When you start exploring a new genre of music, it can sometimes be murky waters, what with trying to figure out which bands and albums to start with. Enter: the world of Music 101 lists, here to help you zero in on a few places to begin your journey. For this first entry, we’re gonna start with the kings of ’90s rock… a collection of grunge albums that are classic gateway drugs into the genre.
If you’re new to grunge and exploring it for the first time, hopefully this will give you some direction and help you identify where you’d like to go next. If you’re an old-school grunge fan who isn’t just here to see if I got the list “right,” I hope we’re able to agree that these iconic records are undeniably responsible for rooting the Seattle Sound into music history. Staring with…
‘Core’ by Stone Temple Pilots
This first one was a bit of a debate in my own head, because I went back and forth on whether or not to include Stone Temple Pilots’ second album, Purple, but ultimately decided that I didn’t want to add more than one album by an artist, so, after a lot of consideration, I settled on Core.
With highly recognizable songs like “Wicked Garden” and “Creep,” Core is by far STP’s biggest album, and with good reason. The songs are unmistakably grunge, with a crucial classic rock edge that showcases how much the genre owes to ’70s bands like The Doors and Led Zeppelin.
‘Dirt’ by Alice in Chains
Something I have long said about Alice in Chains is that they are the strongest bridge between grunge and metal, having a lot of influence over subsequent bands throughout the sister genres.
While I would probably tell someone to eventually listen to every single ’90s AiC album to really grasp the scope of the impact they had, it’s 1992’s Dirt that most people agree is the strongest evidence.
From the groovy southern riffs in “Rain When I Die” to “Rooster,” one of the biggest grunge songs of all time, the album is just a clear masterpiece that’s often cited as an inspiration by modern bands. Hell, Godsmack literally got their name from a song on this project.
‘Superunknown’ by Soundgarden
You already know that Pearl Jam and Nirvana are coming, but it’s very important to note that, although those bands went on to be the obvious poster bands for grunge, Soundgarden actually helped shape the genre from their early days in the mid-late 80s before finding the success they deserved in the ’90s.
In 1994, they dropped their fourth album, Superunkown, which is one of the most no-skips grundge albums ever recorded, featuring one of the top 10 biggest grunge songs ever in “Black Hole Sun,” not to mention then going to deliver “Fell on Black Days,” “Spoonman,” “The Day I Tried to Live,” and so many more.
‘Ten’ by Pearl Jam
In terms of bringing grunge into a comparable genre on the musical battlefield, even someone like myself, who is not a huge Pearl Jam fan, can deny that no one has done more than Eddie Vedder and company.
Starting with their very first album, Ten, which remains one of the most celebrated rock records ever made, Pearl Jam set a standard that most of their peers and all of their torchbearers have been trying to match for decades.
“Even Flow,” “Alive,” Jeremy…” the songs of Ten are just remarkable in their songwriting and execution, making it an all-timer to this day, and one grunge album you have to know.
‘Nevermind’ by Nirvana
This is it. The end-all, be-all of grunge albums. The holy grail. The one that every other grunge album bows down to.
Even if you don’t prefer Nirvana’s Nevermind to In Utero or Bleach, you simply cannot, with any justifiable defense, argue that it isn’t the biggest and most important grunge album ever made.
Produced by Butch Vig and the first project to feature Dave Grohl behind the drum kit, Nevermind is a perfect rock record and a grunge paragon with some of the most pummeling songs the band ever wrote, including something we’ve been dancing around this whole list… the biggest grunge song of all time: “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Bottom line: Nevermind is a juggernaut you have to face. If you ignore every other album on this list, this is the one you cannot. It’s just not possible.
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