Grunge and the Irony of Commercialism
In 1991, the champion of apathy dethroned the king of pop. For the first time in decades, America experienced a changing of the guard in music culture, and what was initially thought to be a marginally successful record by an unknown guitar-band in Seattle, Washington would define the next decade and label a whole section of youth as ‘Generation X.’ I am, of course, referring to the irony filled amalgamation of punk and metal known as grunge, and it’s the music that filled the airwaves during my teenage years.
It can be frustrating to talk about music from the standpoint of genre. Once we start trying to create definitive statements, others can be quick to challenge those definitions. However, for this discussion, I will briefly place some permeable borders down from which we can engage. The music of grunge can loosely be described as a genre the begins sometime in the late 80s and remains significant through the late 90s. It’s sound originates from Olympia and Seattle areas of the state of Washington, and often carries guitar heavy sounds of muddy distortion, loud drums, simple structures, and lyrics littered with contradictory statements. Its early commercial pioneers are Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney, L7, The Cranberries, Smashing Pumpkins, and many, many more. While this is by no means the end of these borders, they certainly offer us some basic concepts to work with as we discuss the relevance and importance of grunge in its impact on modern society. Grunge was the last populace driven movement of rock prior to the wholesale commercialization and emergence of electronic sound that would dominate the next millennia, and there is a shocking lack of material written about its rise and fall, and what it signaled was coming for the next generation.
For those entrenched in the nuances of grunge, bands like “Bikini Kill” and “Green River” might enter the conversation. Both these groups helped build the foundational ideals of a new type of feminism and a rebellion against the “hair bands” of the 1980s, respectively. The average listener would most likely first recognize grunge under the banner of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the breakthrough album, Nevermind. As Ryan Moore writes in his book, Sells Like Teen Spirit (2010), “’Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was in several ways the culmination of the socially outraged yet cynically resigned structure of feeling we followed,” continuing later to say that “…it captured the ambivalence of a singer who could never decide if he wanted to take up arms or just go get wasted.” While many other social and political causes would embroider the grunge scene, its cynicisms towards capitalism and its eventual worldwide success are some of the most intriguing components of the story and would lead to its eventual demise. Criticized for its lack of political content and its mass commodity appeal to the “jocks and rednecks’ that Kurt Cobain would say were ‘not his people, but the ones that terrorized his youth’, grunge would fall from its heights and out of the limelight by 1997.
The fascinating component to grunge, was the fundamental selling points of its popularity. Grunge, as a movement was, at its core, a protest against the capitalist sense of identity and personhood based on commercial success. It rebelled against the ideas of commodity and shunned the glitz and glamour of music for the sake of gold records. It spat at the mechanisms of capitalism and spoke to the frustrations of a widening wealth disparity between the richest and poorest classes. Its irony was the its message resonated so strongly in the American culture that was affected by its message, that it gained the very monetary power it was fighting against. Most bands fell quickly after the rise to superstardom destroyed the very authenticity that got them there, and the few that survived, like Pearl Jam, have strayed far from the originating sounds. Even attempts to curtail controlling forces like Ticketmaster at their pricing manipulations haven fallen short by the band Pearl Jam, and their wildly unsuccessful attempts to generate revenue through bootleg tapings of live concerts have kept them firmly in the underground.
Grunge, to me, expresses a common pervasive thread that exists within the pathos of the modern audience. This ideal is that the rise to fame comes at the cost of authenticity. Popular music today struggles with lasting impact and influence because of this phenomenon. Once the audience has gained an affinity for an artist’s message, there seems to be a decay rate that grows quicker and quicker as we further journey into the 21st century. Names like Legend, Lorde, and Eilish are considered old news and dated material almost as fast as they become relevant. This sense of irony in what is considered ‘cool’, and the constant speed through which popular culture is exposed to material, are key points of reflection in our social experiences today. As we go forward with this look at grunge, I’ll take a closer look at its immediate predecessors, its impact on feminism and women in music, and its aftermath in the world we live in today.
Catherine Strong writes an amazing book, “Grunge: Memory and Music” (2011) that details many more aspects of how grunge impacts our ideas of identity and authenticity. For now, let’s enjoy one of my favorite artists from the era, Tori Amos, and her rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, a song that shifted the tide in our listening habits of the 1990s.
Read more about history, music, and its intersections with our modern world at https://hughbass.com! Thanks for reading, and look for our new history series on YouTube. Links on the website, and thanks for watching, too!
