so fiercely.

 

[Oruc]

I had no interest in music during the 90s and much of the 00s so I don't understand what you're talking about.

 

[Mise]

I don't think grunge is that groundbreaking. But I would imagine the current demographic of bloggers, writers, and general Iinternet commenters is disproportionately represented by 30 to 40 year old white men who have fond memories of growing up listening to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, et al. Like me. So I would say it's more of a generational bias than anything particularly special about grunge music.

Yeah this seems like the whole thing to me.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

It's the musical equivalent of Obama. A perceived connection to the common man, a safe and toothless channel for societal rage, and it wasn't what came before it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Not that bad an analogy, but i still dislike likening Obama to Grunge :/
Obama is more like some sitcom with canned laughter, and you never hear the real views about its level.