Today, fashionable grunge style clothing came to us from the desperate 90s of the last century. A powerful musical breakthrough in all colors of the rainbow filled all the tape recorders and the first players of music fans. There were many genres at the crossroads, but one of the most memorable was the style of grunge music. Next, we dwell on it in more detail.
Grunge music style: description and history of the "conception" direction
In the late 80s, the audience was bewildered by a completely new, blowing down sound of an original and unique rock scene in this style. The first appearance was noted in the American city of Seattle, which was carried out, most likely, due to the usual punk audience in those places.
Grunge is a style of music that initially was not widely publicized, and the names of the performers remained in a deep underground for a long time.
The press and television did not notice (or didn’t want to notice?) That quite a large audience gathered around musical groups in this direction. The problem was that, although there were a lot of groups and they had to wander from one place to another, they were not taken seriously and considered a "big basement party", in other words - the fun of useless teenagers.
As always happens in a musical environment, some groups brought something new to the style, and some only copied ideas already created by someone. One way or another, but grunge-style music gradually began to win its recognition. The first official record in this style is the 1986 Deep Six compilation. Such famous creative groups as Soundgarden, Green River, Melvins took part in the creation of this work.
Grunge Music Features
As music connoisseurs define, grunge is a unique mixture of heavy metal, sludge, hardcore punk and other trends. The formation of the genre is mainly due to the activities of such groups as: Sonic Youth, Melvins, Pixies.
Such world grandees as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath played a big role in the formation of style: their work became a springboard for musicians who later proved to be well-known representatives of the grunge direction in the modern sense.
Grunge style - image and sound
This musical genre combines an overloaded and dirty guitar sound. It symbolizes garage rock and the explosive energy of punk rock with sharp transitions to the viscous and slow pace of sludge in the compositions. An interesting fact is that the “reef” methods of heavy metal and elements of melodic solos were also borrowed for electric guitars in this style. But only with time they acquired a tendency to a mournful psychedelic sound.
Thus, the general picture of the grunge style could be described as follows: “fast-slow”, “fun-sad”. The fact is that the musical mood of the genre changed more often than gloves - an energetic and positive punk could easily give way to a depressive psychedelic, which again gave way to a cheerful and groovy pace with a couple of sonorous chords of an electric guitar, as if symbolizing a victory over gloom.
Most bands with grunge-style music used very few instruments. The standard “kit” included: bass, guitar and drum kit. The main emphasis in the sound was given to the emphasized rhythm section. And the guitar accompaniment with a clear emphasis on the use of "distortion" effect changed from background to overloaded with dense rhythmic patterns.
The vocalist performed texts about hopelessness and complete estrangement from the world in a hoarse, loud voice with a characteristic anguish. Sometimes there was a mild aggression against social foundations. As psychologists note, such music negatively affects the psyche and can lead to the development of suicidal tendencies.
Grunge ideas
The main idea was expressed in the following: fatigue and unsuccessful struggle with the moral principles of a callous and indifferent society, which left the young generation alone with survival in the modern world.
The arrangers (musicians who performed grunge music) did not really care about their appearance. Without bothering with a selection of stage images, they preferred to wear simple and well-worn clothing, coupled with sloppy hairstyles.
At an early stage, the musicians of this genre were treated as depressed punks-losers.
Grunge style bands
Now the ancestor of the genre is the Nirvana collective. This happened for a reason: it was this creative team that popularized this musical style. Nirvana team managed to achieve the first commercial success in this direction.
The leader of the group, the talented and charismatic Kurt Cobain, personified the youth rock movement of that generation. However, the popular performer did not feel joy from his fame - his lot was deep depression and heavy drug addiction. On April 5, 1994, the famous musician committed suicide while at the peak of his musical career.
Separately, mention may be made of such groups as Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains. On the Russian grunge scene, the teams “The Sky Is Here”, Mad Dog, etc. were marked.
In the late 90's. grunge music has declined significantly. Nevertheless, its derivatives post-grunge and grunge-core quite successfully continue to appear on the modern stage (for example, the post-grunge team Seether).