I thought about doing this as a homage to Layne Staley and Alice in Chains, then decided to go whole hog, stuff both Doc Martens-clad feet in my mouth, and go all out and make it a pithy review of grunge as a whole.
The top 4 grunge bands are clearly Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The Stone Temple Pilots and Mind Funk are sometimes classified as grunge (depending on who you talk to), though neither are from Seattle (STP are from San Diego, and Mind Funk were from New Jersey). Of these, only Pearl Jam survived intact. Alice In Chains and Nirvana suffered the loss of their main inspirations, Layne Staley and Kurt Cobain respectively. Soundgarden broke up – Chris Cornell is now in Audioslave with Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine.
I’m not from Seattle. I’ve never even been there. I’ve seen "Singles." I won’t claim to have any familiarity with "grunge" prior to 1991, i.e. the whole Sub Pop proto-grunge scene which includes Andrew Wood and Mother Love Bone. I’ll stick to what I know:
Pearl Jam. I didn’t mind Ten, the first album, but nothing I heard from then on impressed me. Eddie Vedder seems a little too wrapped up in his own angst. Not a bad singer, nor a bad band. Just overrated. I never saw them in concert.
Nirvana. Crucify me, but I prefer Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters. The band was wayyyy overrated, even beyond Kurt Cobain. Maybe he did have some serious mental and physical problems. Maybe things weren’t happy with Courtney Hole, I mean Courtney Love. If his life was as boring and pointless as "Gus Van Zant’s Last Days" makes it out to be, perhaps his suicide was a cry for help. Ayn Rand argued that Marilyn Monroe killed herself because she discovered, to her horror, that despite "making it" and reaching the top, she could not escape the SHIT you have to deal with in life and only trade one set of bullshit for another. It strikes me that Cobain came to a similar conclusion; in his case, success couldn’t cure his stomach pain or his heroin addiction. Somehow being at the top and the center of attention was as stressful as being anywhere else.
I don’t have a problem with Cobain himself – hell, in a Rolling Stone interview he surprised the knee-jerk liberal interviewer by expressing pro-gun political views ("no, you’re a rock star, you’re supposed to adopt the whole liberal viewpoint without thinking differently! Ask Dave Mustaine if you have any doubts!"). Again, my problem was that the band itself was overrated. "Smells Like the Teen Spirit" and Nevermind got far too much coverage and exposure. There was never much point in buying any Nirvana albums or seeing them in concert: you couldn’t turn on the radio or MTV without being buried in them 24/7. They were supposed to open up for Metallica on the Black Album tour (1991) but that turned out to be a rumor.
I recall when Cobain killed himself: I was going up to New Jersey to visit my friend Ken, who at the time was the lead guitarist for a goth band, Coven of Hate, and the center idol figure for the band and its clique of Montclair State college kids. They were all majorly bummed out. I somehow wasn’t surprised, but nor was I jumping up and down with glee. One of the gang had to open his mouth about "what’s the big deal??" For me, I felt it best to let them wallow in agony. What better source of inspiration for a goth band, than the suicide of their favorite singer? It all fits together – life, even its abrupt and untimely end, works in strange ways.
Soundgarden. At the time they first came to my attention, Badmotorfinger was the current album. Neither "Outshined" nor "Rusty Cage" impressed me, but I listened to Louder Than Love and got hooked; Ultramega OK was fine, but not as good. Then Superunknown came out, and all hell broke loose. I liked it much better than Badmotorfinger, and apparently everyone else agreed. Phil and I saw this tour at the Bender Arena at American University in 1994. They followed this up with Down on the Upside (doomed to be a letdown after Superunknown) and then broke up. Chris Cornell has one of the best voices in music, let alone grunge. Soundgarden are definitely the heaviest of the four and most reminiscent of Black Sabbath. They even covered "Into the Void" on an "Outshined" EP, albeit with different lyrics. An interviewer once suggested to Kim Thayil, the guitarist, that Soundgarden owes some royalties to Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath guitarist), to which Thayil simply replied, "maybe."
Alice in Chains. I remember buying the Facelift album back in 1991 or so on the advice of my friend Ken. My buddy Jean and I went to Tower Records at Tysons Corner and bought the album. I loved it immediately. They followed it up with two studio albums, Dirt and Alice in Chains (either green or purple plastic jewel case with the B&W pic of a three-legged, sad-looking dog), two acoustic EPs, SAP and Jar of Flies, a live album Unplugged, and a boxed set.
Listening to the AIC Unplugged album, I’m amazed at how well they pull it off, even better than the other bands who jumped on the acoustic bandwagon after Tesla (damn them!!!) started this nonsense with their Five Man Acoustical Jam. ("Signs" was fine, but the rest of their songs work better as electric pieces – and wasn’t that the point of a band named after Nikola Tesla?) Usually I can’t stand acoustic crap, but both Sap and Jar of Flies, the two acoustic EPs Alice in Chains put out, are fantastic. Three killer studio electric albums, Facelift, Dirt, and Alice in Chains; and adding in Above, the Mad Season side project album of Layne Staley’s, I’ve come to the conclusion that Staley and AIC have put out NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING of less than stellar quality.
When Cobain killed himself, it didn’t hit me that much. But when Staley was found dead, on April 19, 2002 – estimated death on April 5, two weeks before (the same date as Cobain’s death, ironically enough) – it hurt me much more. And he died the worst way: alone, body found two weeks later, badly decomposed.
Looking at his pics, Staley often appeared to be a freak. Even worse, he had that annoying appearance of being freakish for the sake of being so, very much like Perry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction and Porno for Pyros). Arrghh! But somehow Staley pulled it off. His voice was great; the lyrics, even if they were often bizarre, seemed to work (similar to Blue Oyster Cult). I was fortunate enough to see them twice live, both times as opening acts: the Clash of the Titans Show (Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer) and Van Halen (For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Tour) in 1991.
If I had to pick a current successor to the grunge scene, aside from Pearl Jam themselves, I’d pick Queens of the Stone Age. Check them out.
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