When it comes to the history of grunge music, certain bands have gotten more of the limelight than others. It’s easy to remember the big four from the genre—Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains—but to do only that is to oversimplify.
It’s unfair considering all of the talent that came out of Seattle and the surrounding Pacific Northwest.
Below, we wanted to explore four groups that deserve your attention. Four bands that did as much to spread the good word of grunge as any, but that still get a short shrift in the public consciousness.
Indeed, these are four forgotten grunge bands that are worth remembering some 30 years later…
1. Mother Love Bone
Founded in 1988, this group sadly never quite got off the ground. At least, not in the way it should have. Just weeks before its debut LP, Apple was set to release, the band’s lead singer, Andrew Wood, passed away from a drug overdose.
Sadly, things like that are all too common when it comes to grunge music history. His death inspired his friend and former roommate, Chris Cornell, to start the grunge supergroup Temple of the Dog to pay homage to the fallen singer.
But while the band never got to taste stardom like others in its peer group, it’s still worth remembering today.
2. Skin Yard
Founded in 1985, Skin Yard was a groundbreaking grunge group that’s as significant for the music it made as much as it is for who was in its lineup.
While there are nearly a dozen past members who played in the project, big names include Matt Cameron (drummer for Pearl Jam and Soundgarden), Barrett Martin (drummer for Screaming Trees), and Jack Endino, who was the recording engineer who tracked early songs from the likes of Nirvana and many other bands.
Without Skin Yard, which released its debut self-titled LP in 1987, there might not be any grunge at all.
3. Screaming Trees
If the Mount Rushmore of grunge included a fifth face, it would be Mark Lanegan’s. The songwriter of skid row has a beautifully gravely voice that he used to front Screaming Trees as well as his own solo projects.
He also sang in the grunge supergroup Mad Season. But it was his band Screaming Trees, which began in Ellensburg, Washington, in 1984, that helped bring his name to the forefront. Their songs dazzle as much as they provoke thought.
And Lanegan, himself, is like a mix between Jim Morrison and Charles Bukowski.
4. Mudhoney
In 1988, Mark Arm co-founded the band Mudhoney. It was born from the ashes of previous musical projects like Green River. While no one knows exactly where the name grunge or its music came from originally, the world likely has Arm to thank.
Early in the 1980s, he was making buzzy, brooding music that inspired generations. And his band Mudhoney helped to solidify the sound thanks to early groundbreaking singles like “Touch Me I’m Sick.”
Indeed, Mudhoney’s 1988 EP, Superfuzz Bigmuff, is as important to the genre’s evolution as anything before or after.
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