Favorite Grunge Albums

[jon]

Uh oh. This is going to turn into a Sega Saturn 3d kind of thread…….jk. But seriously I love those hair bands too. If anyone’s too depressing from grunge I’d have to go with Alice In Chains. Still some good songs though.

[BlasteroidAli]

Uh oh. This is going to turn into a Sega Saturn 3d kind of thread…….jk. But seriously I love those hair bands too. If anyone’s too depressing from grunge I’d have to go with Alice In Chains. Still some good songs though.

I saw them live, they were a good band. They needed to cheer up a bit. I also like the Screaming Trees. Plus, I always loved Pearl Jam but did not consider them Grunge.

[jon]

To me, at its essence, there are way less actual grunge bands than people think. A good example is probably Pearl Jam. Smashing Pumpkins doesn't really sound like grunge. I think Mudhoney's guitarist once said the only really popular grunge band was Nirvana. And that's a way of thinking about things. I think the Foo Fighters 1st album is totally grunge. And there's a lot that can't necessarily be called fully grunge. Soundgarden I know probably gets that label but they had some metal to them. Mother Love Bone is probably the hardest to classify. They're a mix between glam metal and grunge. But to me the only really popular band that was grunge for every album was probably Nirvana. The others weren't completely that style.

So I kind of agree with Mudhoney's guitarist that most of the extremely successful bands from the alternative era of the early 90's weren't completely grunge. I mean even bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers got kind of lumped into the whole grunge revolution even though they had a lot of other elements. A lot of other bands might have had their moments but they weren't completely. Pearl Jam isn't but "Vitalogy" kind of is. So there was basically Nirvana and bands like Mudhoney and then ones that weren't popular. Besides Nirvana none of the other really popular early 90's alternative bands were actually grunge although they may have been for an album or two. The 1st Foo Fighters album is a great grunge album.

[Nevermind]

Nevermind

[jon]

Nevermind

That's definitely my desert island grunge album. I'm listening to the Foo Fighters first album, and I love it so much. The production is amazing. Dave Grohl is still killing it on the drums. I love the 2nd album The Colour and the Shape. When it came out in 1997, they were my favorite band. Looking back at it now though, I wish the production was like the 1st album. It's still got amazing songs, but I would've loved to hear them stripped down. They went for a more pop sound and that's ok.

[BlasteroidAli]

I also saw the Lemonheads as Captain America aka the Vaselines supported them. They were great.

[jon]

I love the Lemonheads. So you know a member of the Vaselines?

I never thought of Nirvana as being depressing during their amazing run. I think it's how the band ended and all the negativity. But I remember being in Spec's Music in 1991 with my brother and they were playing Smells Like Teen Spirit. And we were like, that's good. And my brother bought Nevermind right there. It's funny because I can't quite remember when that was. It literally might have been the week it came out. We hadn't heard of Nirvana before. It didn't have the hidden song (the first pressings didn't) and I've always wondered if we got the album literally the week or even day it came out, which is crazy. My brother saw them in concert in 1993 on the In Utero tour. And the other hits off Nevermind I don't really consider as depressing songs. This whole thing about them being depressing is probably again just about how things ended up with Kurt Cobain. I didn't like the singles off In Utero but they're not necessarily depressing I don't think. I wasn't a big fan of In Utero but listening to the Super Deluxe 20 year anniversary and hearing all the other songs they did at the In Utero sessions that didn't make the album, it made me realize that album would've been amazing with those songs. It should've been like 15 songs instead of 12. There was some great material there that didn't make the album. Like I said, I consider Alice in Chains way more depressing.

[BlasteroidAli]

I love the Lemonheads. So you know a member of the Vaselines?

I never thought of Nirvana as being depressing during their amazing run. I think it's how the band ended and all the negativity. But I remember being in Spec's Music in 1991 with my brother and they were playing Smells Like Teen Spirit. And we were like, that's good. And my brother bought Nevermind right there. It's funny because I can't quite remember when that was. It literally might have been the week it came out. We hadn't heard of Nirvana before. It didn't have the hidden song (the first pressings didn't) and I've always wondered if we got the album literally the week or even day it came out, which is crazy. My brother saw them in concert in 1993 on the In Utero tour. And the other hits off Nevermind I don't really consider as depressing songs. This whole thing about them being depressing is probably again just about how things ended up with Kurt Cobain. I didn't like the singles off In Utero but they're not necessarily depressing I don't think. I wasn't a big fan of In Utero but listening to the Super Deluxe 20 year anniversary and hearing all the other songs they did at the In Utero sessions that didn't make the album, it made me realize that album would've been amazing with those songs. It should've been like 15 songs instead of 12. There was some great material there that didn't make the album. Like I said, I consider Alice in Chains way more depressing.

I knew the bass player Jim Seenan. We grew up together in Glasgow. When he got into his 50s he became very techy. He got old like we all do. He was disillusioned with the music industry as he did not make the money he thought he should have. He did not write any songs though he said to me that Lovecraft was his composition but he never got the song credit.

Anyway we fell out over something stupid but the reason I saw so much
Grunge was because of him. Yeah Alice in chains are quite depressing. I did think Frances Farmer will have her revenge on Seattle was really dark.

[jon]

That's interesting. I just looked him up, Jim Seenan. It says he played bass from 1987-1990. That's I guess close to the very beginning through their best years. I guess the 2 main original members, Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee made a lot more money than him. Man, I'm gobbling up all this information on bands post hiatus and it seems like Jim Seenan should have his own Wikipedia page. It says he was in bands throughout the 90's with McKee. And it seems like 1987-1990 was really their peak. It's weird he doesn't have his own page. I had no idea the connection between the Vaseline and The Lemonheads.

I'll agree with In Utero. It can definitely be perceived as being incredibly depressing compared to Nevermind. I hated the radio songs Heart Shaped Box and All Apologies. I was really upset because I thought they weren't nearly as good as the Nevermind radio songs. But yea, Frances Farmer is depressing. A lot of them are. Dumb is a pretty depressing song. It seems like maybe Kurt Cobain was struggling with heroin addiction and that's why the songs turned out that way. Cobain remarked in the press that he didn't like the job Steve Albini did as producer, as he thought it was too anticommercial and the mix wasn't done well. Ironically, In Utero it started selling by the zillions after his death. What people don't realize, because it was such a short period of time in like 1993 to early 1994, is that Pearl Jam's Vs. was outselling In Utero by an astronomical amount. I think the first week Vs. did 1 million to In Utero's 180k. And it continued. Yea, In Utero only sold well after he died. I guess it's sold about 15 million by now. But I'd noticed around that time before he died that Pearl Jam had gotten so much more popular. And I was mad because I felt Nirvana had started the "alternative" revolution or whatever you want to call it and Pearl Jam was capitalizing off of it. Oh well. By now their sales are basically even between the bands. But Pearl Jam was selling out arenas and Nirvana was playing at places with like 7,000 by 1993-1994. Nirvana wasn't popular enough at the end to do arena tours. They were popular enough I think during the Nevermind period to do arenas but decided not to. This was around 1992. Cobain also turned down a ton of money to go on tour with Guns N Roses at one point. I guess the sales of Nevermind and radio play was so great they were so rich anyways.

[BlasteroidAli]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nirvana-Tour-Diary-Andy-Bollen/dp/1857828755/ref=sr_1_16?crid=2CHCRY2RSFC67&keywords=nirvana+books&qid=1659697308&sprefix=nirvana+books%2Caps%2C115&sr=8-16

This is the drummer of the Vaselines and you get a little insight into the band and Nirvana. It is quite a good read if you like Grunge and early Nirvana.
https://www.amazon.com/Nirvana-Tour-Diary-Greatest-Bands-ebook/dp/B00CBT9G80/ref=sr_1_1?crid=399I22HTN7P4P&keywords=Nirvana+-+A+Tour+Diary%3A+My+Life+on+the+Road+with+One+of+the+Greatest+Bands+of+All+Time&qid=1659698063&sprefix=nirvana+-+a+tour+diary+my+life+on+the+road+with+one+of+the+greatest+bands+of+all+time+%2Caps%2C490&sr=8-1#customerReviews

that is the US link. Also quite a lot about the band capt america.