The Nineties Part One - Turning of the Decade and the Impact of Grunge

I find it sadly ironic that having had to delay this post for a few weeks due to several interruptions, house buying and general lethargy, when I come to post this reflection on Grunge that today is the day I learn of the demise of Mike Starr, former bassist for Alice In Chains...
I will pen a more fitting tribute to you than this dude, but for now say thank you and RIP - Would? has been my favourite song since I heard it and Dirt remains in my top albums of all time.


I started to think about the Nineties and began to write about it as threatened, but started to realise what a can of worms this was opening up... there is so much scope to focus on as the genre of metal diversified that this is going to either be a war and peace style tome or barely scratch the surface in one article.
As a result I thought I'd break it down into bite sized chunks dealing with whatever bits take my fancy at the time, this way we can revisit and make a background theme of decade as I lived it.

So to kick this off I thought I'd deal with one of the biggest movements that had a profound cultural impact and changed the way Metal moved forward in this decade, Grunge.

Metal began with everyone looking like bad trip hippies back in the late 60's - Sabbath had flares and long hair and a bad attitude born from their industrial upbringing, Zepplin had a swagger that bemoaned the 'bow down and kiss the flowers, man' of the love generation... by the time AC/DC and Judas Priest came on the scene all snarls and leather and Alice Cooper and Kiss were corrupting the youth on the other side of the pond it was common for dirty looking dudes with long hair to be caught rocking out.
In the Eighties styles got more and more outrageous, Bruce Dickinson fronting Iron Maiden seemed on a mission to constantly out do himself by sporting some of the most revolting and frankly embarrassing spandex trousers to ever been conceived - like some sort of colour blind, fruity harlequin who had been victim of an explosion in a child's dressing up box.
Over in LA, Sunset Strip to be more exact, Glam Metal was in it's ascendancy. Approaching image with the attitude that Alice, Marc Bolan of T Rex, Bowie et al had only given gender bending a half hearted stab, bands like Motley Crue, Poison and even Ratt (despite Steven Pearcy having a face like a welder's bench) pushed the chick with a dick look as far as they could go. So far in fact that Hanoi Rocks Drummer killing, DUI loving, Heroin guzzling, lyposuction fan Vince Neil of the Crue inspired Aerosmith (not exactly the most manly looking bunch on the block) to pen the anthem 'Dude Looks Like A Lady' - Steven Tyler, this saucer of milk is yours.
By the mid eighties concerts must have been a nightmare, trying to see over teased barnets and chocking on hair spray, and trying to smoke? Forgetaboutit...
Thank God that Thrash became an outlet for guys who couldn't squeeze into their girlfriend's leopard print clothing and totter about on heels pretending to be LA Trash.

If thrash was too hard for you or your girlfriend didn't like it and yet you couldn't stand the current scene, then the death nail in looking like an ugly hooker was brewing in a far flung corner of the US... Seattle of all places - previously known for guitar burning legend Jimi Hendrix and thinking man's Metal band with a shit name Queensryche.
Now I have never been, but I have watched Sleepless In Seattle and can only opine this; It rains all the time apparently, Tom Hanks was pushing the boundaries of nauseating, Meg Ryan was way past her When Harry Met Sally best and how anyone can suffer from insomnia there is beyond me - it's no wonder that in order to be in a band there you had to have a smack habit.
Given the proclivity for opiates that was rife on the scene it is not hard to see why back combing hair, applying make up, walking around on stack heels became less and less of a priority to pasty and thin young men nodding off in the corner and drooling - the rise of the flannel shirt in popularity should come as no surprise.

Grunge actually began back in the mid eighties as a fledgeling part of the alternative rock scene incorporating punk, metal, alternative, even pop music played through fuzzy distorted amps. Mark Arm of Mudhoney and the Puget Sound based record label SubPop were at the epicentre of a movement that rippled out across the globe although many of the originators of the genre were uncomfortable with the popularity that it eventually gained.
The ethos of grunge was diametrically opposed to the hair metal scene, songs about personal and dark subject matter, filtered through obscure references, coupled with often downbeat sounding music as opposed to getting high and wasted, shagging chicks (presumably if you could figure out the difference) and a desire to be famous was the order of the day.

These days you say Grunge and most people think of Nirvana.
The fact is that the genre was much more diverse and blessed with greater song writing abilities and talents than it's popular image would suggest and the notion that any scruffy looking berk with a drug habit and a guitar could bash out three chords and be famous belies the beauty found in the primal howl of Mudhoney or the stately introspection of Screaming Trees and the million and one other bedroom dwelling bands that never got a major label deal.


The fact is that the album that essentially 'broke' the genre was Alice In Chains' 'Facelift'.
Formed in 1987 by Jerry Cantrell and vocalist Layne Stayley; the band had a brief stab at the hair thing, calling themselves the none more shit Diamond Lie, writing songs that looking back are hilarious considering what they would become such as (the) 'I Can't Have You Blues'. Fortunately, trainee junkies as they were, they discovered that their true talents lay in writing harrowing songs about getting drugs, doing drugs and feeling shit about doing drugs - focused through a prism of incredible vocal interplay between the two.
Man In The Box and We Die Young became hits on MTV and Alice's slightly metallic blend of alternative rock earned them an opening spot on the Thrash tour Clash Of The Titans which earned them a place in the hearts of metal fans. Released on Sony the album sold well, just as another bunch of flannel wearing miserables were preparing to unleash their rock changing debut...


Pearl Jam released the epic 'Ten' to a rapturous reception. Not as heavy or as overtly dark as 'Facelift' this album was brimming with hits such as 'Even Flow', classroom murder tale 'Jeremy' and the played so much you'd punch it in the face 'Alive'.
Coupled with strong albums from Soundgarden, Screaming Trees and, yes Nirvana, the grunge scene was developing momentum at an alarming rate. Real life characters like the Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder - all soulful voice and surfer dude cliche was a stark contract to the (now frankly) ropey looking drag queens with high voices clogging up the charts.
The seriously epic deluge occurred when every major label rushed to sign a grunge act to cash in on the next big thing. Geffen picked up the relatively popular and momentum building Nirvana whose 'Bleach' debut was a downtuned slice of primal fuzz rock. To be fair if you hadn't heard the track 'Silver' off odds and sods record 'Incesticide' you would have probably never seen what came next.


Recruiting uber producer Butch Vig, Nirvana attempted to marry, in Cobain's words, Black Sabbath and The Pixies... whether this is an accurate description of the music on 'Nevermind' is a sidebar in the debate. What is a matter of fact is that within three chords the rock world changed. Throwing a lavish budget at the band, Geffen went all out to ensure that Nevermind was a success and it seemed for a while like the whole album would be released as a single as hit followed hit, In Bloom, Lithium, Come As You Are, On A Plain and of course Smells Like Teen Spirit.
It would be easy to get bogged down with talking about Nirvana at this point - Cobain became the unwilling spokesman for Generation X, there is the much written about marriage to Courtney Love, the acerbic follow up In Utero, Cobain's alleged suicide/murder depending on who you want to believe... but I'm talking about Metal here.

Grunge dramatically changed the landscape, you can argue all day the merits of Grunge being classed as metal but bands like Alice In Chains, Soundgarden and Faith No More all owed an obvious debt to the genre and gave it back in sound, no matter how much Mike Patton (FNM's mad-as-a-box-of-frogs, fond of shitting in hotel hairdryers vocalist) tried to deny it.
Other bands may have tried to distance themselves but it was a new brand of heavy rock that was embraced by the masses and made reluctant stars out of many of the scenes leading lights and inspired acts across the world to jump on the band wagon to great effect - Detroit's Stone Temple Plagiarist's - I mean Pilots, or to no effect at all - Bristol's Send No Flowers.
By 1994 when Cobain decided to inspect the end of his mates shotgun, the backlash against the misanthropic angst of Grunge had started with a Clash rip off band intoning, 'Do you have the time, to listen to me whine, about nothing and everything at all'.
Green Day's 'Dookie' and The Offspring's 'Smash' countered pop cultures obsession with the Seattle sound with a bright, cheerful pop-punk sound, the perfect antidote... by 1995 the effect on metal was quite palpable.
Sales were down and previously popular bands were suffering - long haired rockers found themselves without a gravy train to ride; Iron Maiden lost Bruce Dickinson and suffered their first set of bad reviews with 1995's lacklustre X Factor being as well received as Ozzy Osbourne at the Alamo and before Metallica's set at that years Donington festival they joked that their appearance had been canceled due to metal being dead.
Easy to laugh on the back of the 'Black Album' but the new material previewed that night was blues heavy rock and roll and in the following months all the band members would get their hair cut short, much like the recent image change undergone by Bon Jovi, Def Leppard main man Joe Elliot and the miserable looking dude who stands at the front of Paradise Lost...
As much as Grunge helped reinvigorate the guitar music scene, it crippled the careers of some (admittedly bad) very poplar bands and from an outside perspective the scene was in an unfortunate state of decline...