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Chris Jones Music and Culture Model Research Essay on Professor C. Armstrong a Style of Music 19 December 2018

Sells Like Teen Spirit: Grunge Music in the 1980s and 1990

Grunge is a form of rock music that emerged in the 1980s in the Seattle area of Washington state. Combining the guitar sounds of heavy metal with the defiant attitude and aggressive messages of punk, grunge bands expressed the angst of white middle-class youth. Major grunge acts include Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Hole, and Pearl Jam. Although the description grunge was rejected by many of the the artists, it did accurately describe a sound and a style of production that was shared by a number of bands in late 1980s. When successful albums by Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam were released in the early 90s, grunge became the music industry’s label for the new “Seattle sound” and later for the appearance of a whole new collection of “alternative rock” bands. Thus, like many words used to categorize commercial pop music, grunge was both a description and an effective marketing tool used by record companies to sell music in the 1990s.

Early “Grunge” Bands The term grunge, which means “grime or dirt” (Grambush) and comes from the adjective grungy, meaning “shabby or dirty in character or condition” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) was applied to a number of Seattle-area bands in the late 1980s. Some of these bands used the term to joke about themselves and their music: dirt, scum, grunge (Grambush). But for most people, the name referred to the guitar sound, especially that of Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Green River and Nirvana. Interestingly, all of these bands were on the C/Z or Sub Pop record label, and all of them released albums produced by Jack Endino, later called the “Godfather of Grunge,” between 1984 and 1987 (“Origin”). In 1984, Green River and Soundgarden began playing; in 1985 Screaming Trees emerged while 1986 saw the establishment of indie companies Sub Pop Records and C/Z Records. The same year C/Z released a compilation album featuring the Melvins, Green River, Soundgarden and others, which helped bring the sound to attention of audiences (Grambush). Jones 2

Musical Influences Grunge’s blend of punk and heavy metal can be traced to American punk rockers Black Flag and to British metal band Black Sabbath. Locally, in Washington state a band called the Melvins were an important influence on the style. The band and their followers liked older acts such as KISS, Cheap Trick, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC (Grambush). At the same time, the new bands shared the defiant and independent attitude of punk and hardcore (“Grunge,” Allmusic.com). The music was slow in tempo, and the guitars were distorted and dirty sounding, thus the name grunge. The sound was a deliberate contrast to the well-produced mainstream rock music of the 1980s, and was characterized by “high levels of distortion, feedback, fuzz effects, a fusion of punk and metal influences” (“Origin”). Producer Endino described the style as “seventies-influenced, slowed-down punk music” (“Grunge,” Wikipedia). The sound included a sludgy electric guitar sound with a "thick" middle register and rolled-off treble tone and a high level of distortion and fuzz, typically created with small 1970s-style stompbox pedals, with some guitarists chaining several fuzz pedals together and plugging them into a tube amplifier and speaker cabinet. Seattle-based band Nirvana established some of the song-writing conventions of the genre, especially the stop-start format and the tendency to change between soft and loud playing (“Grunge,” Wikipedia).

Major Band: Nirvana Nirvana were the most successful of the new bands and became an icon of the Seattle grunge style. Formed in 1985 in the small town of Aberdeen, about an hour’s drive from Seattle, Nirvana consisted of guitarist and vocalist Kurt Cobain (1967-1994), bassist Krist Novoselic (1965-) and drummer Dave Grohl (1969-), who joined the band in the early 1990s. Between 1992 ad 1994, the success of two albums helped to popularize a new style of music that combined heavy metal and punk, and changed the mainstream tastes of American music fans (Starr and Waterman 451). In 1987, the Nirvana signed a contract with indie record label Sub Pop, based in Seattle. They recorded their first album Bleach (1989) at a cost of only 600 dollars. The album sold 35, 000 copies. Their follow-up album Nevermind as released in 1991 on the DGC label and rose to number 1 in 1992, remaining on the charts for 5 years and selling 10 million copies (Starr and Waterman 452). Like punk bands of the past, Nirvana Jones 3 found success difficult to deal with. Members of the band made trouble for themselves and created controversy. They rejected their growing popularity and the rock star life. According to Stephen Thomas Erlewine, “they fought their stardom while courting it, becoming some of the most notorious anti-rock stars in history.” In Utero, Nirvana’s third album, was released in 1993. It rose to number 1 and sold 4 million copies (Starr and Waterman 454). A failed tour of Europe was followed by Cobain’s overdose on champagne and drugs in 1994. In April of that year, suffering drug addiction and depression, Cobain committed suicide. According to Starr and Waterman, many people blamed his death on “the pressures faced by alternative musicians who were pulled into the mainstream” (454). In this way, the career of Nirvana suggests some of the problems of young artists who find success in the music business.

The Significance of Grunge The bands that began playing in Washington state in the 1980s introduced a new and exciting sound into American rock music. Rejecting the mainstream styles of the 1980s, these groups also helped to change the music tastes of American fans in a way that lasted through the 1990s. Grunge also helped bring in a whole new crop of new alternative styles. They also expressed the thoughts and feelings of the post-1960s counterculture generation of young people, sometimes referred to as Generation X. According to Ryan Moore, this group of young Americans began to feel the declining status of the middle-class America (17). Themes of anger, depression and loneliness in a consumer society were common in their music, and expressed this new condition. But bands like Nirvana may be less important for their musical expression than for their promotion by record companies. Throughout the 1990s the music industry worked harder than ever to find new local music scenes to promote. The Seattle sound of grunge was just one these new styles.

Conclusion Grunge was both a description of a new sound of the late 1980s and an effective marketing tool for music in the 1990s. The success of Nirvana helped popularize a number of new “alternative” styles of music: alternative rock, alt country, and alternative folk, to name just a few. Their expression of young Americans’ anxieties about modern life in a changing world can be seen in the words and in the sound of their music. But they are also an example of record companies’ power to shape musical trends. Nirvana, an extremely successful band Jones 4 that lasted only a few years suggests the pressure that young artists often experience in the music business.

Works Cited

Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. “Nirvana: Artist Biography.” Allmusic.com, www.allmusic.com/ artist/nirvana-mn0000357406/biography. Accessed 25 November 2018. Grambush, Jacklyn. “A Brief History of Grunge: The Seattle Sound.” Culture Trip, 31 Oct. 2017, theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/washington/articles/a-brief-history-of-grunge- the-seattle-sound/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2018. “Grunge.” Allmusic.com, www.allmusic.com/style/grunge-ma0000002626. Accessed 21 Oct. 2018. “Grunge.” Wikipedia, 22 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge. Accessed 21 November 2018. Moore, Ryan. Sells Like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth Culture and Social Crisis. New York U. P., 2010. “The Origin of ‘Grunge.’” Northwest Passage, 2018, www.revolutioncomeandgone.com/ articles/1/the-origin-of-grunge.php. Accessed 25 November 2018. Starr, Larry and Christopher Waterman. American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3. Third edition, Oxford U.P., 2010.

Model Research Essay on a Style of Music

Read through the essay and find:

1. The main idea of the essay (or thesis statement) 2. The main topics of the essay 3. Citations from sources e.g. (Moore 17)

Also, notice the ways research information is integrated into the essay.

Is there any information you would add or change?

Be ready to discuss the essay in class next time.