Grunge Is Dead. Let's Keep It That Way

Apparently, grunge is coming back.

Not as a musical movement propped up by "new rock" radio, mutant grunge step-children like Nickelback, Creed and whoever have arguably been polluting our senses pretty much consistently for the past decade. The actual "music" has
survived, cockroach-like, sustaining itself on the desperate needs of a demographic of music fans who've mostly been deprived of a newer, bad-ass and legit guitar-based way to "rock out."

No, my concern is that nostalgists have rediscovered grunge and are attempting to recreate and repackage the culture of that time. Tentative though they may be, grunge nights and events are beginning to pop up around Toronto dance clubs and bars. Admittedly, I haven't been to any — the thought of an endless stream of Stone Temple Pilots songs is about as appealing as having my fingernails pulled out with pliers — but the fact that people are actively attempting to recapture the zeitgeist of that time is fundamentally disturbing.

See, as far as I'm concerned, grunge was stupid. I never got the whole Gen X slacker 'tude of everything-sucks-so-don't-bother-trying. And I have a pretty dim view of grunge's pop culture legacy.

Like, what great movies were inspired by the grunge era? Singles? Sure it taught men how to act when women sneeze, but does it compare to Quadrophenia, Purple Rain, 8 Mile, Breakin', Sid And Nancy or 24 Hour Party People when it comes to romanticizing specific musical scenes?

Then there's the "fashion." Apparently Stella McCartney, H&M and Burberry are all copping bits and pieces of the grunge aesthetic for their fall clothing collections. I'm not the most sharp, prim-looking guy myself, but why anyone would
purposefully revisit lumberjackets (unless, y'know, you actually work with lumber), super-baggy T-shirts and other affectations of living-under-a-bridge homelessness is beyond me. I'll happily vow to not make fun of white belts or swoopy emo haircuts if the alternative is looking like Eddie Vedder.

Speaking of Vedder, my feelings on Pearl Jam have been well-articulated in this space a number of times, so I'll spare the potshots to them and their peculiarly zealous fans. In fact, I actually have to give them credit: they're the sole high-profile survivors from the first generation of grunge.

That, for obvious reasons, is more than I can say for Nirvana. Has anyone listened to Nevermind lately? Not that hot, huh? Kinda dated sounding? Yeah, I get all the tortured genius stuff that comes with a prominent entertainer having their head blown off, but my favourite Nirvana record is still MTV Unplugged In New York. And it has everything to do with the fact that the six best songs on it are all covers. I should also mention that I'd take "Molly's Lips," their Vaselines cover on Incesticide, over "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Still, if grunge was a music, fashion, culture and attitude disaster, it did do two good things. First, it helped destroy the bad hair metal bands that ruled up until about '91 (though Poison and Guns N' Roses are still doing arena tours these days, a stark contrast to whatever Tad and Gruntruck are up to). Second, grunge served to illuminate media-savvy sorts on just how quickly a movement, scene or trend could get co-opted. The suits would later perfect this art of underground takeover with rap metal, but it was scary to watch how, with ruthless efficiency, Mudhoney begat Bush X once big corporate machinery was involved.

I'm sure right now there are a certain amount of you who're rankled that I'm dissing the very musical revolution that brought us such hits as "Spoonman" and "Cumbersome." But I suspect there are very few of you who, in 2007, still race to your stereos to hear Alice In Chains, Lovebattery or L7. There's a reason for that… it's because they're not good.

Let's leave those rotting corpses in the ground and find a different era to pillage.

This was my editorial from the October 2007 issue of Chart Magazine. You can purchase the issue at the Chart Shop.