The Downfall of "Grunge"
How Artistic Movements are Corrupted and Killed by Commercial Interests
The Essential Nature of Art
Art and creative work are an essential means of human expression. Such work provides a sublime path for communication that transcends the bounds of simple direct verbal and non-verbal communication. Art has the power to transcend the limitations of both language and convention. The best art, products of true genius, have the power to pierce veils of illusion, smash sacred cows, and rouse the psyche toward perspectives and epiphanies that, otherwise, would remain wholly inaccessible to humanity. It is difficult to argue that both the creation and enjoyment of art play a profound role in the big picture of human experience. Even in archaic prehistoric times, humans have felt the need for creative expression. and cave drawings drawn as early as 45,0000 years ago[1] demonstrate the essentially human impulse to not only experience and bear witness to life, but to express our perspectives and bring them to life.
As with religion, art in its purest and healthiest form is a completely natural human activity, separate from the interests of power and authority. Art flourishes as an unmitigated, decentralized enterprise, and acts as a testament to the depth and grandeur of the human psyche –it is the progenitor of innovation. Its manifestations are limited only by the horizons of the human mind and dynamic advance of the soul. Art, far from being an accidental or superfluous feature of the unrivaled human intellect, lies at the heart of the human experience.
It is not until commercial and other outside interests seek to appropriate and contort it to fit their own ends, does art begin to lose its potency. Such corruptive institutions, be they government seeking control or private firms and agents seeking profit, appropriate, stunt, and warp this organic human activity to serve its own ends. The physical form of art is separated from the spirit that generated it and supplanted with a degenerated reptilian heart. Now bastardized, this art becomes a grotesque caricature of its old form –its original meaning exists only in memory.
While this twisted mockery of human expression and dignity can and does spawn new forms, they are almost always warped, pallid and anemic counterfeits of their sources. In today’s society, sophisticated predatory institutions, loaded with capital and bereft of their own artistic talent, soar above like raptors seeking prey. In such a world, for art to remain true, it must either hide undetected in the shadows or advance boldly into light, resolving to self-destruct before being plundered by the rapacious ghouls that circle overhead.
The Emergence of Grunge and Its Meaning
Such was the fate of “Grunge Rock”, a musical movement spawned in the rain-drenched city of Seattle, WA in the ‘80s. A true artistic revolution, grunge rock fused melodies from classic rock, punk rock attitudes and the heaviness of metal. It was a sonic infusion of angst, anxiety, cynicism, and sometimes, outright doom that directly clashed against the stagnant style and exhausted spirit of hair metal and shallow pop acts that dominated the charts of the era. Rather than harping on the vapid and banal themes used by those glam stars of their day, Seattle-based alternative rockers loaded their songs with hard-hitting lyrics about suicide, drug addiction, the pain of love, hate, and rejection. When they weren’t doing that, they ironically sang disjointed nonsense, “singing for the sake of the lyrics”. The movement precisely characterized the driving spirit of rock as described by the late Peter Steele of Type-O Negative as “reaction”. Rock, according to the late artist, is an amplification of rebellious primal energy, a form of musical art that functions as a vehicle for challenging the establishment and long-cherished values and assumptions.[2]
One of the most remarkable traits was that, while grunge had such a diverse spectrum of sounds and corresponding images, these bands together delivered a unified impact on music and culture. While Bands like Nirvana, Mudhoney, and Babes in Toyland bore a sound closer to Grunge’s punk roots, others like The Melvins, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains drew closer to metal sounds and themes. Mother Love Bone and Pearl Jam’s sounds were categorically unique. As much as anyone attempted to lock in a particular “sound” that made grunge what it was, the sheer diversity of approaches made any such categorization nearly impossible. Kim Thayil, the lead guitarist for Soundgarden once noted that these bands never even called themselves “grunge”. The label itself was just a market thing.[3] They preferred to identify as alternative rock, and even record stores themselves never had a “grunge” section, opting instead to place grunge albums in the alternative rock section.
The very abundance of creative diversity that came with the flood that was the Grunge movement is what washed away the music industry’s languishing status quo, because what truly defined grunge wasn’t its sound. It was a musical movement that represented a revitalization of authenticity in rock and roll, an assault against the commercial bastardization of art –it was an angst-filled, bold Reconquista to reclaim the direct communication between the artist and the listener. After brewing in Seattle for years, they made headway into international tours and major labels that exposed them to the masses.
The watershed moment in the saga of grunge was the release of Nirvana’s album, Nevermind, which went platinum. Its flagship single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, topped the charts. Their almost instant popularity knocked Michael Jackson off the top spot in the charts and vaporized the hair/glam metal core of commercial rock overnight. Grunge’s exaltation of authenticity, creativity, and down-to-earth mentality exposed the plastic and unrelatable image of leading bands of the day and the overused, worn-out formulas complacently replicated by numerous bands. Almost immediately, spandex was out, and flannel was in. Only acts that maintained the necessary creativity and drive reminiscent of earlier rock eras, such as Metallica and Guns and Roses, were immune to the cleansing deluge that swept through the country from the Pacific Northwest.
The Vultures Begin to Circle Overhead
The alternative rock explosion of the early 1990’s truly was a renaissance in rock and roll. Yet, it was destined to be short-lived. Even as that sublime outburst of creativity conquered the airwaves and fans around the globe, every suit from records to automobile companies were looking for a way to extract value from it. They strove to commodify it, and thus degrade art to a mere product and corporate tool. Such are the way of capitalists. Advertisement companies scrambled to strike deals with labels to use popular songs in their commercials. The record companies themselves dragged along these new titans from photo shoot to interview to promotion, even as they frantically sought other bands that exuded the “grunge sound”.
But, again, what was that sound? Was it defined by heavy distortion- fuzz – so prevalent in Mudhoney, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and the Melvins? Was it in the blues-based melodies in Alice and Chains and Pearl Jam? The pronounced use of drop-D guitar tuning employed by nearly every leading grunge band? Record companies were unsure. Furthermore, leading artists, such as Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, and Eddie Vedder were fast proving themselves to be intractable, and the industry soon ached for pliability. Of course, it did not take long to pinpoint a slew of manageable outfits that emulated the quintessential “Seattle sound”, and promised to make record labels cash hand over fist. The hunt for marketable industry plants was soon underway.
Before long, and I mean, within months, labels were aggressively promoting bands like Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins. This new frenzy of interest proved to be a double-edged sword. The good side of this is the way it expanded creative horizons beyond the antecedent parameters established by the record companies’ talent agents, whom Frank Zappa once derisively referred to as “the arbiters of taste”.[4] The redefinition of “marketable” music became nebulous and undefinable, opening the gates for several creative new acts while promoting both corporate and public interest in bands that already enjoyed some degree of success. Without the emergence of so-called grunge rock, there is probably little reason to think that Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, the Toadies, or Tool would ever experience the widespread commercial and artistic success that they did, nor would there ever have been influential offshoots like System of a Down or Rage Against the Machine.
On the other hand, imitators poured into the airwaves. As trends in musical progress shifted, companies tried to box in the genre to get it into a nice, neat package that they could easily copy and mass produce. Record companies, driven by their fixation on reverse-engineering grunge to secure a new marketing line to earn revenue, ignored the philosophical driving force of the movement and focused almost solely on the superficial; bluesy riffs, distortion-saturated chops, and banal, bloodless lyrics vainly attempting to emulate the authentic gen-x cynicism that real alternative artists exuded.
From there, the imitation of grunge permeated into every aspect of American culture. Studios made kitschy cash-grab movies and TV shows where characters donned flannel and parroted scene mantras ad nauseam. The fashion industry, always saturated with pomp and smugness, shamelessly appropriated the apparent look and rehashed it for mass consumption. Within a few years, grunge went from being a spirited artistic rebellion against the commercial establishment into one of its most lucrative commodities. The entire scene was diluted by imposters and imitators who shared nothing in common with the punk-inspired grunge ethos but instead sought to ride the coattails of their greatness.
Had the incumbent capitalist powers truly understood, or at least appreciated the authentic core of the grunge movement, rather than its focus on its superficial traits, it may have imbued it, along with the greater apparatus of artistic originality itself, with enough fuel to power a sustained cultural renaissance. Instead, it chose to ignore the essential driving force of grunge and focus on the lowest common denominators. Rather than promote bands to inspire, they marketed emulations and forgeries.
By 1996, there were so many counterfeits in circulation, that it became nearly impossible to distinguish them from the real genuine product. Alternative rock became a veritable market for lemons. The public itself was so overexposed by it all that grunge itself was reduced to an exhausted fad. As a result, the mainstream interest shifted to nu-metal and “post-grunge”. Both were propped up and heavily fueled by marketing companies. Some musicians, notably Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, even sat on the board of the record label to which his band was signed. Nu-metal, at least, however, demonstrated a genuine attempt to branch out creatively. So-called “post-grunge”, by contrast, was a genre loaded with poorly imitated grunge trends and bereft of the creative and rebellious energy of its fore-bearers, a cheap forgery of its once mighty predecessors, a last-gasp attempt of record companies to salvage every drop of vitality from Grunge rock’s fallen spirit. It was an act no better than grave robbery.
Grunge itself imploded by the mid-nineties. Nirvana disbanded after Kurt Cobain died by suicide, and Soundgarden disbanded in 1997 over internal conflict. Alice in Chains fell into a long hiatus while their frontman, Layne Staley, grappled with drug addiction. Pearl Jam faded into the background alongside the multitudes of bands that never quite reached that level of fame.
The Eternal Spirit of Rock
I’m not saying that rock’s last great band died with grunge. There were, and still are many great and talented acts that survived and followed them. But it did prove to be rock’s last major salubrious impact on both music and culture as a whole. If, reader, you have any doubts, just consider rock’s role in popular culture from the ‘90s to today. Both its decline in impact and overall originality in the mainstream cannot be casually ignored.
But should we declare rock dead? Has the final bell tolled? Much to the contrary. Although the vanguard of rock has, by and large, receded into the underground, that is precisely where it thrives. True rock is an expression of authentic youth energy and bold creativity, a rejection of the banal and the fraudulent, something that the soulless executives in corporate America can never understand. Unfettered by capitalist oversight, rock continues to wage a quiet rebellion against our decrepit status quo with bold irreverence. Ever true artists, they reject and defy convention, and sometimes reality itself. In basements and garages, they dauntlessly forge riffs and sharpen their chops. Their music fills the darkened clubs and dives around the country, reverberating from amplifiers, ricocheting off the walls and ceilings, and piercing the hearts and minds of their audience with sublime transcendence. Yes, the spirit of rock lives on. In fact, it is all but immortal. From one of these scenes, it may explode again, just as grunge rock did in the ‘90s, revitalizing music and culture, washing away the trash, and injecting new life into an anemic and desperate mainstream. As I’ve previously said, artistic expression rests at the core of the human experience. So, for as long as humanity retains its soul, such an event is all but inevitable.
[1] https://news.artnet.com/art-world/indonesia-pig-art-oldest-painting-1937110#:~:text=Archaeologists%20believe%20they%20have%20discovered,found%20in%20Leang%20Tedongnge%20cave.
[2] This is a paraphrase, but I believe it accurately captures Peter Steele’s sentiment.
[3] https://loudwire.com/soundgarden-kim-thayil-grunge-marketing/