Can Grunge Become Huge Again? No.
Jen at Live 88.5/Ottawa, one of The Secret History of Rock affiliates, forwarded this email from Amanda:
Grunge music was huge in the 90s with bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc. My husband and I have discussed whether we think grunge could become as huge again as it was in the 90s. He doesn’t think so because he believes the digital music industry has destroyed the album worship that used to exist years ago.
That said, I’ve been noticing some of these older bands hanging on or making a comeback. Big Wreck has just released a new album, Soundgarden is back together again, and Pearl Jam is as great as they’ve ever been, but these bands still seem to be hanging around the fringes of mainstream music. I would like to know if Alan Cross thinks if grunge could become huge again, or for that matter, whether any particular genre of music could become huge, the way we’ve seen it happen in past decades.
Where to begin?
Grunge was of a time and place and will always be linked to the birth of the Alternative Nation and the Lollapalooza Generation between 1991 and early 1996. The change we experienced in music back then was like the Big Bang. What we’re seeing now are echoes of that event.
Yes, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden are back together and doing well, but that’s a testament to the talents of those individual bands. And even if grunge were to make some kind of comeback, it would be a revival, a retro event, and not the generation-defining exciting new thing it was twenty years ago.
Grunge came at a time when access to music was still firmly controlled by record labels, radio stations and video channels. By filtering what we, the public, were able to hear–by limiting choice–it was easier to build consensus about what bands and genres were “good”–or, at the very least, worthy of closer inspection. There was less to sort through.
Today, we each have unlimited access to an unlimited amount of music. While the labels, the radio, the video channels and whatever music magazines are left continue to provide us with music and music information, each one of us has the power to be our own filter. WE now have control over everything we hear.
And if we’re each empowered in this way, then it becomes nearly impossible for music fans to arrive at a consensus about which bands and genres are “good.” We’re all free to form an opinion from a pool of music that’s for all intents and purposes infinite.
Yes, we’ll occasionally see an artist like Adele come out of nowhere to be a superstar. But think about this: how many genuine superstar rock acts were developed in the first decade of the 21st century? Jack White, yes. Coldplay. Linkin Park. Gorillaz, maybe. And then there’s…uh, well you get my point.
The big rock acts are legacy artists from the 90s and earlier: U2, Green Day, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Blur, Stone Roses, Rage Against the Machine, Tragically Hip. And let’s not even talk about the massive reunion tours that keep coming up: Sabbath, the Stones, Van Halen.
The labels have been doing a lousy job of creating new rock superstars. And we’ve been doing a lousy job of embracing artists to the point where they become superstars. That’s because we’re so busy searching and researching music and not enough time savouring it.
It looks like the title of “superstar” will now belong to mega-mass-appeal artists like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, people who become that big because they’re able to corral the attention of casual music fans.
So to answer the question: can grunge become huge again? Not in the way it was in the 90s. It may enjoy a brief revival, but that will be nothing more than a blast of background radiation from the original event which is slowly cooling to absolute zero.
I think the answer to the question can be seen in Punk.
"Grunge was of a time and place and will always be linked to the birth of the Alternative Nation and the Lollapalooza Generation between 1991 and early 1996. The change we experienced in music back then was like the Big Bang. What we're seeing now are echoes of that event."
Much of that applies as well to the NYC and London punk scenes. And much like Grunge, it was a game-changing Big Bang.
Since then, punk has had it's revival moments, much of it nostalgic, but in those nostalgic waves, we've seen the emergence of modern punk music too. Grunge could very well be the same. The bands of the 90s will remain in the spotlight, but we could see a new wave of grunge-ish bands reappear in a new form of grunge.
Nostalgic waves tend to attract the spotlight to a genre, and in most cases, new bands in the genre get a bit more attention. While it isn't like the initial Big Bang, the echoes can unearth great underground acts and bring them to the forefront.
Hi Alan. I'm the person who sent you the question above. I probably can't win this argument because you have all the facts and I just have my gut instincts, but I will try anyway. You make a very convincing argument and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but I have to disagree with you and my husband:) Yes, digital music makes it harder for a genre of any kind to become prevalent, but I don't believe it's impossible, not even for grunge. I think if a few great new bands emerged that really understood social media and how to creatively leverage it to promote themselves, with or without the help of the music industry, they would do well. Furthermore, I believe grunge was able to thrive because it was born in an era of huge teenage angst. I think teenage angst is brewing again with the terrible things that have been happening as a result of such things as the global economic crisis, global warming, school bullying, and so on. I think it is only a matter of time before there is another backlash against mainstream music, and if a few great new bands can time their arrival just right, the masses will follow. Despite what some people may think about the teens of today, they still will know great music when they hear it, because so many of them have had parents like me exposing them to the good stuff all their lives;) It won't be the same grunge as the 90s. There will be a new spin on it of course, but it will be just as good, if not better than the grunge we heard in the 90s.
Just to build off the post and subsequent comments – the thing about grunge, or any kind of musical style focused mainly on a single music community – is that its popularity is unsustainable. Music scenes, whether in NYC, London, Seattle, have a ebb and flow nature to them as they develop, reach a crescendo, and then invariably decline.
With grunge, the bands that hit it big were the culmination of what had been happening in the underground network in the United States for over a decade. Other milieus in the network had risen and fallen – a good example was the Minneapolis scene – and new bands in other communities learned from their predecessors and built off their institutions (venues, fanzines, record labels, college radio stations, etc).
When Sub Pop Records started to market a specific segment of the Seattle scene as a brand – things worked out very, very well. Simplifying things a bit, it was a mix of the right timing (the institutions in Seattle were developed), marketability (the angsty, Gen-X "Loser" image) and technological innovation (record outside traditional industry centers). Once grunge broke through, it couldn't sustain its hold on popular culture.
After that, there's no going back to that high point, but that's ok. New scenes develop and new bands get popular. While there really hasn't been a regional music scene hit the mainstream with the force of Seattle since grunge's popularity, it could still happen anytime. Even though things have changed a lot in the music industry since the early 1990s, the right mix of timing, marketability, and innovation could lead to another explosion. I know the music scene in the city I live, Edmonton, has world class bands playing in its local venues every night. And the same goes for a lot of places. Figure out a way to expose the wider public to that music en masse, hold their attention for a while, and you've got your next big scene.
The word Grunge is, well invalid these days. but the remains of one of the greatest time in my life and still is to this day. I never left that era and everyday I look for new articles about these bands. 17, and in high school back in 94 was, well a moment for all of us.
The 90's…powerful, emotional, devastating, and loud. As a "rock" person, this is my heaven.
I think the answer can be quite clear if we look at preceding generations. Each era had a defining genre. Will classical music comeback? Big band? Folk? These all still exist of course, not part of current pop culture or mainstream activity. We are very fortunate now to have exposure to so much beyond what the media sells us. (yet of course we are also bombarded to the extreme by media, but I digress….)
Asking this question I think is kind of equal to someone in the 90's asking "Will Disco make a comeback?"
I think now, it is incredibly difficult for a single band/group/artist to "conquer the world" the way bands did 20 years ago because once said band reaches different levels of success, there is inevitably backlash. As a band becomes more visible and accessible, with more fans also come more detractors. It's like people love hating stuff.
Nickelback is prime example – where some people really like the band and they have hit after hit on radio, there seems to be a massive amount of people just waiting to shit on the band for doing what they do. Coldplay has it's detractors, and of course there's Justin Beiber. Even Foo Fighters have their haters.
Alan – you said "The labels have been doing a lousy job of creating new rock superstars." I hope the labels never "create" a rock superstar ever again. These superstars need to be discovered and developed into the role – thrusting some 20-something into global stardom is a recipe for disaster and is essentially a sacrifice to sell a few more records. I doubt very much anyone has the mental stability to go global phenomenon overnight. Leave the label creations to the disposable popstars.
Looks like it's not just us talking about this subject. Check out what Billie Corgan had to say about it: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/record-labels/smashing-pumpkins-billy-corgan-unloads-again-1006456552.story