(photo by Louis Beche)

Looking Back 15 Years Later by JONATHAN MCEMBER

A contemplation on the musical genre known as Grunge, written for the fifteenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death.

Flannel shirts, teenage angst, and distorted guitars once ruled the country. Whatever happened to those days and the musical genre called grunge?

Grunge was popular during the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Guitar playing features a "raw" sound driven by heavy distortion. Song lyrics are filled with angst and consists of various themes like seeking freedom. Hardcore punk and heavy metal influenced grunge. Grunge originated in the state of Washington where high precipitation and bad weather in the region brought musicians indoors to create music.

"Washington is the only state in the country that has a rain forest. So that tells you it's very wet," said Dr. Jerry Garcia, a history professor at Michigan State University and a Washington native. "Seattle gets a lot of rain because of the ocean, the atmosphere, and the pressure."

Said Garcia: "The grunge scene in Seattle was first primarily kind of a challenge to the music of the 1980s that people got sick and tired of hearing."

A compilation titled Deep Six was released to the public in 1986, featuring songs from local bands who couldn't afford studio time. College radio and indie distributors spread grunge across the Northwest. Grunge spread to the rest of the country with the release of Nirvana's Nevermind. Nevermind's exposure to the public caused the album to sell 400,000 copies a week. Nevermind's success along with Pearl Jam's Ten unleashed grunge on the country.

"Nevermind was the big Nirvana album," said Jim Mastrucci, guitarist for Tomorrow the World. "It was the one that brought them into the mainstream. It catapulted them from a minor band in the northwest area of the country to popular over the entire country. It was almost over night. The songs are perfect. You listen to them, it has that really good guitar, then you hear Kurt's voice, it's a one of a kind voice. It's like the right amount of gravel in a voice that could make it commercially successful."

Major record labels rushed to the Pacific Northwest to sign rising bands. Bands from around the country began to pour into the Pacific Northwest hoping for success.

"For a summer in the late 1980s, early 1990s, I lived in Seattle right when grunge was beginning to take hold," said Garcia. "One thing I remember was that everybody was starting a band. Then I noticed that everywhere I went people were talking about starting a band. There was some kind of momentum and steam building up."

Grunge had its own fashion. Ripped jeans, sweaters, and flannel shirts were in style. Grunge fashion appeared in magazines and on the runways at New York fashion shows. Large chain stores like J.C. Penny Co. advertised grunge wear for all ages.

"It's a very northwestern look. The flannel shirts, the jeans, the sneakers -- that was not something invented for grunge. That was already the clothing people wore in the Northwest. It was just the northwestern look," said Garcia.

The hype around grunge spread to Hollywood. The 1992 film Singles is a romantic comedy set in Seattle's grunge scene. Grunge musicians like Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard, and Jeff Ament make brief cameos in the movie.

"When I see Singles I don't necessarily relate to the love story but the location and what is going on," said Garcia.

Grunge influenced a new genre called post-grunge. Post-grunge never reached the popularity that grunge did. Many post-grunge bands had trouble maintaining commercial success.

The hype around grunge began to decline in the mid-1990s. Garcia believes the rising economy of the mid-1990s had something to do with grunge's decline. "If you look at the 1990s there's a lot of angst by these bands," said Garcia. "You got to remember, in the early 1990s we were in a recession, like we are right now. I think the recession that we were in hit home to a lot of these bands. They talk about some of this stuff in their music. They don't speak in economic terms but they speak about what their lives are like." Garcia says when there is nothing to complain about the music is going to change.

"Grunge began to fade after Kurt Cobain died," said Mastrucci. "It's a very cliché statement to make but it's exactly when it began to fade. He was the spokesperson for grunge. Everyone can argue when it died."
When asked if grunge is still around today, Mastrucci said grunge is dead. "It's having resurgence now because there is the twenty year rule. About every twenty years, music that was popular twenty years ago becomes popular again."

Garcia's opinion differs from Mastrucci's. "I wouldn't say it completely disappeared," said Garcia. "Pearl Jam's still around they're still producing and playing.