The World Explained...grunge
The Sunday Age
Saturday August 31, 1996
John Elder looks at life from the mosh pit ...
GRUNGE: A loud declaration of angst, confused desires and insolence expressed through swampy music, shiftless disaffected living and wearing jeans torn around the crotch. Was happening in garages everywhere for several years as no big thing. Went from the sullen underground to bedroom posterdom in late 1991 with Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. Nirvana were from Seattle, Washington. So, too, were Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and Candlebox. Seattle's tourism people sell the city as the hip fountain of grunge. Seattle's original streets are actually underground. They're a tourist attraction. Spooky.
THE WORD: Vocalists of the genre hurl their poetic bile from the throat until their tonsils shatter. Thus, in the musical context, the word grunge is born from grunt and lozenge. And it rhymes with sponge. Which is interesting, given that grunge is also the scum that builds up on unwashed surfaces.
THE MUSIC: Seen as a hybrid of punk and idiot cock-rock. The latter was concerned with worshipping both satan and evil women in denim shorts. Apart from Pearl Jam, grunge artistes are more likely to have a syringe down their jeans than a football sock. Grunge worships nothing and also contains elements of beat poetry and coffee shop folk songs fed through a lawn mower. Rhythmically resembles heavy heartbeat of someone thinking something to death. Please consider: I wish I was like you/Easily amused/Find my nest of salt/Everything is my fault/I'll take all the blame/Aqua seafoam shame (Kurt Cobain, All Apologies, In Utero).
STYLE: A loose, suburban loungeroom extension of punk. You still have the combat boots and trousers falling to bits; but rings in the nose and eyebrows have replaced nappy pins. And you see more dirty blond highlights or colored streaks than green hair spiked with saliva.
PLACE IN SOCIETY: Grunge is considered one of the few vital white youth cultures to have emerged in the 20 years since punk first lost its lunch on BBC TV. (Anything that makes you dance is considered black. You don't dance to grunge, you lunge.) Punk went for kicking and shouting the world to pieces; grunge enthusiasts turn it all on to themselves. Despite the 'white' focus, everybody's welcome to share in the woe and aimlessness.
SEATTLE, WHERE IT BEGAN: Nirvana. Soundgarden. Alice In Chains. Candlebox. All were spawned in this pretty little city. Why is that? Please consider ... It's almost in Canada. It rains through the year; not hard, it just keeps falling out of the sky. It is shrouded in fog. Underground streets (see above). The beer is cheap and strong. Jimi Hendrix was born here. Ray Charles came to make his name. Both kept syringes down their pants. The city's most distinctive landmark is the cosmic, towering Space Needle, a leftover from the 1962 World Fair. The T-shirt Happy Face was invented here. Locals drink a lot of coffee so they don't sleep well. In young people, a lack of sleep produces a churlish, upset attitude. And true grunge is the residue that gathers in your percolator over the years.
© 1996 The Sunday Age