Grunge

The Seattle sound. Flannel shirts. Rejecting conformity. Embracing dirty hair. What is "grunge"? Join us this week as we dive into a couple of grunge songs (and make some interesting connections to musical influence on the grunge scene). 

SONGS:

Silverchair: Tomorrow (Australian version, 1995)

Nirvana: Turnaround (1990)

RESOURCES AND REFERENCES:

Hey Millennials, Grunge Was Never A Movement. It Was Never A Genre. Get Over Yourselves. (Thought.is)

Silverchair - Tomorrow - Live on MTV Awards 1995 (YouTube)

Why Nirvana’s label originally hated ‘In Utero’ (Far Out)

Tomorrow music video - U.S. version (YouTube)

Silverchair – Tomorrow: the song that blew open Australian rock (The Guardian)

Devo: Turn Around (1980)

Turnaround Live (1990)

Flashback: Nirvana Cover Devo's 1980 Obscurity "Turn Around" (Rolling Stone)

LiveNirvana (Everything you never cared to learn about Nirvana)

The Lost Interview Guitar World (1993)

Musique Plus Interview (1991)

Devo: Clockout (1979)

Nirvana: Stay Away (1992)

We Are Legend: Devo (The Guardian)

Pitchfork Review of Incesticide (2018)

BBC Peel Sessions

The Folk Roots of Nirvana: Kurt Cobain's Love of Lead Belly and Beyond

Connect with us on Instagram (to share your song picks or troll us), Spotify (for our ever-growing playlist), and Stereothematica.com (for extra fun)!

If you like what you’re hearing, please subscribe, and if you love it, a five-star rating and review would send us into the exosphere of excitement.

And email us at stereothematica@gmail.com! We will write back! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

I'm Christine. And I'm Christina. In 2024, I moved to Texas from LA. And to keep in touch, Christine and I started a weekly game where we each pick a song that fits a chosen theme.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

This game deepened our understanding of each other and the songs that shape us, inspiring the podcast you're listening to now. Each week we share our pics, swap stories, and dig into tracks you might love and a lot of the time have never heard of.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Welcome to Stereothematica, your favorite atypical music podcast. Hi, Christine. Hello there. I've been wondering something about you. Ooh, tell me. Have you ever been part of a subculture?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

No, but I pretended I was.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

I want to hear, please. Okay. I also am challenging you now. So, but let's hear it.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Okay. So I think it was my freshman year. There was this hippie guy at the gas station where my friend and I would like buy our cool ranch Doritos and Kit Kats and I think Reese's peanut butter cups. That was like our snack for school. And he looked me up and down, and I was probably wearing like a flower, like a long flower skirt and fake Birken stocks. And and who knows my hair being my hair with like maybe a braid, a stray braid or something. And he looks at me and says, Are you a deadhead? And I'm like, Yeah. No. And and then my friend Josephine, she got upset because not at me, but at the guy, because she thought he was insulting me because she's she didn't know what a deadhead was. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

And I honestly I barely knew, but I'm like, this guy's cool. He looked like a hippie too. And and so what? I'm 14. Oh my god. I'm figuring things out. I'm kind of like doing this flower child thing as like, you know, 1987, 88. And I think I want to be a part of this world that no longer really exists. But you know, I I went to a Grateful Dead show once in my life.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

After that, because you're like, I did, because I'm not a deadhead. No, I'm not a fan, but I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

No. I mean, I remember like thinking it's it's there's a lot of smells. There's I was not a fan. The music is kind of boring.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

So nope. I I honestly was not.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

What about you? Wow. Okay. But the thing I was gonna challenge you on is like you have been a Tango dancer. Do you feel like that's a subculture or is that too okay?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Good, yeah, good call. I think in all these cases were like, yeah, I was I was in the tango scene, I guess technically. I mean, I met some really good friends, still friends with them to this day, 20 years or so later. But I feel like we had our own subculture, which was like always like that, like anti-culture.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Anti-subculture. So like we're always the outsiders, but but then we you find a few like-minded people that are kind of all like cynical about the situation. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Sort of. I mean, you should know me already. I definitely enough to know that that's the type of person I am. Okay, yeah. Rejecting um classification, including membership of subculture. Yes. That that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Like I like the thing, but I don't necessarily want to be like a member. Yeah. Yeah. Don't label you. Yeah. Totally. But but but so yeah, was well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I would say the closest I've ever come to being a part of a soul subculture was when I was a college radio DJ, which it was so small, like there was just so few of us, you know. But then it was like very consuming, like time consuming, but like life consuming. And there's nothing like, you know, there's no culture element except that like I love music, you know. And and in that particular group, it was very much like it had to be really underground, really indie music. It couldn't be like just I mean, did I tell you about the girl who got kicked out of being a DJ for playing Bob Dylan? Oh like she wouldn't stop playing Dylan, and they were like, Yeah, you're no longer a DJ. Well, that's that's buddy. Jokes on them because she's actually kind of a successful musician. Yay! Good for her. Good for her. But anyway, I did want to talk to you about a particular subculture, and or maybe we'll debate whether it's a subculture, and that's our theme for the week, which is grunge.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Woo-hoo.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

I mean, yeah, I can't I truly can't wait to talk about this with you because I feel like you'll have a much different experience than me, of course. But I was just thinking it's been a while since we've done like a purely genre-related theme, unless you call musical numbers or show tunes a genre, which I guess come to think of it, we we did just do that. Yeah. But it's okay. But it does feel like this is one of the ones, apart from musicals, show tunes, like this is one of the first times. Like, can you imagine if I was like, what's your favorite rock song? That would be crazy. That would and that's what I feel like whenever you're like, what's your favorite genre of music? I'm just like, fuck you.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

No, and that's why our genre bending episode was kind of cool too.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

That's true. I like that. Anyway, I did want to talk about grunge because I feel like, in my personal opinion, listeners, it's kind of been one of the most like one of the biggest or most impactful standalone genres of my lifetime. And I'm curious what your thoughts on grunge in general are, Christine.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Okay. I mean, technically, I guess I'm I'm like a not a child of the grunge era, but a teen. I was very gen X. Yeah, I was a teenager when that music was rising, I guess. But everyone knows how how much I love Bob Dylan and 60s music. And I mean, of course there were exceptions. I love the clash, big audio dynamite was a big one, sugar cubes, but grunge was just like never for me. That makes sense. I no, I think I actually learned more about grunge in just researching for this episode than I ever have in my life.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Interesting. Yeah. I I would say, okay, one of my favorite pastimes during the pandemic was Andrew and I would probably, you know, have a beer or something, and then we would put on 90s music videos. But it was almost always like grunge stuff. So, like, you know, Nirvana and Pearl Jam and you know, we'll we'll get into the grunge bands in a minute. But it was so fun to watch because they were really goofy, in my opinion. Like I don't I know they were not trying to be goofy, but you watch them in the year, you know, 2020 and it feels goofy.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

But I guess my personal experience or recollection of the grunge movement, if you will, is from my childhood when living in Baton Rouge, we listened to the LSU radio station, KLSU, all the time while driving around the city. And even though grunge was probably petering out around that time, you know, and I'm thinking about my my youth, it was still something that felt very present on the airwaves of this college radio station. So emerging in the mid-80s, it was supposedly the grunge scene, the grunge movement was supposedly breaking apart by 1994. But around that time, the bands that I remember include Soundgarden, Alice and Chains, of course Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, even Hole. Although apparently there was an argument back then, and maybe even now, that if you weren't from Seattle, you weren't really part of the grunge genre. Thoughts? Do we care?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

I don't really care. I mean, all those bands that you just listed, I know probably a song from each of them at least. I mean, I should. I was a teenager at that time, but I didn't care.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

It is kind of funny because like I guess grunge, when you look it up like in the Wikipedia, it says in Princess Seattle sound.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

You know, so it's it's interesting to me. And I actually read this like hilarious blog post from someone named Jeff Stetson from his thought.is, thought dot is blog, where he said, referring to millennials, never shy of slagging on what they feel is an antiquated music form. They seem to believe that grunge was some sort of full-blown movement, an army of melancholy downer people marching in the step to the sounds of doom, clad in flannel. End quote. Um chill out, Jeff. But yeah, what's your problem, Jeff?

SPEAKER_00 9:09

But it kind of makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Look, the flannel thing is spot on, but he argues that grunge wasn't a movement or a genre. And I think that's a pretty bold take. But I will say one of his more interesting points is that the number of bands coming out of Seattle and influencing the rest of the world, or at least the music world in that short window of time rivals the influence of Motown and Detroit. And I actually do agree with him there, just considering the time frame and the like Seattle wasn't a big city back then.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

That's right. I mean, I I'm trying to think what other things were like cool about Seattle at that point. Like I don't even think Yeah, I didn't know about Starbucks. Oh god, yeah. Yeah. Not that that's cool either. Anyway, it was not cool, but it was it was not cool, but but like it became a thing shortly after.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

That was around yeah, that was around that time too, which is actually kind of funny considering you know consumerism and where we are now. But anyway, I do feel like it's that influence that the Seattle sound had on the rest of the world that I want to talk about today. Zeroing in on one band in particular, Silver Chair, and their song Tomorrow from their 1995 album Frog Stomp. You know I love young musicians. Oh yeah. Although that sounds bad right now. It sounds bad. Don't don't read into it. No. Do you have any idea how old these guys were when they recorded this song?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Well, their voices sound very manly. Uh-huh. They have that grunge sound is just like it's I feel like you can't have that sound if you're under 19. But have you watched the video?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

No.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

That will change your mind when you do. These guys were 15 years old when this album was released. Oh wow. Okay. It just blows my mind. And yeah, if you watch the video, they are so baby faced. Yeah. Like the lead singer looks honestly like Kurt Cobain. Like, he's got like shoulder length, blonde hair, pretty blue eyes, just like a cute. I mean, he could have been a model if he wasn't gonna be a grunge band leader. But what I, you know, I just love the teens. I think it's such a fun thing, but especially to be that young. Like, I think back about when I was 15, and I was just like a literal dum-dum. Yeah, couldn't do anything, like much less have a rock band. Yeah. But that's what makes them unique and successful. Oh, that's so cool. I need to look them up. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you all about them. Silver Share is an Australian trio from New South Wales, and they actually started making music, speaking of young, when they were a rap group at around age 11 or 12. And their mainstream music breakthrough came when they won a national competition in Australia called Pick Me. And they used their demo of Tomorrow, which actually spurred a competition of record labels who were trying to sign them. They ended up going with Murmur, which is an offshoot of Sony in Australia. And one thing I love learning about the band's experience making Frog Stomp, this album, was that according to their vocalist Daniel Johns, quote, it sounds exactly like we sounded. There was no big American producer calling the shots behind the desk and telling us to do this, this, and this, end quote. And I actually think that's one of the funny things about Grunge. There was this desire to capture the essence, that Seattle sound. But then once the bands got signed to major labels, they started being controlled by them and had to change their style, tone, and even appearance. And I feel like Nirvana is actually the poster child for this experience. But I'm sure there were so many other bands who had a similar go of it. And maybe to the critics' point, bands who tried to make themselves appear more grunge to sell records or gain fame. So, Silver Chair, they didn't escape that opportunity. Once their single Tomorrow started getting attention, they released a US version of the music video to appeal to a North American audience and to play up some grunge elements. Which what the hell is a grunge element?

SPEAKER_00 13:37

The sweater?

SPEAKER_01 13:38

The flannel? The thrift store sweater and the flannel. A single light bulb hanging from the ceiling just swing, swing. Right? Yeah. I don't know. Whatever a grunge element is, I'm here for it. But I guess some people accuse them of ripping off Pearl Jam's Jeremy music video with the US version of their tomorrow video, which I don't know if you've seen the Pearl Jam. Okay. That's a great one if you're ever like stoned and want to watch something dumb.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

I love that song. But anyway, in the Australian version of their music video, one of the teenage band members is shirtless, and it does feel a bit weird to watch that as an adult woman. So unsurprisingly, this song was wildly popular in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. In Oz, it stayed at the number one spot on the ARIA singles chart for six weeks. And in the US, it reached number one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart. Australian radio network Triple M's Ozist 100 named tomorrow number 36 of the most Australian songs of all time. Wow. I know, right? And like good for them, but it really is something that I would say put Australian music on the map, like in terms of pop culture.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Huh. I thought Midnight Oil was the one that did that. Which song? Midnight Oil by the band. Like if anything, I feel like as far as a band that like put Australia on the musical map would be Midnight Oil.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Well, they're number 36, so maybe you're right. I'm not saying they're number one. I don't know. But they did get to perform on SNL in '95. So that's a pretty big deal for a teenager. Yeah. Well, were they like 18 at that point? No, girl, they were still like 15, maybe 16. That is crazy to me. It's very funny. Yeah, like they I checked, they were all born in 79. Oh wow. Well, I just love how they were very inspirational to young listeners who aspired to start their own musical career. And according to an article from The Guardian, quote, local radio stations and magazines started paying more attention to the music emanating from garages and rehearsal spaces around the country rather than taking their cues from overseas, end quote. Thanks to Silver Chair's success. So I don't know, it's kind of fun. I just love that that that really DIY element. Like this was just three kids hanging out making music. Like it's it's very fun. So Silver Chair and maybe lots of other grunge bands prove that you could be successful even if you were young or from an unglamorous background. And I love that about grunge. It's very DIY. And since you're going to be talking about the kings of grunge, let's hurry this along and get to your pick, Christine.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Okay. So um brace yourself. My pick is Nirvana covering Devo's turnaround. Oh my god. I think you actually LOL'd when I shared this. I did. I remember it. You were so fast with it. No, immediately, because I knew this was the only one I could actually like feel comfortable with sharing. Obviously, no surprise to anyone who knows me in our favorite bands of 2025 episode. I even alluded to this cover.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Maybe when you picked this theme, did you think I would choose Turnaround? No, I thought you might surprise me. I'm sorry. Um, I could be predictable sometimes. So yeah, this is not going to be a deep dive into Nirvana or even Kurt Cobain. If anything, you're probably gonna hear me sometimes say Corbain because that's how little I know about Nirvana. Court, Corbain. No, but think of this more as another installment of my obsession with Devo. Noted. Yep. The original Devo song spelled as two words. The Nirvana is one word. Um, so Turnaround is the Devo one. And that was a B-side to Whip It in 1980. Nirvana recorded Turnaround for a BBC John Peel session in 1990, and it later appeared on Incesticide, the 1992 collection of B-sides, demos, covers, and radio sessions. And and what I do love about Nirvana's cover is that while they make it like a more frantic and punk like sound, that grunge sound, I guess. At its core, it's still a Devo song. So I think I've mentioned before that Cobain has said that Devo of all the underground bands that broke into the mainstream was the most challenging and subversive. Yeah, the The Guardian and Rolling Stone both have versions of that quote. And you know, I couldn't agree more. Definitely. Just the overall supremacy of Devo. But Devo's whole thing was satire, anti-conformity, and de-evolution, and all that resonated with Cobain. So in a 1993 interview with Guitar World, he said the first punk rock he could actually buy in Aberdeen was probably Devo and Oingo Boingo. Yeah, Oingo Boingo, that's they're kind of fun too. Oh, super fun. Yeah. There's also this great 1999 Montreal interview where Nirvana was being asked about signing to a major label, and Kurt basically turns the argument around and he asks them, Well, do you like the B-52s? Blondie, Devo, the cars. Well, okay. The point, of course, being that a major label does not automatically mean sell out. I mean, Devo to him represented a band that could infiltrate the mainstream without becoming normy. Okay. Yeah. But for me, Turnaround is a perfect grunge pick. Not too my own horn. Because it shows like grunge not just as a type of sound, but also as like tribute and remediation. Like it's, I don't know. I mean, from the little I know about grunge, it does seem like it's taking from punk, from heavy metal, like kind of a melange of different genres and making it this like turning it grunge, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

I mean, that's such an interesting thought because like I think there's so much of grunge that's like reject conformity, but then there's also like like Devo did that too.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Obviously. I mean, and so for them to pay homage to Devo is like I'm carrying the torch too, just in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Exactly. Well, so Pitchfork's review of Incesticide talks about how Cobain used covers, liner notes, and even t-shirts to redirect attention toward his inspirations, like the Vaselines, the Raincoats, and even Leadbelly. Do you remember they famously covered Leadbelly's Where Did You Sleep Last Night on MTV Unplugged in 1994? And Cobain actually called Leadbelly his favorite performer of all time. Wow. That's huge praise.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

That's a really good like we listen to that performance a lot, like the MTV Unplugged Nirvana because I love their cover of The Vaselines, you know, Jesus doesn't want me for a Sunbeam. And like it's just so fun. Like, I don't know. I love covers. I love when you have a band that you Like that like covers songs well or introduces you to a new song. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

No, and I I feel like I I I hate to say this, but I feel like Nirvana's like a really for me at least a better cover band.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Oh, interesting. Right?

SPEAKER_00 22:12

I mean, for me, I'm just not feeling the grunge sound at all.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

I don't listen to Nirvana really at all. And they're not like a band that I'm like, oh yeah, I love them. And I'm not saying they're bad. It's just like not my cup of tea. But that's why it's funny to like this is another interesting one for covers, but the fact that they are covering songs that I are I like or respect or whatever, I'm like, makes me respect them more.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Yeah, for sure. Now, going back to that pitchfork interview, there's this line that really got me. Jen Pelle writes, it was as if Nirvana was trying to shuttle back down to earth and say, We're not superhuman, we're passionately covering Devo. And I think there were so many expectations of what they should be, and they were just like music-obsessed nerds. Yeah. Like most performers.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

But so after Cobain died in '94 at 27, everything around Nirvana naturally got heavier. Like every lyric, every fuck you he ever said, like everything started to feel like evidence. But Turnaround and his other covers show him as this fan, like a person with a record collection making a case for the bands that made him feel less alone. And I think that that sensitive nerdiness made me more curious about Nirvana's music. So, in preparation for this episode, yesterday I decided to take a walk and listen to their best selling album in its entirety.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

I'd heard Nevermind before a friend even had the giant poster, uh, you know, the baby swimming after the dollar. It was above his bed on his ceiling, and it was like it took over the whole ceiling. And and that was kind of cool. But yeah, whatever. That was that was a moment. But anyway, shocker, I was not feeling this music. Like, like I've heard these songs. I'm like, okay. I I tried not to skip, but I had to skip a few.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

And then I got to stay away. Do you know this one? I don't think I do actually. Okay. It's toward the end. The opening drum beat immediately reminds me of one of my favorite drum openings from Devo's Clock Out.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yep. And and I'm not saying it's a direct lift, but there's definitely a shared insanity, intensity. Alan Myers, the Devo drummer, plays with this machine-like precision. It's just so like ah aggro. And then Dave Grohl takes that kind of locked-in pattern and makes it just more wild. Um, and and now I I think I have a new favorite Grunge song, which wow. Yes, Dave.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Interesting. Yeah. Nice little, nice little opportunity that you were giving Nirvana. However many, how many years has it been? 32? Yeah, wow. Whoa. 35. Oh man, yeah. Spend some time. It's not a while.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

You just needed to come around to it. No, and I tried, I tried listening to others and I just uh other songs, other albums. Just it's just not my thing.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah, that's all right.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

So um, yeah, I don't really have a whole lot to say about grunge as a genre, but I do appreciate that Nirvana's turnaround is Cobain going beyond grunge cliches, I think. And like beneath the distortion and the flannel is Devo and everything that means, even if that is pretty scary. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Wow, that's so interesting. All roads lead to Devo for Christine.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

I mean maybe for all of us, but you're the only one who's probably enough to know.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Remember David Bowie, he was he was big on them too.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

So true, so true. He knew what he was talking about. Well, thank you so much for joining me on this grunge. Thank you for letting me get a little more knowledge about it. Yeah. I'm I'm always open to us expanding our musical horizons. But before we like wrap things up, I was just wondering, could I give you some unsolicited advice? You know I love that. Okay. This is actually not directed at you at all, but I would like to recommend that people stop posting weird personal stuff on their LinkedIn. That is supposed to be a professional social media website, not yet another place to brag about your life.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Hard agree and take that from someone who doesn't even have a LinkedIn account.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

No one cares. And if people make sarcastic comments on your humble braggy post, you deserve them. We are certain you didn't actually use your kids' game-winning goal as an analogy for your Q3 KPIs in your last team meeting, whatever that means. And we know your friends do not ask you about how many LinkedIn followers you have. So please don't make posts pretending they did.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

If I'm not mistaken, LinkedIn is a place where people are supposed to get jobs and hire people.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Correct. And maybe do some light posting about professional accomplishments. So let's keep it that way. It's free advice, so it might not be worth much. But if you're paying for LinkedIn Premium and posting vacation picks on there, buddy, log off. I'm just glad I'll never have to see any of that shit. Agreed. Advice over. Christine, wanna give the listeners a hint about what next week's theme will be? I can tell you it's gonna be very short. Thanks for listening to Stereothematica. If you like what you're hearing, please consider a review, a rating, or sharing with a friend.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

And follow us on Instagram where you can share your favorite grunge songs. We've also got our Infinite Spotify playlist linked in our show notes.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

And visit stereothematica.com for more fun.