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I chose Alice In Chains, although I'd like to say I liked all the others too! Too bad Lane had to do himself in with the heroin. I would have loved to hear some new stuff from them.
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Layne had the best voice of the past ten years, the only people I'd say come remotely(I do remotely since there's only one Layne) are Scooter Ward, Aaron Lewis and Mayard James Kennan.
Cantrell was amazing on the six strings and Kinney/Star or Inez(depeding on the time frame) rounded out the band nicely.
Just one of those bands that you'll never see another like it but tons will try.
-------------------- I don't need no instructions to know how to rock! Posts: 2809 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by footspy: Never been a fan of grunge music.
Same here. There are select songs from each of those 4 bands that I thought were okay, but I'm not much of a fan of grunge on the whole so I abstained from participating in the poll. But, for what it's worth, I can at least say that I appreciated the manner in which Alice In Chains used the intertwining vocal harmonies as a staple of their sound.
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I asked that question about which of those 4 bands is best to one of my footgal friends yesterday, and she had an interesting answer which involved breaking down their various strengths. She decided that Chris Cornell easily had the best vocals of all of them, and Pearl Jam's Ten was easily a better album on the whole than any of the other bands had released. So from those two pieces of data, she concluded that Nirvana is the best band! hehe Thus, her equation looks something like this:
great Soundgarden vocals + great Pearl Jam album = Nirvana rules!!
I'm not entirely sure I understand the math on that one, but she seemed pretty confident about it and she's got mouthwatering feet so I accepted it gladly.
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Overall, Alice In Chains is my favorite. Layne's vocal harmonies are hauntingly hypntizing.
Soundgarden comes in a very close second for me. Our band has unanimously decided that if we could have any vocalist in the biz, Chris Cornell would be our top pick. His range and power is awesome! Badmotorfinger rocks!
I have to admit that being a metalhead, grunge bands were my arch nemesis during their big breakthrough and moment in the spotlight. I didn't like the fact that the powerful image and presence of metal performers was being replaced by these dirty homely kids from Seattle (with all due respect, which is actually alot). It took me a while to accept that there was some talented musicians hiding behind the depressing lyrics, heroin and ugly striped shirts.
I never really got into Nirvana or Pearl Jam at all, but AIC and SG really grew on me and stuck.
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I dunno Bondo, I really thought those bands were a blessing in the early 90's. Finally hard rock hit the mainstream again. To me there really wasn't much difference in listening to an old Sabbath album than popping in a AIC CD. Both made depressing, drug induced, heavily amplified tuned down crunchin' music. Most of the 80's mainstream metal was a bunch of white wimps with big teased hair in ripped spandex which I could not relate to whatsoever. The bands I liked during that time were considered by most people like diseased subhumans living in a leper colony (Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Iron Maiden). I enjoyed having radio and MTV dominated by the guitar rocking sludge of grunge to the hip-hopin'-booty-shakin'-40-ouncer-rappin' bling-bling bust a cap in yo ass stuff that is mainstream today!
quote:Originally posted by ledaemon: I dunno Bondo, I really thought those bands were a blessing in the early 90's. Finally hard rock hit the mainstream again. To me there really wasn't much difference in listening to an old Sabbath album than popping in a AIC CD. Both made depressing, drug induced, heavily amplified tuned down crunchin' music. Most of the 80's mainstream metal was a bunch of white wimps with big teased hair in ripped spandex which I could not relate to whatsoever. The bands I liked during that time were considered by most people like diseased subhumans living in a leper colony (Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Iron Maiden). I enjoyed having radio and MTV dominated by the guitar rocking sludge of grunge to the hip-hopin'-booty-shakin'-40-ouncer-rappin' bling-bling bust a cap in yo ass stuff that is mainstream today!
To me grunge always sounded more alternative than metal or even hard rock.
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quote:Originally posted by ledaemon: I dunno Bondo, I really thought those bands were a blessing in the early 90's. Finally hard rock hit the mainstream again.
I see where you're coming from where the grunge scene propelled the darker dirtier sound to the front of the mainstream. The Headbangers Ball just didn't seem to be doing a good enough job...lol! (Adam Curry = bad metal representative). I'll agree that Alice In Chains was quite the refreshing replacement for sissy glam hair bands like Poison, Firehouse and Winger.
As far as it being a blessing, I didn't see it that way. At the time, I felt like they were stomping out the fires that metal bands like Metallica and Anthrax were trying to ignite. It was the early 90's when I started playing in a metal band, so I was hoping our band could ride a heavy chunky thrash wave that the metal scene was potentially trying to create.
Looking back, I don't think radio or daytime MTV was ready for heavy metal back then, so grunge was a very successful starting transition to some of the heavier stuff that has made it to the mainstream today.
All in all, today I have absolutely no regrets or harsh feelings to the grunge music scene like I did back then. Albums like AICs "Dirt" and SGs "Badmotorfinger" hold very high respects in my musical opinion. Layne Staley and Chris Cornell are two of my favorite vocalists to this day.
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Well Metallica went totally mainstream after the "black" album didn't they? It seemed like you couldn't turn on the radio or MTV without hearing one of those songs played every 20 minutes. BTW, I personally think that album was the start of the end for the music they made that I liked. I never bought another one of their albums after that one.
You mentioned something earlier also about depressing lyrics and drugs with grunge music. I don't think there is single metal album that has uplifting lyrics and anyone in the band that wasn't a junkie or alcoholic.
I used to go to tons of metal shows back in the day. I have never seen an alternative rock show live.
quote:Originally posted by ledaemon: Well Metallica went totally mainstream after the "black" album didn't they? It seemed like you couldn't turn on the radio or MTV without hearing one of those songs played every 20 minutes. BTW, I personally think that album was the start of the end for the music they made that I liked.
I agree with the basic sentiment there about Metallica. The only two albums of theirs that I can honestly say that I truly love are Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets. Outside of that 1984-1986 window, I wasn't particularly smitten with anything they did. And Justice for All had some potential, but I can't help but feel that some of the creative production choices they made ultimately did that album in. A little smidgeon of reverb wouldn't have hurt, and if anything it would've helped to cover up Lars Ulrich's sloppy drum playing on that album. I was particularly disappointed because it was produced by Flemming Rasmussen, the same guy who produced the brilliant Master of Puppets album two years earlier. Beyond that album, everything they've done since then has been produced by Bob Rock, and let's just say that I'm not the biggest fan of what that particular meeting of the minds has churned out thus far.
quote:Originally posted by ledaemon: I don't think there is single metal album that has uplifting lyrics
I'm sure I could probably cite a number of metal bands if I set my mind to it, but for the moment I'll just stick to one of my personal all-time favorites because they've certainly done their fair share of material that's outright positive & uplifting. I'm talking about Helloween. Sure their early catalog is characterized by all of the usual metal themes (death, destruction, evil, Satan, etc), but their post-1986 catalog is simply laced with optimism. Songs like "I'm Alive", "A Little Time", "Future World", "Eagle Fly Free", "We Got The Right", and a number of others are basically all about seizing the day & living life to the fullest in happiness and freedom. Even the epic two-part "Keeper of the 7 Keys" saga has a very happy ending in which good triumphs over evil. On top of all that, they're absolutely killer musicians who can rock with the very best of them. Musically they've always reminded me of Iron Maiden because their music is very melodic while still being very heavy. Like classic Maiden, Helloween makes maximum facility of the two guitar setup by regularly featuring intricate interwoven harmony solos. Technically, Helloween has the edge on Maiden where the guitars are concerned because the parts are generally much more complicated to play and rely heavily on Kai Hansen & Michael Weikath's classical training. Maiden has the edge when it comes to bass though because there's only one Steve Harris.
Okay, now back to your regularly scheduled Seattle grunge thread.
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