I honestly couldn't care any less about how simple their instrumentations were. To me it's all about whether the music reaches me or not. And in this case it does.
King's X created grunge. According to Eddie Vedder (I think). I guess they didn't start the movement though. They were a little too psychedelic to start anything.
You can just keep tracing it back and back if you want. You could say that Black Flag were one of the first grunge bands after Henry Rollins started to contribute to their writing.
I hear you. I'm currently in love with In Bloom after my sister kicked my butt at it in Lips. I don't think anyone really started the whole grunge phase in my own personal opinion. I reckon you can claim that any grunge band that you first listen you could've started grunge and as for Soundgarden, I never heard of them until there was a segment on tele once about Nirvana. But at I think at the same time, that you have to give Nirvana credit for their music and yes we all know, the only reason why they are so popular is because of Cobain's death As it was stated above, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
how come no one remembers Layne Stayley? he died on april 5th i think which is freakishly close to the death of kurt cobain though it was 4 years later...
-> Exactly. As far as selling out goes they did nearly everything one would consider selling out. They played MTV, ... they became a mainstream band and contributed largely in changing what was popular in music at the time. Sub Pop's a big label now, it wasn't when they first signed. What Dean said, it led to most of the issues Cobain had. There is no grunge movement without Nirvana or Pearl Jam: "Soundgarden was the first grunge band to sign to a major label, though the band did not achieve commercial success until Seattle contemporaries Nirvana and Pearl Jam popularized grunge in the early 1990s." It's ridiculous to say one started the genre. Hell, you can mention numerous other Seattle rock bands that played similar music in the late 80's. Like Green River/Mudhoney, who coined the term "Grunge". You can have the term, though, none of the bands wanted it, anyways. Nirvana was great band, it's a shame they aren't around anymore, but then we wouldn't have Foo Fighters, etc. Maybe it was a necessary, yet unfortunate sacrifice.
I didn't say anyone started it. If you read what I said properly, I said that ifanyone could be credited with that, it's Soundgarden. And if you wanna quote wikipedia, quote the whole paragraph next time: Soundgarden was one of the key bands in the creation of grunge, a style of alternative rock that developed in Seattle and was based around the band's record label Sub Pop. Soundgarden was the first grunge band to sign to a major label, though the band did not achieve commercial success until Seattle contemporaries Nirvana and Pearl Jam popularized grunge in the early 1990s. Commercial success isn't mean to have anything to do with grunge, that's the whole point. So the band which started grunge cannot be decided based on who was commercially successful first. And: Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was a fan of Soundgarden's early music. One could almost say, that without Soundgarden, Nirvana could very well have sounded nothing like they did.
Haha, okay, sure. Grunge is a commercially created genre, though. I'm just saying there is no band that started grunge. That's like saying The Sex Pistols started Punk...
Here's another Wikipedia quote that confutes Nirvana's own importance pretty well: "With the lead single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from the band's second album Nevermind (1991), Nirvana entered into the mainstream, bringing along with it a subgenre of alternative rock called grunge. Other Seattle grunge bands such as Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden also gained popularity, and as a result, alternative rock became a dominant genre on radio and music television in the United States during the early-to-mid-1990s. As Nirvana's frontman, Kurt Cobain found himself referred to in the media as the "spokesman of a generation", with Nirvana the "flagship band" of Generation X." And the article cited as the source: http://www.rollingstone.com/artists.../5937982/inside_the_heart_and_mind_of_nirvana It's really that simple. No one remembers Clement Attlee but everyone knows who JFK was. Doesn't make either any less important than they may or may not have been.
In that case we both agree.Genres don't happen overnight, different bands have different roles in creating the various aspects that make up an entire genre...
I think the timing of their respective deaths has a lot to do with it. Kurt's death occurred at the height of his popularity, whereas Layne passed away after many years away from the spotlight.
yeah thats pretty sad actually, but its true what Cobain also said, if you die at your peak people will remember you forever but if died old, you would've just faded away into obscurity. Not sure when i heard this but one of my mates brought it up to me when i was 14 i remember...
Yeah, that's it. I was just saying Nirvana didn't start the whole thing on their own, neither did Soundgarden or any band. It'd be pretty unfair to say something like that. I think he said: "It's better to burn out, than to fade away." Something like that. And yeah, Layne Staley's a sad story. Speedball...
Whether or not it was a speedball that pushed Layne over the edge, or so to speak, as far as I can tell he was pretty much doomed for a long time before he actually died. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1470138/20030225/story.jhtml That's what I'd been reading, if anyone else was wondering.