Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghost Jam
You see, this is why I hate genre labeling. It pigeon-holes artists into a narrow and rarely accurate compartment of convenience, which lends to inaccurate points of views and misguided nonsense, such as that presented by the OP.
Pearl Jam was as different an animal from Nirvana as they were from Gang of Four. Same with Soundgarden and AiC. The only thing these bands had in common was an era and a region. They each had an entirely different sound, attitude and thematic purpose to what they did, some better than others.
Where Pearl Jam really was musically talented, big arena music, Nirvana was stripped down. The former looked to elaborate monumental rock such as Led Zeppelin for inspiration in their music while the latter looked to bands like the Pixies and the Wipers.
To lump them all together into a label such as "grunge" is simply lazy, narrow minded and smacks of willful ignorance.
-Ghost Jam
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I don't know if you misinterpreted the point of what I said. I didn't say all grunge follows the same cognitive road, but genres will have certain typical characteristics that people make to recognise. Grunge brought depression into attention, which is part of the reason why it emerged. I'm not implying that's a bad thing. It can be quite thoughtful, and a lot of it is pulled off in a metaphoric way.
Look at Alice in Chains, they were heavily dark emotionally. Early Soundgarden were grating, critical and angsty then turned poetic and often somewhat sad. Pearl Jam dug and romanced up tragic situations at first in
Alive and
Jeremy, which were two of their most successful songs. People can be really impressionable and tred on the surface. Especially influenced by bands that have worldwide success.
Nirvana are just the main example.