Written by Guest on 18.06.2012 at 16:48
Haha yeah, probably...but I wasn't really sure if they were that popular in other countries.

Nirvana are to this day an internationally successful and renowned band, for whatever unknown reason.

Nice to see Alice in Chains above Nirvana

I haven't heard too much grunge, but I love Alice in Chains, STP and Soundgarden

I suppose AIC would be my favorite of the lot. i liked the bulk of Dirt, though AIC and Soundgarden were both rather hit and miss with me. Either I loved the songs or am totally ambivalent.

amusingly thanks to Big Dumb Sex i was "into grunge" years before Nirvana broke.

i will say i did buy the albums back in the day - AIC's first 3, Nirvana's first 3 (including Bleach, which i traded for Slayer's Decade fo Aggression... yay me), 3 SOundgardens, a couple Pearl Jam, Gruntruck... i was happy that the movement helped end the scourge of Glam... but by the time it came out my "heavy" tastes had already started shifting to Death Metal.

but was kinda nice ot have "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as a common starting point to outsiders who thought my musical tastes odd. gave them a glimpse of understanding to what i liked about what i liked.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 16.06.2012 at 23:00

Written by Guest on 16.06.2012 at 19:47
I'm trying to understand what's a "extreme power metal" since forever.

Off-topic response: Extreme power metal is power metal performed with harsh vocals. Many casual listeners refer to this style as melodic death metal; however, this tag is inappropriate as there are no death metal elements in power metal. Thus, the term "extreme" power metal is used.

Off-topic quote: Extreme power metal is a "official" term? In the case of Children of Bodom, I preffer to tag them as speed metal with neo-classical and extreme metal influences (or at least the older albums).

Written by Angelic Storm on 17.06.2012 at 21:38

Written by Guest on 16.06.2012 at 19:47
AIC's "Dirt" is said to be a masterpiece. I must check the entire album sometime, but I just can't find inspiration

You haven't heard "Dirt"? I suggest rectifying that situation as soon as possible! It is one of my fave albums of all time.

Well, I heard the album once, but without giving attention to the music, except for the last track, "Would?". I probably give it a 7/10, but I'll listen the album again, in the future.

Had trouble deciding between Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, but I went with PJ since I only really enjoy AiC on a song to song basis (though Dirt it a great album)

I saw Nirvana on their Nevermind tour and also Alice in Chains on their Dirt tour and both were good. Also saw Soundgarden when they were touring in support of Superunknown. I voted for Alice in Chains in the poll. I think they are clearly the stand out band of the so-called "grunge" bands. I don't like that term anyway - it was just made up by some bozo in the industry.

I like Sound Garden the most, but all these bands have something great to offer. For Sound Garden I'd say first and foremost Chris Cornell is one of the best rock singers out there. Second they have great sludgy metal riffs and I dig their general sound.

Nirvana used to be down on my list, but I think it was only because they are so popular. Kurt Cobain's lyrics literally shit all over the fucking masses who are like 'man I love smells like teen spirit' in that very song in fact. It's hilarious. But when you take away the popularity these guys have a great don't give a shit fuck the world attitude. It's great.

Pearl Jam is just a good rock band. Great songs, nice lyrics, well done fellas. Alice In Chains were excellent too. Really this is all good music.

Written by helofloki on 27.07.2012 at 07:42

Nirvana used to be down on my list, but I think it was only because they are so popular. Kurt Cobain's lyrics literally shit all over the fucking masses who are like 'man I love smells like teen spirit' in that very song in fact. It's hilarious. But when you take away the popularity these guys have a great don't give a shit fuck the world attitude. It's great.

Nirvana gotta real success after Cobain's death to be honest. When they were active, they surrounded by coercive controversies which helped them in getting a spotlight( like smashing guitars on a live show or Kurt fighting with people onstage/ security guards etc). They were horribly drenched in a pool of drugs and half of their interviews wasn't even serious. They were great. But, when Kurt shot himself, Nirvana gotta lot more spotlight/ publicity and it helped them to get recognized in grunge scene.

That did increase their popularity, however, I'm still pretty sure Nevermind was huge. That album was pretty well recognized before Kurt Cobain's death. I'm not sure if the controversies would have received the spotlight that they did if Nirvana wasn't already popular. I mean look at GG Allen (unpopular, controversial, no one cared that he died). Either way, probably arguing chicken and egg here.

Nirvana were already all over the world before Kurt was killed. Nevermind was a number one seller almost in all countries as was In Utero and the Unplugged album. Smells Like Teen Spirit was number one the world over as well.

Anyone denying that was clearly not yet born at the time or not old enough to know what was going on.

And tbh Nirvana were a lot more in the spotlight BEFORE Kurt shot himself. Kurt shot himself Kurt was in the spotlight for a bit, but not the band. And that waned pretty quickly anyway.

Once again Cynic clearly shows he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 28.07.2012 at 16:29
Anyone denying that was clearly not yet born at the time or not old enough to know what was going on.

Or doesn't know how to use Google.

I love nirvana but i think the honor goes to pearl jam in my opinion

jeremy is one of my all time favorite songs. and nirvana is what everybody expects you to pick so yeah.

i've never listened to any alice in chains to be quite honest (one song)

and same goes for soundgarden although i've heard more then one song by them.

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 22.02.2012 at 14:39



Well, Nirvaana fan. No doubt it.

Soundgarden: Exceptionally awesome band. Well, little bit of fluctuations(low point!) between the discographies but still...amazing.

Pearl Jam. Meh

Alice in Chains: Dirt 'Nuff said.

Cool story. But who's the girl, anyway?

I'm with Marcel on this. Cynic is clueless. when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke, everyone loved it. EVERYONE... even the peeps who went to the R&B/Hip-Hop clubs that played shit like Boyz II Men and BBD loved it.

They were huge, and the rest of the "big" Grunge bands rose in prominence as well once that hit... amusingly AIC and Soundgarden were more popular prior to Nevermind, buy a significant margin.

the notion their popularity exploded after his death is nothing more than stupidity. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" did to glam what Kurt did to himself three years later. the label hoped to sell 250,000 copies of "Nevermind"... they were selling 400,000 a month once it hit. they bumped Michael Jackson off the charts and were everywhere. they were both popular and critically acclaimed - with indie cred to boot. a combination you don't usually see.

Written by BitterCOld on 31.07.2012 at 06:10

when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke, everyone loved it. EVERYONE... even the peeps who went to the R&B/Hip-Hop clubs that played shit like Boyz II Men and BBD loved it.

True. When did I said that "before his death" Nirvana was NOTHING? They were truly an acclaimed active grunge band who was ripping the charts up since they came out with "Bleach" in 89-90. Indeed it was a great debut and pretty awesome enough to get recognized.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a first single that quickly accelerated, thanks to eloquent display of the song on MTV and radio which smashed more than 250,000 copies in America. Very True.

But, what I was saying that Nirvana's three album were brutally spotlighted from Nirvana's frontman death, even before the people who wouldn't know who NIRVANA was get to know about them( Regular Headlines about Kurt and his albums!!). "In Utero" wasn't even a bad album I guess, still it was one the weakest among their catalogs and hits like "Rape Me" and "Heart-Shaped Box" is still covered in live. Look, I'm not saying that Nirvana was all and only about "Kurt Cobain" or his suicide had something to do with their publicity or something. But, it's true when the news broke in, their work, albums, members and even support staff were truly recognized.

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 31.07.2012 at 08:31



True. When did I said that "before his death" Nirvana was NOTHING? They were truly an acclaimed active grunge band who was ripping the charts up since they came out with "Bleach" in 89-90. Indeed it was a great debut and pretty awesome enough to get recognized.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a first single that quickly accelerated, thanks to eloquent display of the song on MTV and radio which smashed more than 250,000 copies in America. Very True.

But, what I was saying that Nirvana's three album were brutally spotlighted from Nirvana's frontman, even before the people who wouldn't know who NIRVANA was get to know about them( Regular Headlines about Kurt and his albums!!). "In Utero" wasn't even a bad album I guess, still it was one the weakest among their catalogs and hits like "Rape Me" and "Heart-Shaped Box" is still covered in live. Look, I'm not saying that Nirvana was all and only about "Kurt Cobain" or his suicide had something to do with their publicity or something. But, it's true when the news broke in, their work, albums, members and even support staff were truly recognized.

i lived it. i owned AIC and Soundgarden albums BEFORE they hit. i still remember their video first appearing because a buddy taped it and called me over the next day to check it out. i lived through the entirety of the grunge thing and experienced it firsthand, from the joy of dethroning glam through the burn out of the whole thing.

and you were, what, five?

but i guess you read about it on the internet, so please continue to teach me all about it.

and you fuckers on this site wonder why old fucks who lived shit rip on the "kids?"... Cynic wins the Silver to TBG's "I know more about thrash than Rat Fucking Skates because I saw the video Rat Skates helped produce" Gold in the stammering, yammering re-writers of history.

jesus fucking christ i can feel my IQ dropping just reading your posts.

Woah! Is he alive? or totally burst up?

Written by Guest on 31.07.2012 at 02:03

Written by Cynic Metalhead on 22.02.2012 at 14:39



Well, Nirvaana fan. No doubt it.

Soundgarden: Exceptionally awesome band. Well, little bit of fluctuations(low point!) between the discographies but still...amazing.

Pearl Jam. Meh

Alice in Chains: Dirt 'Nuff said.

Cool story. But who's the girl, anyway?

I think it's his daughter.

This was painful to read. Hilarious but still painful... Like watching a baby falling.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 31.07.2012 at 10:37

This was painful to read. Hilarious but still painful... Like watching a baby falling.

More like a child with a nailgun

I voted Nirvana because they are my favorite band ever, I like every single one of there songs even the B sides. But I respect people who don't as I see where they are coming from.

P.S Alixe in chains is awsome

Meat Puppets!

Nirvana and that goes back a long way as they were my first favorite band.

Now, I really don't see how "Grunge" is a genre. None of the bands in this poll sound anything alike. The only thing they all have in common is that they're from Washington and found success in the early 90's. Now, the bands in this poll, sans Pearl Jam, had some heavy stuff here and there but even then, it's a completely different sound.

On the subject of Nirvana becoming more famous after Cobain's suicide, well... On one hand, the band was definitely very popular after SLTS came out. But I think it's fair to suggest that their iconic status (as opposed to being just a band that was pretty popular for a few years) was cemented by his death. I'm honestly not sure that, if Kurt had stuck around and Nirvana released another five or ten albums, that we'd think of them in quite the same light. I have always wondered if Vedder had died and Cobain lived on that we wouldn't think about this whole thing in the opposite way. Maybe Pearl Jam would be the legendary band and Nirvana would have been inconsistent going forward (I'm of the opinion that In Utero was already a step in the wrong direction.) Why not? Ten was every bit as popular as Nevermind and Pearl Jam every bit as popular as Nirvana. Anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much, but Pearl Jam was unquestionably the most popular band at my school for a couple of years.
I get the feeling that PJ's long career full of mediocre (or very good but no longer "mainstream," depending on your personal taste) records has diminished their reputation and caused a lot of people (particularly those that weren't alive or old enough at the time) to forget what an enormous impact they made in the beginning. If Vs or Vitalogy had been the last album of Vedder's life and Cobain had reached middle age and released two albums of ukulele songs, I wonder whether we might remember things a little bit differently.

Now everywhere I've ever tried to raise this point as a hypothetical, there's always someone there to tell me I'm full of crap, and maybe I am. It's all speculation (albeit the educated speculation of a 35 year old that was right in the meat of that key demographic at the time,) at least until I build a time machine and change history.

Here's one more undoubtedly crackpot theory I have: I also think that if Layne Staley had overdosed right after Jar of Flies instead of several years later that he'd be a bit more widely remembered. Certainly he is among those of us that are fans, but I mean more in the same way that people who don't even like Nirvana always know who Kurt was. Those that don't care for AIC rarely even know Staley's name. If he dies right after the MTV unplugged special the way Cobain did, it's a different story in my opinion.

So yes, Nirvana was definitely very popular. But dying at one's peak influence is always going to color people's perceptions going forward. James Dean is an eternal heartthrob while Marlon Brando, well... Suddenly Eddie's ukulele albums don't seem so bad after all.

Alice in Chains and Nirvana are both great, I'm going to with Alice in Chains.

I really like Ten by Pearl Jam, although mostly for the first 6 songs, but I haven't heard their later stuff aside from a few tracks which really failed to encourage me to pursue further. Soundgarden, I like the popular songs off of Badmotorfinger and pretty much all of Superunknown (Fresh Tendrils is a personal choice cut), but Louder Than Love didn't do it for me. Nirvana are okay, I had a period in the mindset of "ooh so overrated rubbish" but eventually grew up and decided if I was going to hold that opinion I should at least listen to their albums. Can't say they really did much for me or convinced me of their greatness, but they're tolerable and the level of success they managed warrants some measure of respect I guess. Temple of the Dog is alright, but I prefer Mother Love Bone - took me a few years to realise just how much I liked Apple, as I kept coming back to listen to it relatively regularly without really thinking, but there's a number of fine cuts off of it (Heartshine's really nice, but slightly reminds me of White Wedding ha). But out of all of them, Alice In Chains are for me the clear standout band. They have a few meh songs here and there I guess, but the sheer variety on and between albums/EPs and their ability to make each of them great is so impressive. Even the self-titled, which is obviously an imperfect album, has a nicely murky song in Sludge Factory, a rather dark and oppressive-sounding cut in Head Creeps which I think is slightly underappreciated, and then a really strong closing duo in Frogs and Over Now. Facelift sags a bit in the middle for me but the opening and closing blocks of 4 (I Know Something aside) really do it for me, the two acoustic EPs have some great songs (Brother, I Am Inside, Nutshell and particularly Rotten Apple are brilliant), and Dirt is just one of the best albums I've ever heard, no matter how many times I hear it. Even with all the classic songs from it, I just cannot begin to hold Nevermind in the same league as that album. I'm also still impressed at how fine a comeback they've managed - two solid albums with some really nice songs interspersed with some decent tracks, and I've enjoyed them each of the 3 times I've seen them live. I still need to give people like Mudhoney a listen I guess, but if I was to rank the Grunge bands I know, from favourite to least favourite it would probably run Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam, Temple Of The Dog and Nirvana.

Nirvana because is the only I've really listened to. Pearl Jam only a few records and Soundgarden I only know "Rusty Cage" thanks to GTA San Andreas.

I won't analize Nirvana's fame and all the Kurt-suicide thing, we all know that's a HUGE ingredient for their success post-mortem and that's it.

I have been listening those bands from Seattle Dickless, Cat Butt, Green River, Gruntruck, Mother Love Bone, Mad Season , Tad and others
on spotify (use it on rare accessions ) there was some Siettle Grunge play list many bands
More n more I think its not metal and has less to do to metal as I though.... its more less punk sound whit metal lyrics and more less long hair what was in 80's what says you're metalhead
Only IMO more metal is Alice in Chains as others , I like Nirvana, Temple Of Dog, some Pear Jam, some Soundgarden songs ... but I would say Alice in Chains is my fav grunge band more metal, and Nirvana's commercials sucsess and also song writing , songs what makes it big, like there always be someone who jump out of box higher ... but basically , if I need live in industrial Melvins, punky, metal sound .... better glamrock and LA sunset strip,