10 of the Best Grunge Era Deep Cuts » PopMatters

Despite a characterization of grunge as “complaining set to a drop-D tuning”, the musicians from the Seattle scene covered a lot of ground. Here are ten highlights.

This month, Cherry Red Records will release a four-disc box set, You’re No Big Deal: Grunge, The US Underground and Beyond 1984-1994, forsaking the usual selection of tracks from Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam in favour of deep cuts and rarities. As with any compilation of various artists, fans like me will almost certainly have their quibbles about missing personal favorites. Despite one widespread characterisation of grunge as “complaining set to a drop-D tuning”, the musicians from the Seattle scene covered a lot of ground. Here are ten highlights.

Garage Grunge – Green River‘s Come on Down

In 1984, two future members of the carefree punk band Mudhoney, vocalist Mark Arm and guitarist Steve Turner, teamed up with two future members of the earnest rock band Pearl Jam, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament, and made some noise. Such a band would struggle to hold together. Yet, the curious musical combination of the Dead Boys and Aerosmith successfully established the blueprint for what was to become known as grunge.

Green River’s Come on Down EP was released in 1985 on Homestead Records and contains the first grunge standard “Swallow My Pride”, a song that was reworked numerous times by Sub Pop bands. On Come on Down, the song bears a strong hint of the Velvet Underground, with its droning guitars and stoned rhythm.

Grunge Blues – Screaming Trees‘ Clairvoyance

Screaming Trees emerged from Ellensburg, Washington, a city in the mountains, about as far east of Seattle as Aberdeen, the home of the Melvins and Nirvana, is to its west. In 1986, a year before Green River debuted on Sub Pop, Screaming Trees released the Clairvoyance LP on the Ellensburg-based Velvetone Records label, spreading the word to the venerated indie SST Records, where they recorded a further three albums before getting their major label deal. Blending blues rock, country rock, and psychedelia, tracks like “I See Stars” are as evocative of the rural landscape around Ellensburg as the Meat Puppets records were of the Paradise Valley.

Avant Grunge – Skin Yard‘s “Skins in My Closet” (Skin Yard)

Skin Yard’s self-titled 1987 debut LP brought together a band of wildly colourful characters. Bandleader Jack Endino was an experimental guitarist and a record producer who later engineered a string of classic underground records at Reciprocal Recording studios, including Nirvana’s debut, Bleach. Bassist Daniel House became the manager of Seattle record label C/Z Records, the record label that had previously released the Deep Six compilation. Drummer Matt Cameron brought his knack for shape-shifting rhythms to Skin Yard and later to Soundgarden. On Skin Yard’s opening track, “Skins in My Closet”, vocalist Ben McMillan’s stream-of-consciousness lyrics set the tone for the record’s mutating blend of experimental rock and heavy metal.

Various Artists – Sub Pop 200

Sub Pop 100 was a 1986 compilation of influential underground noise rock and experimental rock bands, including Sonic Youth and Japan’s Shonen Knife. Having studied the success of independent record labels as illustrious as Motown, Sub Pop founder Bruce Pavitt was determined to create a regional identity for the Seattle sound.

Having christened the laxative guitar sounds on Green River’s 1987 Dry as a Bone EP as “ultra-loose grunge that destroyed the morals of a generation”, the 1988 various artists compilation Sub Pop 200 beckoned the corporate music industry into town, and with a plethora of otherwise unreleased tracks, it has become an essential part of the grunge canon alongside the 1986 sampler Deep Six.

Power Grunge – Soundgarden’s Louder Than Love

Soundgarden‘s 1989 major label debut, Louder Than Love, ended up being outsold by its independently released predecessor Ultramega OK, and remains the only Soundgarden album not to have (yet) been rereleased. Shortly before the sloppy, grungy power chords of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” broke alternative rock into the mainstream, there was a brief period when Seattle was destined to become a provincial wing of the Los Angeles heavy metal scene.

Record producer Terry Date provided major-label muscle to Louder Than Love, Mother Love Bone‘s Apple, and Screaming Trees’ Uncle Anaesthesia. Chris Cornell’s ironic spin on glam metal, “Big Dumb Sex”, filled out a record that contains a good handful of strong songs, such as “Hands All Over” and “Loud Love”.

Folk Grunge – Mark Lanegan’s The Winding Sheet

The persistent doubt over the very existence of the “grunge” movement overlooks the bonds shared among its musicians, as emphasized in the multitude of Seattle supergroups and side projects, such as Temple of the Dog, Alice in Chains, and Mad Season. At a time when grunge was building its head of steam, Mark Lanegan‘s 1990 solo album The Winding Sheet stepped sideways into Tom Waitsian territory that he would later explore with PJ Harvey and Isobel Campbell. It includes Kurt Cobain and Kris Novoselic on an electrified rendition of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, and the album more broadly prefigures the acoustic sounds of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York and Alice in Chains’ Jar of Flies EP.

Nu Grunge – TAD’s 8-Way Santa

1991 was the year that grunge broke, with the massive success of Pearl Jam‘s Ten and Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger, and there aren’t a whole lot of hidden gems from that year still waiting to be discovered. One that flew under the radar, despite being produced at Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, by super producer Butch Vig, and released months earlier than Gish by Smashing Pumpkins or Nevermind, was TAD’s 8-Way Santa. Released on Sub Pop, its heavy metal intensity is unrelenting, and on a handful of tracks, the rumblings of nu-metal are audible, as seen in the opening cut, “Jinx”, and the funky grind of “Delinquent”.

Grunge Noir – Singles soundtrack

In 1992, the Seattle scene got its very own feature film, directed by Cameron Crowe. Singles featured cameos by Pearl Jam, performances by Alice in Chains, and was scheduled to feature Chris Cornell in its lead role, if his acting had matched the strength of his singing. The original soundtrack features what are probably Alice in Chains’ and Screaming Trees’ most famous songs. The deluxe edition sheds light on yet another side to Chris Cornell’s remarkably prolific work at the time.

Cornell was producing records with the Screaming Trees, writing with Pearl Jam, and duetting with Layne Staley of Alice in Chains. For Singles, Cornell contributed lo-fi songs for the film’s fictional band Citizen Dick, including “Spoon Man”, and tried his hand at soundtrack composition with “Ferry Boat #3”, which both pointed in the post-grunge direction of Superunknown and beyond.

Grunge Hop – Pigeonhed‘s Pigeonhed

Pigeonhed was the brainchild of Brad vocalist Shawn Smith and record producer Steve Fisk, who had engineered many grunge records, including Clairvoyance. The duo created trip-hop-inflected soundscapes using electronics and loops. For their self-titled 1993 album, Fisk called upon Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil to contribute live instrumental samples, with Jerry Cantrell providing samples for Pigeonhed’s next release.

Thayil stated in an interview with DJ Kyle Meredith that he had also created “page-turner” music for Encarta, Microsoft’s digital encyclopaedia, and Soundgarden would be one of the first rock bands to license their music for a video game, 1994’s Road Rash, forging links between guitar-led grunge and cutting-edge electronic entertainment.

“Grunge “- Mötley Crüe‘s Mötley Crüe

1994 was another big year for the big four bands of the Seattle scene, as each moved in new, gentler directions. Alice in Chains’ Jar of Flies was the first EP ever to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York won the band’s first Grammy. Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy and Soundgarden’s Superunknown broke new ground for both groups. The impact of grunge led the late 1990s to be looked upon as the post-grunge era. So, what became of Mötley Crüe, the totems of glam metal which the music industry had brushed under the carpet? In 1994, they released their first new record since 1989 – a “grunge” album most deserving of quotation marks.