It can be hard to pinpoint when exactly grunge music began. Did it start off in the 1970s with heavy, dark and brooding bands like Black Sabbath? Was it the 1960s, as some artists think, when Jimi Hendrix began to play hefty blues-rock riffs on his electric guitar like no one before him or since?
Of course, most music fans point to the 1980s in Seattle when bands were writing sludgy rock songs en masse and the engineer Jack Endino was recorded them quick and dirty for the Pacific Northwest record label Sub Pop. That movement continued to grow and when the 1990s hit, something incredible happened.
Songs that were never supposed to go beyond the clubs of the Emerald City became global phenomenons. Here below, we wanted to look into four grunge songs that just exemplified the genre. A quartet of tracks from the genre’s biggest stars. Indeed, these are four of the grungiest grunge songs that ever grunged.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana from Nevermind (1991)
The opening song to Nirvana’s groundbreaking 1991 sophomore release, Nevermind, this track and accompanying music video helped turn MTV into what it became in the mid-1990s. Kurt Cobain’s disaffected good looks combined with his growling voice and his poignent lyrics made Nirvana a household name and then some. In reality, it made them the biggest band in the world and Cobain music’s biggest star. With guttural vocal deliveries and guitars that buzz and burrow, the song is still beloved today, garnering two-billion streams on YouTube, alone.
“Even Flow” by Pearl Jam from Ten (1991)
Many believe Nirvana’s Nevermind to be the original marquee LP sensation of the 1990s but a month before that seminal record dropped, Pearl Jam released their debut album, Ten. A masterpiece in its own right, the Eddie Vedder-fronted band rose to stardom thanks to hard-hitting grunge songs like “Jeremy,” “Alive” and “Even Flow.” Combining Vedder’s knack for heartfelt sentiment and the band’s power punch instrumentation, Pearl Jam has since become a mainstay in rock music. And “Even Flow” is a great example why—the song seems to bubble up like a volcano buried deep in a place like Mount Rainier.
“Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden from Superunknown (1994)
While “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is the quintessential 1990s grunge song, “Black Hole Sun” might be a close second. Just the image of a black hole sun sums up the grunge genre so perfectly. It’s bright and hot and burning but it’s also dark and possibly apocalyptic. Soundgarden, which was fronted by banshee singer Chris Cornell, was the first grunge group to really hit the mainstream thanks to their debut LP in 1988, Ultramega OK, which garnered them a Grammy nomination before the world even knew the term grunge. A few years later, they released their defining song about the sky exploding.
“Rooster” by Alice in Chains from Dirt (1992)
There has always been a sense of conflict when it comes to the grunge movement. Not only were its participants geniuses but they were also experiencing a lot of inner-conflict. Example no. 1 is Layne Staley and Alice in Chains. The singer, who was always deep in the throws of addiction, sang the hit song “Rooster” with a beautiful terror. Written by bandmate Jerry Cantrell, the song is about Cantrell’s father coming back from war and being majorly affected by the devastation. The result, musically-speaking, was a song that will last forever, delivered by Staley and his halting vocal prowess.
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