Which "Grunge" songs hold up?

[Gandalf]

Nutshell by Alice in Chains still sounds amazing. And depressing as hell. It's the song that reminds me the most about Layne Staley's gradual decline and the sad circumstances of his death. Jar of Flies generally holds up well, more so than Dirt or any of their other stuff.

[SGR]

I don't remember 2009 having a lack of good music and I've never liked that album, but to each their own. We all have music that blew our minds at that age!

Yeah, probably not a lack of good music if you knew where to look, but I didn't yet. So the pop songs of the day like "Poker Face" and "I Gotta Feeling" were not doing much for me. 2009 was one year before I joined MusicBanter. I started to find a lot better music after that.

[SGR]

Nutshell by Alice in Chains still sounds amazing. And depressing as hell. It's the song that reminds me the most about Layne Staley's gradual decline and the sad circumstances of his death. Jar of Flies generally holds up well, more so than Dirt or any of their other stuff.

Love Jar of Flies. But I do think that Dirt and their third, self-titled album still hold up great. I think their MTV Unplugged set might be my favorite AIC record though.

[Lexi Darling]

It's interesting how that goes. People have such different experience with music at different ages. For me, Smashing Pumpkins (and a lot of other bands mentioned in this thread) were so popular and inescapable when I was in high school that it made me dislike them. For you, I assume, Smashing Pumpkins were older music that you were discovering for the first time. The equivalent for me would be a band like Bauhaus, who I "discovered" at around 15 (though I had already been a fan of Love & Rockets since I was 11 or 12) and ended up being one of my favorite bands. Then there's that weird flip that happens to people when they approach their mid-twenties, where popular music no longer feels so inescapable and you may not even really know what is or isn't popular. That's the age I was in the early 00s, and I really loved the first Strokes album. But I bet it had a lot less context for me than it did for you. I knew a couple of people who liked them, but that's about it. I knew they weren't an obscure band but I didn't really know their level of popularity. Because of that, there was no hype for me going in really.

It is interesting, though for me it was less that The Strokes and all those indie bands I mentioned were inescapably popular and more that Pitchfork reading online hipsters dominated a lot of the music discourse I was exposed to back then and they would hype up bands I didn't really get (most indie) while trashing the stuff I liked (pop punk and nu-metal and such). I never had a problem with overexposure or popularity though, as is probably evidenced by the fact that I liked pop punk and nu-metal, haha.

[TheBig3]

Love Jar of Flies. But I do think that Dirt and their third, self-titled album still hold up great. I think their MTV Unplugged set might be my favorite AIC record though.

The AIC songs that don't sound like AIC are the best ones, IMO. Down in a Hole is classic AIC to me, but Them Bones, Would, Man in a Box, and No Excuses to me are incredible tracks that don't get their due.

It is interesting, though for me it was less that The Strokes and all those indie bands I mentioned were inescapably popular and more that Pitchfork reading online hipsters dominated a lot of the music discourse I was exposed to back then and they would hype up bands I didn't really get (most indie) while trashing the stuff I liked (pop punk and nu-metal and such). I never had a problem with overexposure or popularity though, as is probably evidenced by the fact that I liked pop punk and nu-metal, haha.

I really loved that period in music. It was my college years, and it felt like all was right with the world. But I do remember a lot of bands being hyped (Libertines being an inexcusable example) that straight sucked.

[SGR]

The AIC songs that don't sound like AIC are the best ones, IMO. Down in a Hole is classic AIC to me, but Them Bones, Would, Man in a Box, and No Excuses to me are incredible tracks that don't get their due.

You don't think those tracks get their due? Those are really popular tracks. You tune into Sirius XM's Lithium channel (which plays 90s grunge and alt rock), you'll probably hear all of those songs in one day of programming. This would be an example of an AIC track that doesn't get its due imo:

[Lexi Darling]

I really loved that period in music. It was my college years, and it felt like all was right with the world. But I do remember a lot of bands being hyped (Libertines being an inexcusable example) that straight sucked.

I think the difference in age could be a factor. A lot of that indie/garage rock revival stuff feels like it appealed to an audience that skewed a bit older than I was at the time. I entered high school in 2003 when that movement kinda peaked, and I gravitated a lot more to teen angst-core like nu-metal and emo. So I have no real fond nostalgic memories of that genre/movement, in 2003 all I wanted to do was scream into my pillow while listening to Slipknot, haha.

[TheBig3]

You don't think those tracks get their due? Those are really popular tracks. You tune into Sirius XM's Lithium channel (which plays 90s grunge and alt rock), you'll probably hear all of those songs in one day of programming. This would be an example of an AIC track that doesn't get its due imo:

I think they get their due, I just think those are atypical AIC songs.

I think the difference in age could be a factor. A lot of that indie/garage rock revival stuff feels like it appealed to an audience that skewed a bit older than I was at the time. I entered high school in 2003 when that movement kinda peaked, and I gravitated a lot more to teen angst-core like nu-metal and emo. So I have no real fond nostalgic memories of that genre/movement, in 2003 all I wanted to do was scream into my pillow while listening to Slipknot, haha.

Maybe. But for me - and I should say here that when people say this about Nirvana/Hair metal is boils my blood - but White Blood Cells by The White Stripes, for me personally, delivered me from a nu-metal hell that I can't be grateful enough for. And I loved nu-metal, I bought a disgusting amount of CDs back then. Most being nu-metal. My paycheck was 1/3rd, CDs, fast food, gas for the car. God damn life was good. But nu-metal felt like it was running out of juice towards 2001. The new Korn albums were meh, Limp Bizkit was brazenly selling out, and the amount of CDs I bought from bands like Soil, Trapt, and hedPE that had one good song on it was really burning me. I also was growing older, I was getting less angry, and I was looking for some new stuff. I graduated from high school in 2001, and that sort of coincided with a time in my life when I was leaving home and who I had been behind.

[Lexi Darling]

Maybe. But for me - and I should say here that when people say this about Nirvana/Hair metal is boils my blood - but White Blood Cells by The White Stripes, for me personally, delivered me from a nu-metal hell that I can't be grateful enough for. And I loved nu-metal, I bought a disgusting amount of CDs back then. Most being nu-metal. My paycheck was 1/3rd, CDs, fast food, gas for the car. God damn life was good. But nu-metal felt like it was running out of juice towards 2001. The new Korn albums were meh, Limp Bizkit was brazenly selling out, and the amount of CDs I bought from bands like Soil, Trapt, and hedPE that had one good song on it was really burning me. I also was growing older, I was getting less angry, and I was looking for some new stuff. I graduated from high school in 2001, and that sort of coincided with a time in my life when I was leaving home and who I had been behind.

I get you. For me I kinda graduated from angsty stuff like nu-metal to grindcore, industrial, electronic, honestly the last kind of current rock music I really got into was emo/post-hardcore, and that was back in the mid to late 2000s. By college I was more into electronic music than any form of popular rock. I still have love for my childhood angst-rock, I just think the White Stripes wave kinda passed me by and I never had that magic "this is amazing" moment for it. I don't hate that 2000s indie wave, it's just kind of there for me.

I also just don't tend to turn my back on any of my favorite genres of music. I'll still bump Korn and also listen to obscure eastern European ambient artists and other more tasteful music. Certain artists haven't aged well, but I don't really feel like I've ever "grown out" of any genre.

[SGR]

I think they get their due, I just think those are atypical AIC songs.

What's a typical AIC song then?

[TheBig3]

What's a typical AIC song then?

Nutshell, down in a hole, rooster. The fucking mopey, slow moving, dirge songs.

[SGR]

Nutshell, down in a hole, rooster. The fucking mopey, slow moving, dirge songs.

Eh, they skewed more towards hard rock in the beginning. Their music afterwards was a mix in terms of rockers/dirges.

[Meatwad]

Local H - Back in the Day

[tristan_geoff]

this was always one of my favorite songs since I heard it in like 2013

[Suburban Placeholder?]

I'll never understand how Mother Love Bone morphed into the world's most dullest band after Andrew Wood died.

Not sure if they class as Grunge though, to me they were kind of in the same bracket as Janes Addiction. Kind of like hair metal with benefits.


And how the fuck have Mudhoney not been mentioned in this thread yet. Touch Me I'm Sick is the grungiest grunge song ever.


Alice in Chains? Seriously fuck off with that.