Twenty-five years ago, Kurt Cobain predicted that grunge would become corny. “Grunge is as potent a term as new wave,” he told Rolling Stone. “You can’t get out of it. It’s going to be passé.” At the time, Eddie Vedder was on the cover of Time, fashion designer Marc Jacobs was dressing models in flannel and even The New York Times was questioning, “How did a five-letter word meaning dirt, filth, trash become synonymous with a musical genre, a fashion statement, a pop phenomenon?” Although the word has fallen out of vogue, the music from the time remains vital.
The gods of grunge: '90s rock legends Nirvana have again taken centre stage in a new exhibition by renowned photographer Chris Cuffaro. Pictured from left: Nirvana's Krist Novoselic, Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl, July 22, 1991
Born in the 1980s, “grunge” wasn’t just a subgenre of alternative rock. It was a subculture and lifestyle mainly rooted in the state of Washington — particularly Seattle and other nearby cities. By the ‘90s, it had spread to Oregon and California.
Influenced by punk rock,inheritors of its do-it-yourself ethic such as Hüsker Dü, and by the sound of 1970s heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath, and AC/DC, grunge came to fruition on Seattle's as Mudhoney, Nirvana, Screaming Trees, and Soundgarden ...