Alice in Chains?
John Hollinger opened up his most recent chat with this “Got a bunch of grunge CDs on shuffle right now, so if this chat comes across as angry and jaded blame Kurt Cobain.” That, in turn, led to the following exchange:
J-Vicious (Morristown, NY)
I dig that you’re jamming to Nirvana. Do you think Gilbert Arenas will come out of the dead this year and perform like the elite point guard he was a couple years back?
John Hollinger (3:45 PM)
We got Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the criminally underrated Alice in Chains going head to head right now. As for Arenas, I’m really suspicious. He had a very serious injury and it’s not like he’s 7-feet tall — the guy is entirely dependent on his cutting and quickness. Even if he stays healthy all year I think it’s highly unlikely he has the same zip.
That’s right on Arenas, but Alice in Chains? It seems pretty clear to me that the third leg of that particular stool ought to be Smashing Pumpkins:
I think their not-very-good later work sort of brought them into discredit, but Gish, Siamese Dream, Pisces Iscariot, and Mellon Collie alone constitute a reasonably extensive body of excellent work. Alice in Chains, meanwhile, gave us “Man in the Box” and . . . what?
104 Responses to “Alice in Chains?”
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August 1st, 2009 at 11:43 am
Well, the obvious reason those three bands go together is because they are all from Seattle, as opposed to the Pumpkins who were from Chicago, as I recall. And I think you’ve got to give props to AiC for Dirt, which is a pretty great record, plus Sap and Jar of Flies. But I accept that they are a little too metal for a lot of people’s tastes.
August 1st, 2009 at 11:48 am
Dude. Seattle vs. not Seattle. This is not hard. Of course the Pumpkins are better. They’re better than Pearl Jam, too (as were Alice in Chains). But that’s not really the point, is it? When we talk about grunge, for some reason we insist the bands in question must come from Seattle.
Besides, if we’re really talking about grunge bands, you’d kick out Pearl Jam and bring in Soundgarden or Mudhoney, and you’d do that way before you kicked out Alice in Chains. There is nothing “sludgy” at all about Pearl Jam, which was like the whole point of grunge music.
Also, every time people start talking about these bands together, I want to link to this, which makes me chuckle for no good reason.
August 1st, 2009 at 11:58 am
I’m with you up until Mellon Collie. That’s where I got off the train. It doesn’t help that Corgan’s such an insufferable ass.
August 1st, 2009 at 11:59 am
All of it sounds terrible to me these days. None of them sound like they’re having much fun. At least Mudhoney had a sense of humor. The line between grunge and lame metal is pretty blurry. And Smashing Pumpkins records sound worse and worse as time passes.
Instead let’s talk about how fucking great the Pixies really are.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Man in box? ROOSTER!!!
August 1st, 2009 at 12:05 pm
If you’re gonna go with a Seattle band, you gotta hit Soundgarden over Alice in Chains. They had three top-notch albums at their peak.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:06 pm
I don’t agree. The first half of the Pumpkins catalog holds up nicely. With the advantage of time the annoying personalities and poses matter less and their tasty pop grunge matters more.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Alice in Chains is a great band…Pumpkins suck.
That is all.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Seriously, whatever you think of Alice in Chains or Smashing Pumpkins, Smashing Pumpkins aren’t by any stretch of the imagination a grunge band. Neither were Jane’s Addiction or Red Hot Chili Peppers, for those of you keeping score at home.
Personally, I always thought Smashing Pumpkins were whiny, not just in their interviews, but in their music. How anybody could listen to Corgan’s voice for long periods of time eludes me. Alice in Chains has some phenomenal songs, “Rooster” and “Would” being among them.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I think their not-very-good later work sort of brought them into discredit, but Gish, Siamese Dream, Pisces Iscariot, and Mellon Collie alone constitute a reasonably extensive body of excellent work.
Bingo. If the Smashing Pumpkins had somehow included “1979″ on Siamese Dream and then stopped making records, I imagine they’d be much more respected.
Those who were around in 1995 may remember quite a bit of eye-rolling in response to the self-indulgent proto-emo-ness of Mellon Collie.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Smashing Pumpkins better than Pearl Jam? Maybe in 1992-3. Taken as a whole though, no way. For a while, Pearl Jam got much better the less popular they became.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Smashing Pumpkins always seemed so phony to me. I don’t know. Couldn’t take them seriously.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:37 pm
A healthy dose of context needs to be established here. First, these bands are representative of a certain sort of contrived mainstream zeitgeist. Nirvana is a league apart from the others in terms of originality and pushing music forward, but all were extruded from a wringer of heavy-duty “popcraft” – that is, intensive production scrutinization and calculation.
All bands do this of course, but some with more fealty to art vs. commerce. The pixies were certainly masters of popcraft, but knowlingly so, and with a sophisticated dexterity facilitated by transcendent genius.
It’s an unfair reality, but an ever-present flipside to success. One wonders if artistic purity could ever withstand the marketplace.
Regarding their actual work though – Cobain wins for songwriting, Corgan for glamour, Cantrell for hooks, and Pearl Jam for, oh I don’t know, here and there capturing something of a “moment”. Soundgarden was consistently much stronger.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:39 pm
There are four legs to the chair: Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, and Soundgarden.
AiC gave us “Man in A Box”, “Would” (on the singles soundtrack, the quintessential grunge-era movie), “Heaven Beside”, “Them Bones”, “The Rooster” … do you need me to keep going?.
Importantly, all four of these bands are from Seattle; Pumpkins were based in Chicago.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Yeah, just pile on here, not only is Smashing Pumpkins a non-Seattle band, they’re plainly post-grunge guitar rock, both in terms of when they made their name and what they sound like.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, and Soundgarden.
You left out Screaming Trees. Some desk chairs have five castors.
This thread is guaranteed to get 100 comments.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:49 pm
I have to agree, the Pumpkins were not grunge, even though they first rose to popularity when grunge was ascendant. Soundgarden probably does make a better match than Alice in Chains if you want to make a Seattle Troika. Afterall, Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder even sang together in the short-lived Temple of the Dog.
But what do I know? I was a goth when all that was going on.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:55 pm
In the broader context, I’ve lived in the Puget Sound area briefly, and I have some family there, and I don’t think the locality of grunge is especially contrived. Obviously it’s not like every band in Seattle sounded like Nirvana or Soundgarden, but it’s really not hard to picture the sound & attitude called “grunge” emerging from that sociopolitical context. By that I mean factors such as a liberal, educated Seattle culture surrounded by a white working-class culture in the broader region, and the early-90s economic malaise turning 20-somethings into slackers nationwide before the dotcom boom made us all start blogs and buy iPhones.
Also, as a weird data-point: I’ve had mental-health professionals tell me that the rates of drug addiction and incest are noticeably higher in the region than in other places they’ve lived and worked. Which would contribute nicely to the darkness of the music.
And if you’ve spent any time in Aberdeen, Kurt Cobain’s hometown, it’s not hard to see why you might make some seriously depressing music.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:57 pm
“Would?” is the one I was thinking of (never followed Alice In Chains, but the hook in that song always stuck with me). Definitely the perfect grunge precis; the only other contenders I would think would be “Alive” and “Nearly Lost You”.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:07 pm
If you listen to pre-Gish pumpkins, they were more or less a New Wave band. Now I don’t even know what New Wave is really supposed to mean, but early Pumpkins almost sounds closer to 80’s pop than 90’s rock. I think the Pumpkins are kind of hard to put neatly into a genre because there’s so many different influences in there, and they’re sort of difficult to imitate because the songs are all over the place stylistically.
Billy Corgan never really stopped writing good songs, he just stopped putting them on albums or ruining them with over-production when he did.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:08 pm
If you want underrated Seattle Grunge bands your best choice is Screaming Trees, now that is a criminally under rated band.
Or if you really want to show off your Seattle cred bring up Mother Love Bone.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:17 pm
To AiC lovers:
Sorry – but any band that sounds like the Grandfathers of late 90’s post-grunge metal (Creed anyone?) I just cannot accept them.
I agree with the Smashing Pumpkins being excluded from the mix, but would also exclude Sound Garden (another band that all too often sounds like they were a copy of a copy of the gunge sound).
Smashing Pumpkins may sounds dated, but in a good way. Kins of like listening to an old Talking Heads Album or Floyd album.
Listening to Alice in Chains is like listening to a Bon Jovi album without any of hte irony. The worst position to be in
August 1st, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Yeah, but the real inside scoop about Mother Love Bone is that they sucked, and that the only reason anybody ever remembers them is because the lead singer died of a heroin overdose and then had a tribute album made for him by some guys from Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. Even when you die for a dumb reason, it’s all about who you know.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:23 pm
the first of those bands i’d heard (after mudhoney) was screaming trees
still good sounding and you could imagine going to get big gulps in an 84 sentra without heater or second gear with them
August 1st, 2009 at 1:34 pm
The AiC song I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is “Angry Chair.” A damned fine song.
I never could stand the Pumpkins. Nirvana and Pearl Jam really only had a few good moments each. In the end, I can respect grunge for what it did to the music industry, but I can’t find much to enjoy or admire in the genre (however loosely that’s defined).
August 1st, 2009 at 1:34 pm
MTC:
I agree with you on the Pumpkins. Coming from Chicago, they clearly were more influenced during their formation with standard bar-rock genre/styles of music.
What I think is interesting is that the bands which seemingly get more respect are those that never evolved their sound (Nirvana/Sound Garden/AiC). Say what you will about the Pumpkins and Pearl Jam, but their range of music was more impressive, even if sometimes self-indulgent.
I may be shot for saying this, but can anyone tell me that Nirvana would have done anything but gotten stale. No offense to Cobain, who was an excellent poet (i.e. -he was better than almost anyone in the last 30 years at putting personal pain into his songs and having it sound genuine, scary and remose without sounding contrived), but from an composition standpoint, I never saw hints that he was going to change form the standard Nirvana sound. Without his death, I fear Nirvana would have ended up akin to what happened to Guns N’ Roses (breaking up under the weight of trying to top early successes).
August 1st, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Sorry – error in the above post. I meant “…having it sound genuine, scary and morose without sounding contrived”).
remose is to remember the good times….not exactly what Cobain was going for, eh?
August 1st, 2009 at 1:46 pm
On the Alice in Chains vs. Smashing Pumpkins-
In hindsight the Pumpkins music has aged much better. I think it all comes down to Corgan’s songwriting skills even if he has a tendency to go astray.
But back in the mid-nineties, Smashing Pumpkins were rightly seen as being derivative of true pioneers like The Pixies and My Blood Valentine. Alice in Chains created a much more original sound, especially with their somewhat experimental final album.
Now I listen to Smashing Pumpkins more often than I ever did back then, and never listen to Alice in Chains.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:46 pm
What else besides Man in the Box? The first four cuts off “Jar of Flies.” Listen to Dirt all the way through. It might be the best single album of the “grunge period.” Heavy, gothic and harrowing yet oddly vulnerable and beautiful. “Dam That River”, “God Smack,” “Angry Chair,” “Rooster,”"Junkhead”; Layne Staley might have been the most evocative “junkie” singer since Billie Hoiliday.
If you want to sample of the strength of AIC’s songs, check out Ryan Adams’ cover of Down in a Hole. Somehow I doubt he, or anyone, will be covering “Tonight, Tonight” or “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” anytime soon.
As we post, there are hundreds of kids across America forming bands, listening the AIC for inspiration and ideas. And they are dismissing the Smashing Pumpkins as the shallow pap it is.
The Pumpkins are essentially Boston with a light, sand-papered texture. They are as thin as gold foil. Take out Jimmy Chamberlain’s awesome drumming (it’s a shame Dave Grohl gets so much more credit, Chamberlain can drum him under and around the table) and what do you get? Adore.
I rest my case.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Pumpkins’ “Disarm” and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” are terrible. Emo nancy-boy terrible. Whatever good they did with “Cherub Rock” was wiped out by those songs. It’s like a pepperoni-and-dogshit pizza.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Agreed that “Would” and “Rooster” are great tracks. Also agree with the general response to MY’s proposed Nirvana-Pearl Jam-Smashing Pumpkins triumverate. One of those things does not belong.
Brad @ #22: comparing AiC to Creed is laughable. Creed was a pale shadow of anything…AiC kicked serious ass for a short period of time. Scott Stapp whines, pathetically stalks women, and is certain fodder for a reality show comeback. Layne Staley slew himself with heroin.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Gish really is a great record – it’s a touchstone of the times.
But don’t trash AIC! Jerry Cantrell is one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time: What’s My Name and It Ain’t Like That on Facelift. Layne Staley lays it all on the table – you can really feel his tortured soul. Their acoustic stuff is fantastic: Sap, Jar of Flies, the Unplugged show.
And as far as grunge quintessentials, check out the Mad Season one-record supergroup w/ members of Screaming Trees, Mike Mcready of PJ and Layne Staley.
Finally, Pearl Jam is new and improved with Matt Cameron formerly of Soundgarden. And still playing killer shows – best still-active rock band IMHO.
Tonight we rock Portland!
August 1st, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Soundgarden: Louder than Love
Mudhoney: Superfuzzbigmuff
Alice in Chains is probably the most overrated band of the ’90’s except for that SoCal band that copied Nirvana then got all into heroin.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Wow, a lots of Smashing Pumpkins fans read Matt. Interesting yet not surprising.
AIC may not have ever “evolved” because, well, their lead singer was pretty much able to function after Dirt.
I don’t get the “aging” comment about Pumpkins vs. AIC. Give Melancholy and Dirt to 17-year-olds and ask them which sounds like the 90’s and which sounds current, or, better yet, tell strippers they can dance to either “Man in the Box” or “Cherub Rock” and see what they choose. Again I rest my case.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Sorry for those offended by AiC rips, but I am with the poster stating that the Pumpkins catalog gets better with age, AiC just sounds aged.
And sorry to say this, but put one AiC song on, and unless it is accoustic, they ALL sounds the exact same. There is almost no variation at all. Again- much like that drivel Creed puts out.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
IMHO Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden were all miles above AIC. AIC was a glam rock hair band that (to their credit) grew out of that, but not completely. Still a lot of metal posturing and posing. They had their moments (Would, about 1/2 of Dirt, some other stuff here and there) but then they got into that wierd folk-metal sound that didn’t do it for me at all. Plus all the late 90s nu-metal bands took SO much from them–everytime I hear them I can’t help but think of Staind or Godsmack or all that other forgettable nonsense.
Pumpkins had a few moments but Billy Corgan a) had maybe the single most annoying voice in rock history and b) was maybe the single most annoying person/douche in rock history.
No, for early 90s mega-famous bands that were actually good, it’s Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. (RHCP, Jane’s, and others as well but in a different category). They should have been joined by the Screaming Trees. Absolutely great band and phenomenal live. I expect to learn 20 years from now that there was an active conspiracy to keep them from getting huge, it’s the only explanation I can think of for why they didn’t break big.
Damn this was a good music era. Throw in PJ Harvey, Bjork, Hole (had their moments), Radiohead (although they got a lot better later), Liz Phair, Beck, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, Wu-Tang, Public Enemy up through 1992 or so, the Roots, Tribe, Fugazi, Tool, on and on and on. I was listening to Guided by Voices the other day and I remember at the time thinking there was nothing special about them, but now I realize how awesome they were, it’s just that ALL THE OTHER MUSIC was also awesome and they got lost in the wash. There were a lot of bands like that.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
spokeytown:
Spot on with regards to AiC. They were the glam-grunge band, and were the bridge between hair-metal in 1990 and moden-rock crica 2000.
Why…because crappy, self-taught drugged out, loser guitarists who have no music ability do not try to copy complex music. They learn to play crappy, three-cord progression music. Add a complete lack of ability to write a song that sounds better than 10th grade poetry, and you have what has been wrong in general with modern rock music.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Dirt, Angry Chair, Rooster, No Excuses, Would?. And many more.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:30 pm
@ Nicholas Beaudrot: Totally agree that the four legs are Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. Smashing Pumpkins just don’t cut it.
Also, nobody’s yet mentioned “I Stay Away” in addition to the rest of the AiC classics like Man in the Box, Would, Heaven Beside You, Rooster, Them Bones and Down in a Hole. If Yglesias can’t think of any of those tunes maybe Hollinger’s right that AiC really is criminally underrated.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I remembered the other night that the best song of the ’90’s was “Farmer’s Way” by Alaskan Rapper Shawn Farmer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2-JDYlTFPY
August 1st, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I know I will probably be mocked mercilessly for saying it, but I think there is a lot to like in the Pumpkins’ “Adore.” Corgan was obviously pretty fucked up by his mother’s death, and that emotion made for some poignant pieces, IMHO. Unfortunately, their last pre-break up album and the one that the new Pumpkins released a couple of years ago are both pretty crappy.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:38 pm
@ DW
“But back in the mid-nineties, Smashing Pumpkins were rightly seen as being derivative of true pioneers like The Pixies and My Blood Valentine. ”
I was wondering how long it would take to mention those bands (also maybe Sonic Youth). Both are truly great bands. SP was decent up through 1994, as others have said.
@spookytown It didn’t hold a candle to the late 70s, early 80s. And you forgot A Tribe Called Quest, if we’re talking early 90s rap. Dre and Ice Cube were better in NWA, imho.
Matt, listen to your commenters. You need more musical hipster cred, and we’re here to help you.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:39 pm
@spookytown: Correction, I you have Tribe. Arrested Development was decent, too. Not great, but decent.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I’m surprised more people haven’t mentioned AIC’s “Down in a Hole”. That’s just a gorgeous track that still holds up and could easily be covered and still sound good, which is the mark of a great song.
August 1st, 2009 at 2:45 pm
matt’s alice in chains knowledge apparently comes exclusively from playing the rockband 2 game. sad.
great band.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I think you guys are absolutely right about AiC being the bridge between shitty glam metal and shitty nu-metal, but they just stand head and shoulders above anything in either of those genres. You can knock the rhythm parts for being simple “three-cord (sic) progression music,” but Cantrell’s lead stuff is awesome and was ground-breaking at the time.
Re: The Screaming Trees. Great band. Sweet Oblivion and Dust are fantastic records. I also HIGHLY recommend Mark Lanegan’s solo stuff, especially Whiskey for the Holy Ghost, I’ll Take Care of You, and Field Songs. Very different from the Trees, but thoroughly awesome.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:05 pm
How about Kenny G? He’s from Seattle.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Francis,
Hate to be Pedantic, but your chronology of grunge is all wrong. Nirvana’s 2nd album and Pearl Jam’s debut album weren’t the beginning of Grunge, they were arguably the last Grunge records! Or even the first Post-Grunge records. The rest of the country only “discovered” Grunge in the 90s, but it dates to the early 80s. One great thing about growing up in Seattle in the 70s and 80s is we pretty much survived the hair metal era unscathed, it never really over took the local stuff here.
All of the bands lumped together as Grunge vary quite a bit, basically lazy journalists just labeled everything from Seattle and any band that didn’t wear spandex as Grunge. SoundGarden was a basic heavy metal band with several sub pop albums under their belt before Kurt Cobain ever picked up a guitar. Alice in Chains was basically grungier glamrock. Mother Love Bone was pure Glam. Mud Honey was straight up Punk (Kurt Cobain’s only real ambition was to get good enough to open for Mudhoney) Green River was probably the purest grunge, or Screaming Trees, who also had several sub pop albums before anyone new Seattle had another band besides Heart:-)
Mother Love Bone had one great song (Chloe Dancer you can find it on the singles soundtrack) Then they signed a major record deal and their lead singer celebrated by ODing. Pearl Jam started as two guys from Mother Love Bone and two guys from Green River with no singer, then they met this guy from San Diego…
Temple of the Dog was a one off tribute to the Mother Love Bone singer, and I could see the argument that it was the last true Grunge album.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Don’t mind me, I’m just de-lurking to note that Pearl Jam sucking is an incontrovertible fact.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Hey, the Screaming Trees, there’s somebody I can say something about. I saw them in Long Beach a couple years before the grunge thing broke. I just thought they were cool because they had 2 fat guys. Hard to think of many bands with more than 1 fat guy, at least young ones.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:12 pm
No discussion of 90’s era Seattle music could be complete without an acknowledgment of the raw awesomeness that was early Sunny Day Real Estate. Diary and LP2 are both great albums. Of course many people can never forgive SDRE for the bullshit “emo” bands that followed in their wake, but that isn’t their fault.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:14 pm
godoggo,
Don’t remind us, but at least he moved to LA so we can pretend he doesn’t count as a local:-)
August 1st, 2009 at 3:16 pm
And Pumpkins’ acoustic sounds . . . oh yeah, there is no Pumpkins acoustic and there are no Pumpkins covers because Billy Corgan is a completely overrated songwriter. Awesome musician and killer producer (when able for drag himself away from the studio), but overrated songwriter.
Hey, I don’t want to get into a Pitchfork/Buddyhead flame fest. My rock music tastes aline with those of the stoned 17-year-old or the slutty, tattooed stripper, but it’s all good, unless, of course, it’s eunuch rock like Arcade Fire or The Decembrists, which I do not get at all.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Amorphous,
People who think Pearl Jam suck are either:
1) people who have only heard Ten and have never seen them live in the last 15 years
2) blithering idiots who think Bon Jovi or Def Leppard are what rock music should sound like.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Dudes, Dirt holds up VERY well. I can see how some people would think that everything by Alice In Chains sounds eerily similar, there’s no way you can say they weren’t talented. Layne Staley’s vocals were amazing (see: Love-Hate-Love, Rooster, Would etc.) and the harmonies between him and Cantrell were amazing (see: pretty much anything on Dirt.) As far as the dreary grunge metaphor, Layne was the only one (well I guess Kurt too) who really sounded like a mess. And that was part of what made his talent so appealing (and sad.)
I disagree about the failure to evolve of grunge bands. Nirvana were starting to evolve before the shotgun. Pearl Jam took an awesome step from 10 to Verses (which is my favorite) before they became a Neil Young tribute band. And Soundgarden changed pretty drastically from Badmotorfinger to Superunknown to Down On the Upside.
Grunge or not, Gish was an amazing album. At the time, it sounded unlike anything I had heard. Chamberlain’s drumming was ridiculous, the hooks were great, and Billy Corgan was still singing with the soft voice rather than screaming everything. Snail and Bury Me are two of the best early 90’s non-radio tunes. Along with Drown which is still probably my favorite. Siamese Dream was incredible although songs like Disarm and Today already showed the more poppy direction that the band was going to head in. Melon Collie could have been a good album if roughly 75% of the songs had been left on the cutting room floor (pro-tools folder.)
Shout-out to Singles, the best soundtrack of the past 20 years or so. although the Paul Westerberg crap stood out like a sore thumb.)
PS to anyone who likes Jimmy Chamberlain, check out his brother Matt (Fiona Apple, Tori Amos etc.) Amazing drummer.
Love these music threads, although everyone is clueless except me
August 1st, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Can we agree on this, popular music (i.e. – the zeitgeist of the era) started sucking big time, and has never recovered. Now, is there great music out there now? Sure (Andrew Bird – yes I know, soft rock for white NPR listeners, but about as talented as anyone out there from a composition standpoint), but everything has devolved into niche markets where we will not be having this same conversation about 2009 in 2025, as none of us will have the same musical experience.
It is sad, but also liberating that we are no longer constrained (save for those who lived in big cities back in the day) from being exposed only to mainstream corporate music on MTV or the local radio.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Although Brad, you are really getting onto thin ice here. AIC was not close to hair metal other than Jerry Cantrell preferred a crunchy Marshall-driven sound with lots of sustain, other than that they had very little in common, lyrically or sonically. The song progressions and structures are completely different, AIC had more in common with the early 70’s, Led Zeppelin-IV era than their other Seattle brethren, AIC is all about the fifths and minors, far, far away from “three-cord progression rock.” Do you even know what you are talking about? I doubt it.
Hey, if you don’t like AIC, fine. Nu-Metal forefathers? Most people would disagree, just about every rock musician would look at you funny. Genre delineations in pop music are bullshit anyway, but whatever. It’s all good.
But don’t espouse your ignorance about musicianship and song structure and theory when you have no idea what you are talking about. It’s actually cringe-inducing and embarrassing, like when Hector and other Matt commenters, every so often, discuss the sexuality of young women. The dweebishness of this blog shows all too well.
I understand that Matt’s blog is popular among the “lot of words but little knowledge” set, but this isn’t your usual policy/politics blab-fest. This is serious stuff we are talking about.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Agreed. And it is sad that we will no longer be arguing about shared experiences, yet liberating that everyone is not being force-fed big-label music. Anyone on this blog who lived through the late 70’s, early 80’s would whole-heartedly agree.
And Andrew Bird is a very good songwriter/composer.
August 1st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
De-lurking myself to say to Uncle Ebeneezer, that I think you’re wrong about Pearl Jam. Vitalogy, No Code and Yield are masterpieces. Specially Yield, so many terrific songs in it. Riot Act and Avocado are uneven albums, but still very good. Also, Lost Dogs, which is a collection of b-sides, has plenty of songs so many bands would kill to have on their albums: Sad, Fatal, All Night and Wash, just to name a few.
Furthermore, Pearl Jam has to be among the best live bands ever.
And I agree 100% with those who say that Screeming Trees was THE underrated band of the 90’s. Sweet Oblivion and Dust are brilliant albums. Plus, Mark Lanegan has a fantastic catalog on his own. His latest work with Greg Dulli, Saturnalia, is just great.
August 1st, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Rooster
Down in a Hole
Dirt
Junkhead
The Sap EP
The Jar of Flies EP
Of course, these are all deep tracks they didn’t play on the radio.
As far as influence goes, never heard a band say they were influenced by Smashing Pumpkins. Alice in Chains, though, can be heard all over the rock world.
August 1st, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I have to second everything Shine has written. I don’t know how you could hear AiC’s Unplugged and call that “simple three chord progression”. Not to mention when they recorded that, they had only 1 rehearsal and had not played together in 2 years. And if anyone has seen the DVD, Layne was clearly not quite right. Though he still sounded as hauntingly great as ever.
August 1st, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Pearl Jam is consistently bad – Starbucks music before that was a genre. Smashing Pumpkins had their moments but definitely weren’t “grunge”. My ranking puts Nirvana and Soundgarden in the first rank, Alice In Chains a bit below, Smashing Pumpkins not as consistent or rocking as the above, and Pearl Jam down at the bottom.
August 1st, 2009 at 5:12 pm
60 comments on grunge and no Melvins? What the hell, people?
August 1st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Gish is a great record. It really is. From 2:26 to 2:29 of “Bury Me” I s what I’m talking about here.
Also, TAD!
August 1st, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Alice in Chains were overated. I amend my prior statements in saying anything after ‘94 was crap to say that the Smashing Pumpkins were one of the best bands of the ’90s despite the drama with their drummer (they did their best stuff after ‘94, imho).
August 1st, 2009 at 5:42 pm
eric k:
Are you confusing my comment with someone else’s? I didn’t make any statements about chronology or about when grunge begins or ends. I’m just saying it makes some sense as a cohesive sound, and it makes some sense as a genuinely local style, not solely as an invented media phenomena. That’s just my sense from the time I’ve spent in the region.
August 1st, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Also, TAD!
This guy knows what time it is. I didn’t want to get too arcane, but if you want to think of grunge as a term denoting a meaningful sound (though why would you want to do that?), I’d say the legs of the stool are Melvins, TAD, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. Nirvana and Mudhoney are punk. And Pearl Jam circa Ten were the true and obvious proto-Creed.
And Tad Doyle’s actually got a new band going, but it’s quite a bit different from TAD and I’m not sure if they’ve recorded anything yet.
August 1st, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Soundgarden. End of story.
August 1st, 2009 at 6:37 pm
If you want to call grunge a distinct musical genre, you’re going to have to be able to define it inclusively enough to include punk-based bands like Nirvana and metal-based bands like Soundgarden. But if you try to include either Alice in Chains or Smashing Pumpkins, the definition is going to end up being way too broad to be meaningful. Just because a band was popular in the first half of the 1990’s doesn’t make it grunge.
August 1st, 2009 at 8:04 pm
The sup pop era ended as soon as as Smells Like Teen Spirit hit MTV and was replaced by the ridiculous “grunge.”
August 1st, 2009 at 8:33 pm
IMHO, the grunge “genre” was pretty much a pure marketing invention, as the Sub Pop guys are more than happy to admit (see the Mudhoney chapter in Our Band Could Be Your Life), and is fairly applied to pretty much any band that was on Sub Pop or operating out of Seattle circa 1992. This set does not include the Smashing Pumpkins, although they were huge at the same time as Nirvana was huge (as evidenced by the rumors, which I am in no position to confirm or deny, that Courtney Love was hooking up with Billy Corgan around the time that Kurt Cobain killed himself).
Soundgarden is obviously the third leg of the stool, if commercial notability is to be the measure and not hipster cred.
August 1st, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Oh, and “Would?” is a great track. As I recall, the grunge era dawned on MTV with the arrival, in quick succession, of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, Helmet’s “Unsung”, “Would?”, and Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” (in roughly that order).
August 1st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
OMG–Matt FAIL. In case anyone is still out there, the Great Chain of Being goes, Nirvana (only for the peaks), Screaming Trees (least sung, most awesome wall to wall), Alice in Chains (Dirt beats all the non-placing finishers all by itself), and the first Sunny Day Real Estate album (only!). Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, STP, Smashing Pumpkins? No win, no place, no show, no nuttin’.
August 1st, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Anyone dissing Jane’s Addiction can piss off.
August 2nd, 2009 at 1:15 am
tell strippers they can dance to either “Man in the Box” or “Cherub Rock” and see what they choose
Oh come on! This is no fair choice. What stripper isn’t going to be drawn to “Man in the Box”?
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:45 am
This argument obscures the larger point: AiC _and_ Pearl Jam _and_ the Pumpkins _and_ Nirvana _and_ Soundgarden conspired to rid the world of late-glam dreck like Winger and Warrant and Lita Ford and a hundred other awful, awful, awful, awful, awful, AWFUL bands. Rather than nitpicking Pumpkins vs. AiC, can we not just say thank you to both and be on our way?
August 2nd, 2009 at 8:49 am
Woooooooooow, someone needs to sit down and listen to these albums again. Listen to Nevermind, Ten, Superunkown, Siamese Dream…NONE of them stand up nearly as well as Dirt. It may not have been the definitive album of the time period, but it’s definitely got the most lasting power.
August 2nd, 2009 at 9:44 am
The reason the Melvins don’t come up on this thread as often is because they genuinely lived (and still live) the punk/grunge ideal of producing music that can’t be listened to unless you’re high. After the first three tracks on Stoner Witch you have to either toke up or turn it off. It’s beautiful stuff!
August 2nd, 2009 at 11:08 am
You’ve got to be kidding. Every single song on “Dirt” is better than any song Pearl Jam ever released.
August 2nd, 2009 at 11:13 am
The three legs are Sonic Youth, the Pixies, and Nirvana.
August 2nd, 2009 at 11:20 am
With all this talk of influences I cannot believe that nobody brought up Dinosaur Jr and only one poster brought up Sonic Youth. For shame.
Seriously though, Smashing Pumpkins Matt? If you want a tangential band that more fits the aesthetic and is far superior look no further than the Meat Puppets who may be as criminally underrated as the Screaming Trees. Both had one MTV hit (buzz clip?), but Backwater was the weakest song on To High to Die whereas Nearly Lost You was a classic. Apart from that single “To High To Die” was one of the best albums from that era. If you haven’t also check out “Forbidden Places” by them.
I think the only coherent thread runs through Nirvana, Screaming Trees and Mudhoney from Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Meat Puppets and sebadoh (and continues through Built to Spill). The other bands pretty much just happened to be in the same time and place and got lumped in.
August 2nd, 2009 at 12:06 pm
“Glam rock” refers to David Bowie and Elton John. “Hair metal” refers to Warrant and Poison.
I think the bands discussed represent a return to regional pop, after the dominance of national LA or NY based marketing phenomena. Basically, all these bands formed in their obscure markets with no major record label recording studios. They developed their sounds, which were then discovered and distributed without much artifice.
Compare that to, say, Maroon 5. Maroon 5 forms in LA, releases a fairly eclectic first album, then proceeds to imitate their biggest hits. Heartless Bastards (from Cincinnati) already have their sound and their songwriting down pat, but won’t get on the radio for precisely that reason. In 1992, they would’ve.
It’s easier to forcefeed dreck to teenagers than it is so send A&Rs to every city to sign a risky genreless rock act. It’s also easier to be a radio station that plays all the stuff that we’re talking about than to be one that discovers music about which we’ll feel the same.
August 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I’d say Soundgarden is more criminally underrated than Alice in Chains. Both are better than Pearl Jam, but commercial success being what it is, they’ll always be lumped in right after Nirvana. As far as the Smashing Pumpkins go, everyone who likes them should listen to some My Bloody Valentine or Jesus and Mary Chain and understand that the originals are much better than the derivative.
August 2nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Alice in Chains was the best of all of ‘em, but guess you had to be there, and you had to be a rocker too. For radio and MTV, Nirvana was #1, and for college fraternities, Pearl Jam was #1. Alice in Chains was just awesome though, well beyond Man in the Box, and I still remember when I first heard Man in the Box on the radio, where exactly I was even (at the gym), astonished that such a song was on the radio. I still play Rooster on jukeboxes regularly, and pretty much their whole collection is heavy.
August 2nd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Smashing Pumpkins was a different ballgame, not grunge, but I guess you could describe them as cousins.
August 2nd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
I appreciate grunge for what it did in killing pop metal, but I still gotta say, it sounds dated now. The best pop metal – Appetite for Destruction, Slippery When Wet, etc – sounds better today than grunge does.
August 2nd, 2009 at 3:56 pm
My own personal experience:
Soundgarden was good too, that’s pretty much where it began to trickle down to California rocker circles. Green River and Mudhoney pretty much never impacted in Cali, but a buddy of mine did introduce me to Soundgarden around the time I was really into Mother Love Bone, though I didn’t really consider it my preferred sound.
Then, when Temple of the Dog came out, which is amazing, I took a keener interest in Chris Cornell and Soundgarden, and not long after or around the same time (my memory is hazy) Nirvana started blowing up, as did Pearl Jam (the reformed Mother Love Bone with Eddie Vedder).
I still clearly remember being at Danny’s Records and chatting with him about the latest Prong album (Beg To Differ), at that time possibly my favorite band, while sampling some Godflesh to see if it was my style, and Danny was trying was to push Nirvana’s first album on me, which I listened to and appreciated but at the time favored the industrial/metal edge of Prong.
Later though, when I heard Bleach, I became a full Nirvana convert, and who couldn’t love the Unplugged sessions, but Alice in Chains satisfied punk, grunge and metal leanings, so they were always my favorite amongst the grunge groups (Screaming Trees were cool too).
For those who brought up the Melvins, bravo. I partied with these guys before a show once and they are hilarious, as well as heavy. They even told me a story about Kurt, how even after the first album had blown up the world the dude never had any money, and was trying to sell guitars and stuff. It was weird, and they also told a funny story about a bar in Los Banos that doubled as a bordello.
Smashing Pumpkins was a different breed, like others have mentioned more on an axis of My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth.
Mother Love Bone did not suck either, that’s crazy talk.
August 2nd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
One thing I will never understand, but have grown to accept, is that Smashing Pumpkins, foremost among all of the 90’s bands, consitantly seems to attract the most dedicated and tenacious band of haters. Seriously, mentioning their name is like waving a red cape in front of a bull. Almost on cue, the put downs come out, all artfully composed, as if vying for a spot in the musical review section of the local alternative paper. Why? I posit three reasons.
1. Pumpkins were not based in punk. They were based in metal. This is bad, because punk is awsome and cool, and metal is listend to by white trash.
2. Billy Corgan didn’t shoot himself. Had he done so, he would have atoned for being the asshole that all rock stars neccessarily are.
3. The Smashing Pumpkins were good. Real good. Too good. They blew up in the mid 90’s and became so ubiquitous that a backlash was inevitable. Nothing that popular can be “good”.
I posit, however, and people who say who say that the Pumpkins don’t continue to exert infuence are being ridiculous, that if any band from the 90’s is remembered alongside Nirvana in 40 or 50’s years time it will be the Pumpkins, and it will be the Pumpkins who are considered the superior of the two.
August 2nd, 2009 at 6:19 pm
When grunge first came out, it was shocking, because it revolved around guitar sounds that had only been heard in thrash metal, punk, and hard core. To hear those sounds used is a sad, slow J. Mascis song was jarring, and exciting at the time. Most grunge music deliberately played on this disconnect.
Now, you can hear grinding, distorted guitar sounds like that on dance tracks played on top 40 radio, so the effect is lost.
August 2nd, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Just listened to Dirt for the first time in a long time. Yawn. I can see how I used to enjoy this vaguely angsty and technically sophisticated hard rock. But it doesn’t resonate emotionally… it’s “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Now listening to the Alice in Chains album, enjoying it. Still though it’s got nothing as epic nor as intimate as what you might find on any randomly selected Smashing Pumpkins album.
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
What’s not to love about Alice in Chains? Slowed down Black Sabbath-style riffs, enhanced by some “dirty” Eddie Hazel funk expression, spectacular singer bringing a hardcore, sorta punk vocal style to metal, with psychedelic group harmonies akin to what King’s X was trying to revive, and the lyrics about serious existential subjects, not to mention the band could pull it all of unplugged too?
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:15 pm
All talk about Alice in Chains should start with Rooster though…not Man In The Box.
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Don’t forget this one…I consider it an ode to Kurt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTGZOf1N6U
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:28 pm
For those unfamiliar with Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden, Andrew Wood or Chris Cornell, this is where “grunge” went mainstream:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msNfIUC3U0
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:34 pm
This really is a great story, if a tragic one, as Chris Cornell and Andrew Wood were roommates, Wood hit it big with Mother Love Bone, major label, heavy but glam at the same time, but OD’d before the album (Apple) ever came out, so they did a tribute album, with Chris on the vocals except for newcomer Eddie Vedder on vocal for Hunger Strike, the most popular song from the album (rightly so, but not grunge).
That last song, Say Hello To Heaven, is obviously a tribute, but the 2nd song, Reach Down, is really more of the insider’s tribute to Andy, his style, and this song has Eddie giving props to Soundgarden too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA6cHtK-r_U
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:46 pm
This is a much better live version of the above Reach Down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBgRpscIvvM&feature=related
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Come to think of it, nothing matches the album version of Reach Down, play it on a jukebox anytime, blow minds.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:55 am
So this was the topic of my dinner conversation with my fiance last night. If the point is to ID commercially popular bands that were most identified as “grunge”, then we thought Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains is a pretty good threesome.
Smashing Pumpkins 1) got glam/prog pretty quick and 2) were from Chicago. Soundgarden could replace Alice in Chains, except we thought lots of people think of Soundgarden as a more Zeppelin-style hard rock band and less grunge: more wailing than moaning.
And we both thought that if you didn’t care about commercial success, the list must include Mudhoney. I mean, duh.
And while they don’t belong on the list, I think Tad was and is underrated. I understand why they were not very popular, but 8-Way Santa is still a great listen.
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
That’s criminal.
I just picked up Alice in Chains again and found their music to have been even better the next time around.
Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell’s voices alone are a rare combination that harks back to Brian Wilson’s use of the human voice in Pet Sounds.
Their lyrics (especially in Facelift and Dirt) are obviously from the heart of a man that realizes that he’s hopelessly addicted to heroin and will some day succumb to it.
SAP and Jar of Flies are perfect additions to show the groups range and creativity.
Granted, Smashing Pumpkins (especially Gish) are a solid band that has been underrated. But don’t fall into the same trap with Alice in Chains. Do yourself a favor and head over to Wikipedia to read their entry on Layne Staley. Then pop in Facelift.
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Pearl Jam are not a grunge band. Neither really is Alice In Chains, but they are closer. Smashing Pumpkins? Not a grunge band.
Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Tar, The Fluid, Afghan Whigs, these are grunge bands.
Oy Vey. The kids today…
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Well, someone here needs to stick up for Pearl Jam. Are they grunge or not? Does it matter?. This is what matters -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckRsIy4Zqgo
Surely, we can all agree that they became less essential over the years, and that the later-day albums are full of clunkers (especially, the eponymous one, oof). But you can’t deny that they have produced more good music over the last 20 years collectively than a lot of bands will ever come up with and have firmly secured their place in the rock pantheon.
Also, the live shows are as rippling with energy as ever. Go see one, if you can. May the Vedder voice never die.
August 3rd, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Smash those Pumpkins!
August 3rd, 2009 at 8:18 pm
make some pies,
whipped cream,
yum!
August 4th, 2009 at 3:23 am
The Vitamin String Quartet do Would:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlNDGUibNJk