GRUNGE MUSIC
-Has a dirty guitar sound, strong riffs, and heavy drumming
-Guitars usually tuned to a lower key
-Commonly used guitar distortion and feedback
-Draws heavily on Punk
-Lyrics are typically angst-filled, angry, frustrated, sad, fearsome, and depressed
-Some people dont like Nirvana because they were the most popular band and overshadowed bands like Alice In Chains and Soundgarden

ETHICS
-Take as little effort as possible on appearence and dress for comport and affordability
-Reject the idea that one must always purchase the things that one wants or needs from others
-Like obscure indie bands, but disown those bands when they sign to major lables
-Never follow trends

ATTITUDE
-Strive for apathy and underachiement
-Act like you dont care, even if you do
-Usually have cynnical and negative outlooks upon life
-Respect women and reject jocks

BUILD UP AND BREAK DOWN
1987 - Mark Arm of Green River and Mudhoney first uses the word Grunge
1990 - Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone ODs on heroin
1991 - Nirvana releases Nevermind, which breaks grunge into the mainstream
1992 - Bands like Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and the Stone Temple Pilots gain popularity
1993 - Grunge starts to decline among long time fans due to the commercializing and exploitation by corperations and bands jumping onto the bandwagon
1994 - Kurt Cobain kills himself, gerorating major shockwaves around the world, another stab at grunge
1995 - Post-grunge bands like Live and Bush rise in popularity (a watered down form of grunge without the dirty guitars and distortion)
1997 - Soundgarden breaks up, grunge has lost its strangle-hold in the masses to pop princesses and boy bands
2000 - All good music dies and rap, pop, and poser-punk bands roam the earth
2002 - Nirvana tops charts with an unreleased new song; You Know Your Right
2002 - Layne Stayle ODs
2006 - Pearl Jam reminds people that they're still alive with a new album
Nirvana was not the frst grunge band, but they were the first grunge band to have mainstream success
by krtdive May 31, 2006
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A way of life, living without care, not giving a fucking shit. Main stream describes it as a music genre but really most people who are grunge listen to alternative music mostly, along with rock metal and punk. Most of the style came from the west coast, Seattle being a major input but also Cali and Nevada helped with large populations of grunge.

Some of you almost got it. But the rest of you... Go fuck yourself, you will never get it.
Living a grunge lifestyle you do a lot less laundry.
by Tiny Kittenz January 16, 2013
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Definition: a style of rock music featuring harsh guitar chords, heavy riffs and drumming, and whose performers wear sloppy clothes; also called grunge, grunge rock, grunge metal
people who think NIRVANA isn't grunge are retarded because they are. If it weren't for them then you probably wouldn't know what grunge is.

Grunge isn't dead, it's just taking a nap.
by Whore-Bag July 11, 2006
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In the early and mid 1980s, grunge was a subgenre of punk that included bands such as Green River, The Melvins and Soundgarden. Though these bands did combine elements of heavy metal and punk, the term was mainly coined to describe the murky and dirty guitar sound. Eventually, grunge was used to describe a fashion style, which consisted of torn and faded jeans, flannel shirts, and ratty t-shirts, as well as bands such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice in Chains.
by xvilexcopachex October 8, 2003
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a derivitive of punk rock that has a disorted, murky sound. Term was first used in the early to mid 1980's to describe bands such as green river, the melvins etc...
also called the 'northwest' sound-as the majority of this music origionated in the pacific north west of america-especially around the seattle area, or the 'subpop' sound, as many of the 'grunge' records were released on this small lable.
'grunge' reached the mainstream in the late 1980's/early 1990's with the breakthrough of acts such as nirvana, soundgarden, mudhoney, pearl jam, alice in chains and so on and so forth.
grunge really ended around the time of the death of kurt cobain in 1994, but many origional fans see the end of grunge with the over comercialisation of the music around the time nirvanas nevermind was released, the most extreme case of this overcomercialisation being the vogue grunge spread.
by emily March 9, 2005
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Grunge came about in the late 80's early 90's. Charactarized by people in flannel shirts and torn up jeans. it originated in seattle washington. some may say that the arists were a bunch of teenagers affected by the bad climate in seattle. Grunge is has a sound that sets it aside from the rest. The guitar typicaly has a dirty "mest up" distortion, heavy feed back and useally tuneing is a little off or tuned to D (DADGBE). Drumming has a steady beat mostly influenced by metal drum beats, untill NIRVANA where the beats were more popish. bass was usally alot like punk folled the guitar useing the beat of the drum. although grunge is conciderd to be a product of punk and metal, it developed its own melodic sound. The first real grunge band was Green River. and many more came about during the late 80's/90's. ex. Mudhoney, The Pixies, Sonic Youth, NIRVANA, Stone Roses, Alice In Chains, Sound Garden, Temple of the Dog, L7, Smashin Pumpkins, Hole, Pearl Jam, Candlebox, Live, Collective Soul, Malfunkshun.. etc. Grunge reached its mainstream popularity which NIRVANA, Nirvana released theyr first Album in 1989 "Bleach" on 12" which didnt make it main stream. In 1991 Nevermind was realesed. it was estimated to sell only 500,000 copys, a surprise to the band it went on to sell over 10 million copys, in the U.S. alone. Grunge became populrized and bands from then on have tryed to recreate such a success. Many popular rock bands today have elements of grunge. Grunge is called grunge cause of the dirty sound.. and sometime the artists look dirty. ;-)
Grunge did not die with Kurt Cobain, it only faded away, to be brought back another day.
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Grunge is a term used particularly by the media in hopes of classifying the unusual, unique and different sounds that emerged from the Seattle scene during the late 1980's and good portion of the 1990's. However, some Music Historians argue that grunge had existed long before these decades, suggesting that musicians such as Neil Young and The Wipers were the first artists to use the "grunge effect" in their musical compositions. This term indicated the murky, "dirty" sounds that originated from guitars from various artists such as: Soundgarden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Melvins, Bush, Green River, Alice In Chains, Candlebox, Helmet, Love Battery, Mad Season, Porno for Pyros, Screaming Trees, Silver Chair, The Stone Roses, Stone Temple Pilots, Temple of The Dog and many other bands. Yet, hard and heavy metal rock had been embedded in grunge's roots, since most of the inspirations originated from "raw rock" during the 1960's - 1970's.

Another analogy associated with grunge music is a term known as "The Explosion of The Big Four". This described the sudden explosion of underground thrash/analytical-punk/metal music in the mainstream. The "Big Four" refers to the main bands that had caused grunge music to be such a success: Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.

Furthermore, the era in which grunge became popular had other causes as well. Most of the younger generations rebelled against parents and society, causing them to turn to music in which they could relate to, instead of the typical 1980's hair metal scene, which included artists such as Poison and Motley Crue, who typically wrote about unrealistic and uncreative occurrences that did not deeply impact society.
"Screw the Crue, it's all about Grunge." Crue, meaning Motley Crue and other bands that emerged from the 1980's due to the band's popularity.

"F*ck it, let's Grunge it." Meaning, f*ck the other bullshit, let's get genuine about it and f*ck society.

"Better for Grunge to be dead, than be mainstream." Since grunge balanced with underground, many fans felt that the underground should never have mixed with the mainstream, due to the exploitation and abuse of being unique and different from the typical 1980's - 1990's pop sound.
by Mamasita Angelita February 4, 2006
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