The early 1990s music scene underwent a seismic unpheaval when the grunge genre burst out of the Pacific Northwest. As far as the general public knew, bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden were spearheading a new wave of music.
But a closer look reveals that the rise of grunge wasn’t as organic as it seemed. In fact, major record labels deliberately fabricated the genre, driven by financial motives and a desire to replace still-popular glam and metal bands that had become too expensive to maintain.
Throughout the 1980s, glam metal and hard rock bands dominated the charts. Acts like Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, and Poison won massive followings, but their success came at a high cost. These bands commanded larger and larger percentages and advances, a trend epitomized by Mötley Crüe’s 1991 deal with Elektra Records.
That $25 million contract, a staggering sum for the time, strained their relationship with the label. With other glam and metal acts also demanding big deals and lavish promotional budgets, record companies were feeling the squeeze.
Nor did it hurt that bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam could be signed from indie scenes with much lower overhead, making them an attractive alternative for cost-conscious executives. See veteran audio engineer Steve Albini’s jaw-dropping 1993 exposĂ© detailing how record companies paid their new talent like 7-11 clerks. Note that Albini’s piece specifically cites Nirvana, a band he’d personally recorded.
Related: How Rock and Roll Lost Its Groove
Despite the image that grunge was a cohesive musical movement, the bands lumped into this category didn’t share much in common musically. In fact, they fit more comfortably into existing genres.
Nirvana, the poster child for grunge, was a punk band. Their aggressive, raw sound and DIY ethos came straight out of punk rock, not some new Seattle-born genre. Nevermind, their breakthrough album, owed much more to bands like the Pixies and the Melvins than any supposed grunge sound.
Lest you doubt, consider the conversation which took place at U2’s Madison Square Garden show in March of 1992:
David Grohl, Nirvana’s drummer, came to a U2 show during the first leg of the Zoo TV tour to visit the opening act, the Pixies. Bono invited him in for a talk. Bono mimics Grohl chewing gum and saying, “Hey, man. nothing against you, but I don’t know why the Pixies would do this.” Bono asked if Grohl didn’t think it was brave of the Pixies to try opening for U2 in arenas. Grohl didn’t buy it. “We’ll never play big places,” he said of Nirvana. “We’re just a punk band.* All this success is a fluke. Tomorrow I could be somewhere else.” Bono told him to never say never: “You don’t know what you’ll want to do in five or ten years. It was all new to us, we had to learn it too. Why paint yourself into a corner?” “Nah, man.” Grohl said. “We’re just a punk band.”*
*Emphasis mine
Alice in Chains, meanwhile, can safely be called a metal band. Their heavy riffs, dark lyrics, and association with the early metal scene in Seattle made them far more akin to Metallica or Black Sabbath than other grunge bands. Their album Dirt remains a quintessential metal record, complete with the genre hallmarks of drop-tuned guitars, distorted soundscapes, and brooding themes.
Soundgarden? They sprang from hard rock. Chris Cornell’s soaring vocals and the band’s complex song structures drew heavily from the classic rock tradition, with clear influences from the likes of Led Zeppelin. They also inherited a penchant for exploring sonic textures and epic arrangements from the progressive rock bands of the 70s.
And Pearl Jam, often considered a grunge cornerstone, was more of a throwback to classic rock with a tinge of alternative. Their blend of blues-inspired guitar riffs and introspective lyrics made them sound more like Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young than the disaffected grunge stereotype.
Say what you will about the major labels’ decision, replacing overgrown expensive acts with younger, cheaper talent makes business sense. Yet the question remains: Why fabricate a genre?
The creation of grunge was largely a marketing strategy. Record labels wanted a new look for the 90s, so they chose to frame their new acts’ necessarily shoestring aesthetic as a revolt against the excesses of the ’80s. That strategy positioned the new style to be portrayed as more “authentic”. But such a drastic heel turn needed a new genre to hang the new image on.
Despite the newly signed bands not belonging to a cohesive movement, the labels needed a way to market them effectively, especially as MTV became a dominant force in music promotion. By grouping these disparate acts under the grunge banner, record companies could present the public with a new brand that felt fresh and exciting. The grunge label allowed the industry to package and sell these bands as part of a unified cultural shift, even though their actual styles varied widely. That was the genesis of infamous blunders, like when an ex-receptionist at Sub Pop–the same indie label that Albini mentioned selling off Nirvana–pranked The New York Times with a fake grunge lexicon.
The rise of grunge didn’t just bring new bands to the fore—it also led to the rapid sidelining of glam and metal acts. After Mötley Crüe’s massive contract, Elektra Records, like many other labels, changed focus to grunge, pushing many metal bands into the background. The success of albums like Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten meant that record labels no longer needed to shell out big production budgets for hair metal albums.
Related: The Downfall of Heavy Metal
The contrast was stark, to say the least. Whereas the big metal bands had to invest heavily in production, promotion, and stage shows, grunge acts could thrive on the bare minimum. This fiscal dichotomy made grunge incredibly attractive to labels, and they went all-in, even if it meant faking a genre to capitalize on the moment.
The rise of grunge in the early 1990s wasn’t a natural progression but rather a carefully orchestrated move by record labels to sideline expensive glam and metal acts in favor of cheaper, more manageable alternatives. Bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden never fit into the grunge box. But that was fine where the labels were concerned, especially since nobody noticed. To that effect, grunge was the perfect solution for record companies looking to reshape the industry on their terms. So what began as a marketing ploy became the defining musical trend of the 90s, even if its foundations were far shakier than they appeared.
The deep lore of Tolkien meets the brutal struggle of Glen Cook in the dark fantasy prelude to the acclaimed Soul Cycle.
The final step in this chain of events was the late-90s bubblegum explosion. That way they owned everything lock stock and barrel, and could replace their disposable cog when need be.
I’m fairly certain they learned this from the rap scene, which still does this very thing. Own the producers, own the songwriters, own the musicians, own the songs, and you don’t need talent. Sean Combs’ entire story is all the proof you need that it’s a scam.
They will do anything to avoid ever having another Michael Jackson again.
“They will do anything to avoid ever having another Michael Jackson again.”
I tend to believe that mainstream media’s aversion to YouTube stars involves content creators who are entirely too independent. If I want to find talented people who can act, sing, produce better documentaries than PBS, etc they are all there. Heck, even YouTube commentary channels offer up people who could all do better in the writing room, producer/director’s chair etc. However, all of them, if they have lasted know make it on their own, while owning their own work.
When you see how many talented people are out there it really brings into focus how much we just didn’t see back in the day. How much of it was suppressed so the Sean Combs’ of the world can have their stranglehold on an industry they’re outright killing?
If there’s one thing we can thank the internet for it’s showing us how much good is really out there.
“How much of it was suppressed so the Sean Combs’ of the world can have their stranglehold on an industry they’re outright killing?”
I tend to believe that Hollywood at least was a more open place for much of the 20th century. Not that much more open than the music industry, because the studio system was the same sort of ownership of talent that the current music industry wants. There’s a surprisingly short list of stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. But still, Judy Garland could sing and so could her daughter. It did require some actual talent, which is why perhaps why early Hollywood/radio let vaudeville vet their stars.
The TV era was more dubious on the talent front. There were PBS “stars” that I have come to realize were mostly reliable workhorses, rather than truly interesting or expert level hosts. The networks simply offered no alternative, so we didn’t know what we were missing.
Side note: I have learned more and better construction, sewing, etc techniques from YouTube, working professionals, and prosumer cameras than I ever did on the endless episodes of “The $1 million Money Pit”, er “This Old House”.
Anyway, as all the eyeballs and money began to dry up, they simply doubled down on the talentless, connected friend of friend issue. The particular per capita struggle of Hollywood and the music industry (in front and behind the scenes) is simply explained by the willingness to make “star” for or “give a break” to a buddy’s friend or son/daughter. Rap in particular requires a certain in front of the camera presence, but beyond there it’s back to the comfortable friends network.
You bring to mind a music discussion I had about ten years back with a younger Gen Y friend who was big into rap. He was surprised when I mentioned offhand that rock producers helped bands record and refine the songs which the talent themselves wrote. It was my turn to be shocked when he stated as a matter of course that in rap, it’s standard for producers to handle pretty much everything except the engineering and the actual performances.
This change happened around the time of the early 90s when rap turned hard into the Gangsta stuff. All the old stuff was now seen as corny and if you wanted to survive you had to change your sound to match. This was around the time of New Jack Swing which was a lot closer to Golden Age hip hop than what rap became. As a result the genre peaked in the the 80s and you see this weird continuation of it in NJS instead of its originating genre before R&B also got stomped out by the same system before the decade ran out.
This entire thing frustrated me as someone who grew up loving music. Seeing everything getting funneled into one giant mudgenre and no one caring until it was too late was aggravating then. But at least everyone sees it now. Hopefully we can avoid it happening again when this industry has to be rebuilt with new blood.
I’m pretty sure the reason why “grunge” fizzled out so quickly was because it was superseded by “Alternative Rock” afterward, which was a more broadly defined, tame, and mainstream genre. At first, it meant initially underground bands like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, and Superchunk, but by the end of the decade it was Matchbox 20.
I like a lot of bands that fell under the Alternative Rock label, but there’s no doubt that on the whole, it fell into the same corporate strategy of offering maximum upside for the record labels.
The original “alternative” bands would retroactively end up more categorized as Indie Rock, a term which itself would undergo corporate transformation in the early-mid 2000s as big labels churned out clones of Interpol and The Strokes left and right under the “indie rock” label.
By the time Kings Of Leon were playing arena rock on huge stages and Pitchfork was more interested in hip hop and top 40 pop music than whatever happened to The Wrens’ third album, “indie rock” had expired as a commercial trend. Fortunately, around that time the rise of stuff like Spotify made hipster publications like that effectively obsolete.
The last rock “trends” I remember existing were “post-grunge” and “nu metal” before the garage rock revival played the genre off the stage in the late ’00s. The execs no longer needed rock when they have a much less rowdy and more obedient set they can control.
Post-grunge, like its namesake, didn’t even mean anything. It was supposedly referring to bands that were the “next step” after grunge, but it typically meant boring bands that played generic radio rock with the hard edges (and interesting sounds) sanded off. This meant everything from Puddle of Mudd to Matchbox20 to Three Doors Down to Third Eye Blind (which is unfair in their case because their early stuff was legit creative and good, though I’d say they got in under the wire almost accidently) to Breaking Benjamin to Nickelback. Much of the emo movement eventually fell in line with this, too. This entire wave of rock music has been more or less forgotten because it just wasn’t very memorable.
Nu metal was just post-grunge but with heavier metal riffs and rapping slapped on top. Otherwise it was just as indistinctive and generic. There is a reason almost nothing from this “genre” inspires much in the way of nostalgia except for Millennial kids who remember hearing them in NHL 2005 or something.
Rock music in the 2000s sucked, for sure, but the secret bit of knowledge is that it was made to suck by how tightly it was squeezed to death in the ’90s. It isn’t even that there was no good music or bands but that because of the tighter stranglehold it became a lot harder to find them. This is one of the big reasons Napster took off. It was the first time you could ever actually look for music beyond their carefully curated, and quickly dying, garden. And it eventually led to their own deaths, for multiple reasons.
Exactly. In recent years all those “post-grunge” acts have been sort of recategorized as “Active Rock.” The hallmarks of those sorts of bands are phoned-in corporate “edginess” for guys who want to seem tough while still consuming a prepackaged identity, and that really awful scooped mid PRS guitar into a Mesa Boogie triple rectifier amp sound. It’s music for dudes who go $80K into debt buying a luxury pickup truck with an angry looking grille.
Nu-Metal, like almost everything from the late 90s and early 2000s, has aged really badly even if it had some original ideas early on. Folks are sometimes nostalgic for genre highlights like Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory album, but that’s about it.
The 90’s are interesting musically because unlike the 00’s and beyond there are actual trends you can point to, but at the same time the ones that everyone remembers are the ones that corporations allow us to remember. This is helped by the fact that the stations that play “the best of the 80’s, the 90’s and (the perpetual) today” are all largely owned by the same companies. But there’s a lot of stuff which was popular and got erased.
For example, you hardly ever hear people mention Big Beat Techno as a staple 90’s genre, but bands like The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method and The Chemical Brothers were popular throughout the decade. Trance/EDM dominated the late 90’s, but the only real trace of that you see now is people still jokingly calling every song Sandstorm. Ska was more popular than at any point in history, I swear that there was a period where “The Impression that I Get” was played every hour. But now it’s thought of as a niche genre, if it’s even remembered at all.
Instead if you have a 90’s nostalgia thing you’ll get a grunge fan and a hip-hop fan, and you’ll know that that’s what they are by the way that they dress.
You’re right, I haven’t heard any of that 90s techno for years, had nearly forgotten it all. Heh. The Prodigy led to one of the best post titles I ever saw on Usenet, a review of a Star Trek: Voyager episode that was titled, “Smack My Borg Up.”
80s alternative music has also disappeared. There was a lot of cool, weird, and retro stuff going on behind the power pop and hair metal. Used to listen to “The Rock & Roll Alternative” with George Girmarc. Can’t even remember the bands’ names now.
There was also a Big Band Swing and Blues revival among other things, as well. The ’90s was actually a decade of really creative revivals and newer ideas, but that isn’t what gets promoted by those in charge. All of that got erased to the point the decade as seen as the rise of “good” rap, the explosion of grunge, and ending with bubblegum and nu metal.
That’s what happens when everything is owned by Clear Channel/I Heart Radio. They can change the past and alter your perception of it to get the image they want.
I never knew “grunge” was supposed to be a style of music; thought it was a style of dress, and this music was “alternative rock.”
Hair metal might have had an easier time in the 90’s if all the popular bands from that subgenre hadn’t all self-destructed or forgotten how to write pop songs (or both). After Dr. Feelgood, Vince Neil wouldn’t record again with Motley Crue until 1997. Def Leppard followed up Hysteria (a pretty good record with a couple of great singles) with Adrenalize (a mediocre record with a couple of pretty good singles) and then dropped off the charts. Poison followed up “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” with “Unskinny Bop” and “Something to Believe In” and then dropped off the charts after Native Tongue bombed.
Moreover, even before Nevermind, hair metal had gone stale. There were too many power ballads and too many gimmicks. I loved L.A. Guns’ first record, for example, but by the time they got to “Ballad of Jayne” I tuned out. Hair metal had just stopped being heavy enough by the early 90’s. Luckily all those records in the picture came out in 1991!