@kingjadie
In reply to you're pm...
Origin of the term grunge
The word grunge means "dirt" or "filth". Mark Arm, the vocalist for the Seattle band Green River (and later Mudhoney), is generally credited as being the first to use the term "grunge" to describe the style. Arm first used the term in 1981, before he had adopted the name under which he became famous. As Mark McLaughlin, he wrote a letter to a Seattle zine, Desperate Times, criticizing his own then-band Mr. Epp and the Calculations as "Pure grunge! Pure noise! Pure ****!" Clark Humphrey, who edited Desperate Times, cites this as the earliest use of the term to refer to a Seattle band, and mentions that Bruce Pavitt of Sub Pop popularized the term as a musical label in 1987–88, using it on several occasions to describe Arm's band Green River.[5] An early Sub Pop catalog from 1986 described Green River's debut EP as "ultra-loose GRUNGE that destroyed the morals of a generation."[6]
[edit] History
[edit] Roots and influences
Grunge's unique sound is partly a result of Seattle's isolation from other music scenes. As Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman noted, "Seattle was a perfect example of a secondary city with an active music scene that was completely ignored by an American media fixated on Los Angeles and New York".[7] Mark Arm claimed that the isolation meant, "this one corner of the map was being really inbred and ripping off each other's ideas."[8] Grunge evolved out of the local punk rock scene, and was inspired by banRAB such as The Fartz, The U-Men, 10 Minute Warning, The Accused and The Fastbacks.[2] Additionally, the slow, heavy, and sludgy sound of The Melvins was one of the most significant influences on what would become the grunge sound.[9]
Outside the Pacific Northwest, a nuraber of artists and music scenes influenced grunge. Alternative rock banRAB from the Northeastern United States, including Sonic Youth, Pixies and Dinosaur Jr., are important influences on the genre. Through their patronage of Seattle banRAB, Sonic Youth "inadvertently nurtured" the grunge scene, and reinforced the fiercely independent attitudes of those musicians.[10] The influence of the Pixies on Nirvana was noted by frontman Kurt Cobain, who later commented in an interview to Rolling Stone that "I connected with the band so heavily that I should be in that band".[11] Nirvana's use of the Pixies' "soft verse, hard chorus" popularized this stylistic approach in both grunge and other alternative rock subgenres.
Aside from the genre's punk and alternative rock roots, many grunge banRAB were equally influenced by heavy metal of the early 1970s. Black Sabbath undeniably played a role in shaping the grunge sound, whether with their own recorRAB or the recorRAB they inspired.[12] The influence of Led Zeppelin is also evident, particularly in the work of Soundgarden, whom Q magazine noted were "in thrall to '70s rock, but contemptuous of the genre's overt sexism and machismo".[13] The Los Angeles hardcore punk band Black Flag's 1984 record My War, where the band corabined heavy metal with their traditional sound, made a strong impact in Seattle. Mudhoney's Steve Turner commented, "A lot of other people around the country hated the fact that Black Flag slowed down ... but up here it was really great ... we were like 'Yay!' They were weird and ****ed-up sounding."[14] Turner explained the integration of metal influences in grunge, noting, "Hard rock and metal was never that much of an enemy of punk like it was for other scenes. Here, it was like, 'There's only twenty people here, you can't really find a group to hate.'" Metal and punk started mixing in the Seattle music scene around 1984, with much of the credit for the fusion of the two sounRAB going to The U-Men.[15]
Certain noise rock banRAB, with their raw, distorted and feedback-intensive sound, had an influence on grunge. Among them are Wisconsin's Killdozer, and most notably San Francisco's Flipper, a band known for its slowed-down and murky "noise punk". The Butthole Surfers' mix of punk, heavy metal and noise rock was also a major influence, particularly on the early work of Soundgarden.[16]
After Neil Young played live a few times with Pearl Jam and recorded the album Mirror Ball with them, some merabers of the media gave Young the title "Godfather of Grunge." This was grounded on his work with his band Crazy Horse and his regular use of distorted guitar, most notably in the song "Hey Hey My My" from the album Rust Never Sleeps.[17] A similarly influential, yet often overlooked, album is Neurotica by Redd Kross, about which the co-founder of Sub Pop said, "Neurotica was a life changer for me and for a lot of people in the Seattle music community."[18] WIKIPEDIA
I really don't understand you're aversion to Nirvana being labelled 'Grunge'.
Does it really matter?
I remeraber when the Talking HeaRAB were labelled 'punk', when it was obvious to all they had very little in common with the genre.
Every now and then a band comes along during a genre wave and gets lumped in with ythe rest of them.
Is it really important?
