Favorite Grunge Albums

[LoganRuckman]

For the record, I do think Nevermind is a great album, just not my favorite by then.

[DrLitch]

Anyone that criticizes Nevermind is just trying to act cool.

Nevermind certainly appears one of the most influential LP's of all time (and Nirvana one of the most influential bands in rock history) to one that studies music history and evolution of styles. I am not sure how one can make themselves like it if they do not though.

[lynchie137]

1) Alice in Chains "Dirt" Their darkest and heaviest album

2) Tad "Inhaler" Loud, heavy and dirty like a good grunge album should be. And the songs are brutally catchy. Especially the first three on the disc...

3) Nirvana "Nevermind" Yeah, it's a painfully obvious choice. But it's a really strong album from top to bottom. And it still holds up today....

Melvins "Hooch" A really heavy and weird album

[jon]

I think I'm starting to realize that the grunge explosion ended some good hair metal bands. I liked Skid Row back in 1989-1990, but I've been listening to their records lately, and the first 2 albums are amazing. I'm a big Warrant fan, and they got dropped from their record label after Dog Eat Dog. That's really unbelievable how much grunge changed things.

[DrLitch]

Talking about Hair/Glam metal I have been listening to WASP lately. Headless Children is an ATF. The band continued to release material during the Grunge / Nu Metal years. Their release KFD is bizarrely Nine Inch Nails influenced. Now Blackie Lawless has evolved WASP into a Christian Rock band. No doubt about it though, Blackie can still carry a tune, amazing vocals.

[hqsi99]

For fans of Nirvana (or just the 90's Seattle music scene in general) I would recommend the book Serve the Servants by Danny Goldberg. It's an easy, quick read and has a lot of interesting detail about Nirvana's creative process and the thought that went into the creation of their albums. Someone on here mentioned they should have let Grohl expand himself more and the book makes it sound like that was coming on gradually, but didn't happen (for obvious reasons).

The only flaw is the book is a little one-sided in its adoration of Kurt and Courtney. It's clear Mr. Goldberg really loved them both and so the book loses some objectivity when discussing some of the darker aspects of their lives. Which was fine with me, I was looking for an expose on their drug use, but just know that going in.

[LoganRuckman]

For fans of Nirvana (or just the 90's Seattle music scene in general) I would recommend the book Serve the Servants by Danny Goldberg. It's an easy, quick read and has a lot of interesting detail about Nirvana's creative process and the thought that went into the creation of their albums. Someone on here mentioned they should have let Grohl expand himself more and the book makes it sound like that was coming on gradually, but didn't happen (for obvious reasons).

The only flaw is the book is a little one-sided in its adoration of Kurt and Courtney. It's clear Mr. Goldberg really loved them both and so the book loses some objectivity when discussing some of the darker aspects of their lives. Which was fine with me, I was looking for an expose on their drug use, but just know that going in.

Also check out Everybody Loves Our Town, an oral history of grunge. Fantastic book!

[velcrozombie]

I'm definitely going to check out Everybody Loves Our Town. Thanks!

I had a coffee-table book called Screaming Life by the photographer Charles Peterson (who worked extensively with Sub Pop in the 80s and 90s) that chronicled the Seattle scene starting with early bands such as The U-Men all the way through the grunge explosion. It can be had for less than $10 now and even comes with a sampler CD of the more notable bands. I also had Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana by Michael Azerrad and I read that book over and over as a kid, especially the material covering the period prior to the release of Nevermind when the band was barely scraping by.

Azerrad had another book that I read over and over called Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991. You get a couple of bands from the scene (Mudhoney and Olympia's Beat Happening) and eleven other underground bands from all over the country each with their own chapter. Some of the bands were more fun to read about than others - I barely remember the chapter on Mission of Burma but loved the chapters on the Butthole Surfers, the Minutemen and Black Flag.

The movie Hype! (1996) is a decent postmortem on the Seattle scene, although it's hard to talk about as I haven't watched it in over 20 years. I do remember an instrumental elevator music version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and a bit where a woman created a bunch of grunge slang off the top of her head and a magazine reported it as gospel.

I haven't read it yet but there's a recent book from Mark Lanegan called Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir that's supposed to be excellent.

[hqsi99]

Anyone that criticizes Nevermind is just trying to act cool.

Nevermind certainly appears one of the most influential LP's of all time (and Nirvana one of the most influential bands in rock history) to one that studies music history and evolution of styles. I am not sure how one can make themselves like it if they do not though.

Yeah, there's a big difference between liking an album and acknowledging it's influence over music. I mean I'm not a huge Elvis fan but I can certainly acknowledge that he had enormous influence over the evolution of rock music (even if it was mostly exposing the masses to a blues style that had been around for a while).

I personally love Nevermind, but I can certainly understand how others don't. I don't see how anyone can objectively claim it didn't influence music though.

[jon]

I was scrolling through 90’s rock hits on Apple Music and I saw a Cranberries song. I was like, sure let’s listen to some of their songs. Then I Read about them and saw that they’re categorized as among other things “dream pop”. That’s got to be the lamest description of a type of music ever. I know what they mean but it’s just ridiculous.

Then I was listening to the ex co-frontman of the Lemonheads Ben Deily’s new band Varsity Drag. They were a hardcore punk band when he was in the band. And his new band is labeled alternative. It’s just ridiculous.