Beat Me Outta Me!: The Footprint of Grunge’s Foundational Movement

In a remarkable and almost blatant reiteration of what was deemed the ‘Sunset Strip’ during the glam metal surge of the eighties, Seattle, Washington saw to the cultivation of an entirely new sub-genre of rock music. It was crude. Restless. Filthy, even.

It was grunge.

“It could have been sludge, grime, crud, any word like that,” said the founder of indie label Sub Pop, Jonathan Poneman.

Where the flashy, bright aesthetics of the eighties had been tucked away, the darker, brooding grunge scene had quickly taken its place. The word ‘thrifting’ had solidified itself as a verb in the common vernacular. Second-hand clothes were timeless and durable, and the music followed suit.

The Seattle strip had cultivated hundreds of new bands who built their notoriety upon the basis of independent music and an unwillingness to “sell-out” to big corporations. Arguably, the year in which Seattle had peaked, or when the bands that gave the city its reputation were still in the area, the year 1989 served as a landmark in time for a new music phenomena. In the desperation of Generation X’s youth, a generation that repressed their bleak future and felt wronged by economic downfall, grunge gave voice to those who felt the devastation and fatigue of adult life.

In 1992, American writer Michael Azerrad wrote of grunge’s unpredictable beginnings in his article titled “Grunge City: The Seattle Scene.” Where at this time grunge had already seen a successful payout in the Northwest music scene, Seattle’s own city culture prospered from its lively musicality.

Azerrad described the city of Seattle as “a relatively isolated norther city with heavy precipitation and little to do except drink beer and jam in the basement.” Every musician, even those on the outskirts of the city, knew each other, and that meant music was beginning to feed on itself.

“There was this one corner of the map that was busy being really inbred and ripping off each other’s ideas,” said Mudhoney vocalist, Mark Arm, when speaking about the fight for Seattle fame. Musicians critiqued their work, embraced it and played it with each other. For as long as the grunge scene remained within the streets of Seattle, musicians played their field, auditioning for and playing with different bands to find the perfect matching set.

As lovingly adjoined as some were to their musical counterparts, like Kurt Cobain to Nirvana or Chris Cornell to Soundgarden, nearly every grunge-goer had begun or continued with a different band. Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder had started in supergroup “Temple of the Dog” with Cornell. Cobain had auditioned as a bass player for the Melvins and Soundgarden prior to his Nirvana fame.

As he wrote, Azerrad spoke with various different faces in the genre’s peak of popularity, detailing the significant changes between their humble, and often times broke, beginnings, and their bout into mainstream success with the passing of time. His writing, while littered with relevance and mountainous context, offered close-knit insight when describing the facets of everyday life in the eyes of a Northwestern musician.

As the bands found their niche and formed a local audience, they were faced with one question: If the big labels weren’t going to cut it, where would their music end up?

Sub Pop. An indie label on the rise, modeled after their monstrously successful forefathers, Motown and SST Records. In 1988, Sub Pop released the “Sub Pop 200,” a three-boxed set compiled of Seattle’s biggest and best, completed with a 20-page booklet containing the first-ever recorded use of the word ‘grunge.’

In “Grunge: A Success Story,” written by former New York Times columnist Rick Marin, the origins of indie labels and their successors come to light, alongside Nirvanas quick mainstream success and the introduction of MTV.

“[Kurt Cobain] looked like (and was) a guy who slept on friends’ couches or under a bridge, and bought his clothes at thrift shops,” said Poneman. While conditions proved to be much less than accommodating, Cobain and Nirvana co-founder Krist Novoselic signed with Sub Pop and soon recorded their debut album “Bleach.” On the album sleeve of their debut record, the cost of the respective recording sessions was listed as being $606.17. By January 1992, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had peaked at no. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, raking in more than 3 million copies sold worldwide.

While it was apparent that Nirvana’s critical acclaim had been attributed to an eventual label switch, i.e. DGC Records buying them out of their two-album contract with Sub Pop, the resurgent importance of MTV reflected this success also. With the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” music video being ran on the program 4-5 times a day for several weeks, and the 1994 live album “MTV Unplugged in New York” featuring an acoustic performance spanning their various radio hits, Nirvana’s mainstream success was truly inevitable.

Marin framed this story in such a way, drawing parallels between the fashion, music, and culture of the time, allowing the reader to not only infer what the industry felt at the time, but how the world reacted to an entirely new environment and subculture.

As success began its stockpile within the grunge scene, more criticism was being regularly exercised. Avid listeners and patrons of the movement had begun to concern themselves with the philosophy of the genre, as it seemed that while these bands had built themselves upon their individuality and unwillingness to conform, they had done just that. Author Grant Alden explores this viewpoint in his 1992 article, “Grunge Makes Good,” talking grunge influence, the strive for non-conformity, and the rare atmosphere of the time.

“See, the ‘Seattle sound’ is only vaguely about music,” said Alden. “The shock, for the rest of the world, seems to be in discovering the rage of a generation expected to go gently into the good life.” It was within the public rise of band such as Alice and Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, and even Mudhoney that an audience found their experiences aligned themselves with who they admired. Alden continued, saying “to their shock, they found that their alienation was broadly shared.”

The genre invited the public to take a look into the unwarranted portion of what was considered the ‘American Dream.’ The reality was much more grim, as musicians struggled to make ends meet. Major labels swept up those who were retaining success, and bands continued on with a larger width of success. It was here bands like Nirvana ventured on without sacrificing their independent moral, and smaller local bands utilized the like of indie labels like Sub Pop to hit it big.

In describing his first-hand experience living on the Seattle strip, Alden made various comparisons to grunge’s influential past, citing the noisy grind of Black Sabbath adjacent heavy metal and the confrontational aesthetic of punk rock, both a large contribution to the genre’s unique sound. Alden spoke directly to the reader, invigorating them within a first person telling of how grunge came to be, and framed the onslaught of information with a heavy-handed dose of reflection for the bands lost to the mainstream.

As the music industry and rock’s continuous counterculture pushed on through yet another shift in societal interest, grunge gave a voice to those who felt affronted by their surroundings and showed an alliance with those striving for independence.

A genre faced with tales of turmoil, death and addiction, but one that solidified its place among the most influential movements of recent music history.