I hate grunge.
 

I was a metalhead as a teenager. From 1988 until 1994. My favorite bands were W.A.S.P. Cinderella, Poison,Guns N Roses, Warrant, Winger,Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Slaughter, Skid Row, Motley Crue and Aerosmith. My son threatened to jump out of the car the other day if I played one more Motley Crue tune. I have brainwashed him into loving "Hair" Metal and he even knows the words to most of the songs. From time to time, he gets on my case about listening to my CD's all the time but I just ignore him. My wife makes fun of me but she listens to my "Hair" metal music. I honestly think Kurt Cobain was a pretentious, overrated ******* with some real drug issues, and that Nirvana and the grunge scene as a whole buried a lot of talented, 90’s metal act that were keeping the genre alive at a time when it's popularity was fading. I was alive and rocking during all of this. It was grunge fans that thought it was cool to hate metal bands because hair metal bands, not nirvana were the mainstream. They called it cock rock. Fans of alternative music (which encompassed a whole lot of types of music that never gets credit) tended to become elitist snobs and turn their noses up at all metal because of this. "Hair metal" bands were despised by heavier metal fans and grunge fans. Your typical Slayer fan was not particularly fond of Poison and up and coming grunge bands weren't either. When grunge came along, music labels dumped all interest in metal bands and grunge became mainstream. If you weren't grunge, labels wouldn't look at you. If anything is worthy of being hated on, it is the mind-numbing decade of post-grunge like creed and sickening pop-punk,like Green Day and blink 182 that needs to take a dirt nap. Grunge was very pesimistic, I don't need anybody to remember me how hard life is! Grunge turned the 90s into a musical wasteland. Nirvana? Cool. Soundgarden? Old-fashioned head-banging music. Pearl Jam? Proved that you could be the most popular and the most uninteresting at the same time. Grunge fans' faith in their heroes' purity is touching - I'm sure Cobain was never concerned about "getting chicks," lol.

And you're right, Cobain's image was based on sort of anti-fashion stance, but he ended up being somewhat fashionable and glam in spite of himself. In the 90s, you didn't hire Anton Corbijn to direct your video without having some concern for putting across an image. I thought Soundgarden sounded like a million other bands, and I just never got the infatuation with Pearl Jam. They actually sounded to me like a bunch of wannabe folkies, or maybe a bunch of folkies who had jumped on the grunge bandwagon. I can't even be bothered verifying whether that is historically accurate, except that I know a couple of them came from Green River. ​ There's an anecdote about Def Leppard doing an unplugged performance at a radio station in the post-grunge era in which they played several unplugged numbers with three-part harmonies. When the DJ commented, “That was incredible,” Joe Elliot replied, “You must be a product of the nineties. There is nothing incredible about three guys singing in tune.” I remember grunge was identified as a movement and game-changer almost as soon as it hit, whereas hair metal wasn't even a term used for that music until many years later. Most of the bands in that genre probably saw themselves in the same harmless fun, hard rocking/pop tradition started by Van Halen. When I think of 1992, I remember "Let's Get Rocked"-era Def Leppard and Slaughter alongside Nirvana on MTV. It's not like September 1991 hit and Bret Michaels suddenly had to go get a job at IHOP. What really makes this time special I think is it's the last time young people were all bonded together by a common music culture. This was pre-internet, and everyone still watched the same videos on MTV, whether it was Dr. Dre, Def Leppard or Metallica.

As '91 and '92 happened, the metal bands were losing members and generally falling apart, generally through their own excess (Motley Crue, Warrant, Cinderella, Poison). Bon Jovi put out "Keep the Faith" and while it didn't sell at the level of its predecessors, it was a hit and I wonder if other similar bands could've survived just by staying active through the era. I think grunge gets entirely too much credit for this. Most hair metal fans weren't interested in a "cool" image--in fact a lot of them were casual listeners, if I remember correctly. I knew plenty of people into Poison et al, but none of them were music freaks. There's no way hair metal could last much longer since it started around '82/'83... it's just the way it goes, musical trends change, Nirvana gets way too much credit. Nirvana kinda destroyed rock n roll swagger once and for all, and today we all suffer the consequences, living in a world without rock stars, leather, spandex and excess.In my opinion, nirvana ruined rock music . They pretty much created all of the crappy bands that most of us hate today. They influenced a bunch of kids who knew some power chords to form punk bands, which leaves us with blink-182, sum 41, new found glory, etc. they also made all of this "sad, depressed, suicidal" crap popular, which leaves us with papa roach, korn, boxcar racer, etc. Nirvana did somewhat ruin rock music because of what it would influence later on. i.e post-grunge, nu metal, rap rock, and I'll even go as far as saying that they influenced mainstream emo/screamo which along with "crunk music" would lead to the worst abomination of all, Brokencyde. Simply put, grunge influenced post-grunge which influenced nu metal and rap rock since most of those bands share the "Oh my whole life is horrible, **** everything" attitude. Bands from all three of those genres pretty much fed off of the cash of angsty teens and stupid douchebags who don't know **** about music. Not to mention all of the scene kids who worship Kurt Cobain just because he died. Grunge did more damage to rock music then any other style after it faded away liking rock music just became uncool especially with all the rap taking center Stage in the 90s. 98-99 when nu metal started to grow and become main stream like korn and limp bizkit, the only rock that was left after Cobaine died was what Hoottie and the blowfish and other acts similar to them. All other heavy metal acts that were still around sort off when underground for the majority of the 90's. Remember back then it was all about RAP MUSIC you had entire generation of kids talking and acting BLACK and that led to people making fun of rock music & heavy metal all i heard back then was "ohh you listen to that white boy ****". The grunge bands killed the bling effect of rock and the music industry sat on their hands too long on how to deal with internet sales/protection... they screwed themselves. Old time rock n roll might not have been as arty as grunge, but it sure was a heck of a lot more fun. I could not stand a second of Nirvana...probably the most overrated band in the history of music...IMO of course.​ GnR were huge then...at least far more established than Nirvana at the time when both bands were a going concern. GnR even asked Nirvana to open shows on the UYI tour, but Kurt Cobain outright refused and instead fostered a beef with Axl Rose.

Since Kurt Cobain's death, Nirvana has attained a legendary sort of status that they definitely didn't have when KC was alive, and it has also eclipsed how big GnR were at their peak. Guns'n'roses were the bigger band. they had bigger concerts and the hype around Use Your Illusion albums was HUGE. At the time, GnR was treated as a superstar band. I was a teen in 1992 (the year both UYI1&2 and Nevermind had been out for a while) and in my class G'N R (as well as Def Leppard) was massive with a bunch of hits while Nirvana was a cool side-thing with one big hit that most people liked but not obsessed over. That's how I remember the moment of the releases. A couple of years later G N' Rwas no longer cool and Nirvana was the ultimate cool. GnR were playing stadiums while Nirvana played arenas and large theatres. They fronted every magazine , every time you put MTV on it was G n R. Guns' songs, musicianship, diversity and raw talent were superior to Nirvana, plus they appealed to a wider audience. They were rooted in Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, so many older generation classic rocks fans also loved them, not just the kids. Back in 1992, GNR was the biggest band in the world, period. Nirvana was just the quintesential hipster band and after Kurt comitted suicide they obtained immortal status. After '94 GNR stopped being relevant, while Nirvana was still talked about a lot. But GNR sold more records and tickets and were more "mainstream" . Teen Spirit hit in the fall of 1991. It wasn't an overnight thing, but 1992 saw a quick rise in the grunge bands. I remember noticing how depressing music became around that time. Around 1994, I remember Korn, Wu Tang Clan, Dr Dre, Tool, and Nine Inch Nails on heavy rotation on MTV. That's when I quit listening to modern music for several years. However, I miss those Hair Metal days. I say this...It was a fun time to be a fan. Going to see a band was an event. And the girlss! Let just say they seemed to enjoy the "culture".

If you didn't see it and all you know is the current hipster revisionist history, I can understand why it seemed silly. It was silly, even then. But we didn't care. The songs sounded great.

Took my son to see Arcade Fire a year ago. A good band. The audience seemed to enjoy themselves. But they had know idea what it was like when Motley Crue or Bon Jovi hit the stage.

I feel sorry for kids today.

Yay! Old man rant! My favorite!

You're supposed to listen to Nirvana on heroin. It's a lot more fun than it looks.

Fuck! I've been doing it all wrong. Brb

Metal died because of grunge? So I take it you forgot the likes of Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Gruntruck, Sepultura, Rage Against The Machine, Faith No More, Helmet, Megadeth, Prong, Green Jello, and Metallica were popular during this period?

This thread brought to you by the year 1992. Jesus on a stick are people still bitching about flannel killing hairspray?

Motley Crue rules btw and Pearl Jam can get deez nuts.

I went to my 1st Motley Crue concert with my father when I was 13. You can call me old all you want but these kids today will never know what it's like to see your favorite band for 11bucks in a sold out stadium or the thrill of buying your favorite album. Nirvana and all the other grunge bands were nothing but a bunch of kids who barely knew how to play their instruments. They sounded like very amateurish garage bands.

On the other hand, bands like Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Poison and Def Leppard were absolute experts at their instruments. Plus they were older and had much more musical experience. They were true serious musicians, not just a bunch of garage band kids like the grunge bands.

There is just no comparison. I think the only reason Nirvana and other grunge bands became popular is because teenage kids liked the depressing whiny no-talent music. It was just a stupid fad that kids liked back then, but unfortunately that stupid fad ended up ruining rock music. Poison have nothing to apologize for; they wrote songs that are no less complicated than a lot of stuff by legendary bands that's idolized regularly. And they weren't factory created overnight sensations, they came to L.A. and starved with a goal and a dream. They made it, and it didn't last forever. Poison 1986-1991 were more talented musicians and played better together in general than The Beatles. If you want to talk about sloppy, listen to The Beatles at Shea Stadium. Nirvana were probably the worst grunge band of the 90s. Nirvana created depressing music, and they made it cool to be depressed or sad or whatever.

That is how the whole emo thing started in my opinion.. I never knew about goths before Nirvana existed, they are the first ones to create depressing music..Well them and Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam and the rest of the grunge bands.. My point was that the barrier to entry to be in a rock band went way down almost overnight. And the music that was easiest to play was grunge since it didn't feature guitar solos - it was all power chords. 3 guys in a garage could practice over a weekend and suddenly had a "band." The fact that grunge died off so quickly is testament to the fact that the low barrier to entry made it easy to quit...just like in software businesses. It is really funny now to look back at the bands that were grouped in as "grunge" and how vastly different their sound is. "Grunge" was just a marketing term. Grunge music itself what started by corporate labels as a means to attract the mainstream public. Even Kurt Cobain admits that he just prepackaged a sound that had been captured by bands like Dinosaur Jr, The Pixies, Sonic Youth, Black Flag, Big Black and a bunch of other bands from the 80s. What he did differently is he used simple pop hooks. Sonic Youth was responsible for getting Nirvana signed in the first place. There was nothing groundbreaking about Nirvana.

Grunge artists were the first ones to create depressing music? Okay then.

Exactly. Joy Division wasn't depressing. It was actually quite upbeat and happy.

Serious musicianship is absolutely the reason to listen to glam metal.

The post-grunge landscape (late 90s) was so depressing in terms of rock. The grunge movement really started in 1992, but it wasn't a "shock" or something, and it actually COEXISTED with the successful hair/heavy metal bands. The hype was huge, but no one took the music seriously. Nevermind, elevated that scene and gave it pop credibility, but that is all. Grunge was a marketing term that lead to an early death for a bunch of music. This will sound stupid, but I honestly think Weird Al was responsible for getting more kids into Nirvana than Nirvana themselves were. Mostly I remember kids making fun of them for the lyrics being "impossible" to understand when "Teen Spirit" first came out, and those of us who were into music were still too wrapped up in our Poison and Motley Crue or Guns n Roses or whatever albums to care much for a while. But I'd wager that Weird Al's record sold way more copies to kids at that time than Nevermind did, and I actually knew kids who didn't like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at first but started liking it after "Smells Like Nirvana" broke.

For me I remember just not "getting" SLTP at all when it came out. Why the hell is MTV playing this crap and not the new Slaughter video!? But as for the other kids? I don't think you really saw the changeover take place until at least late 1992. I'd bet everything I own that more kids in this area bought Def Leppard's Adrenalize than bought Alice in Chains' Dirt that year. Plus, I don't think I ever really saw any of the huge backlash against metal/hair-metal like you read about around here - all the kids I knew who loved grunge also still liked Guns 'N' Roses and Ozzy and Metallica and whatnot. You'd probably get made fun of if you were still a huge Winger fan or something, but it seemed like most kids just went along with the "alternative revolution" because that was what was happening at the time, not because they suddenly woke up and hated metal one day. I like Winger. Yes they probably deserve to be lumped as a "hair band" but they were one of the better ones. Bands like Bulletboys, Little Caeser, Black N Blue, etc were awful. Winger actually wrote some good pop metal songs and their ballads I think were pretty damn good. Their 3rd album came out during the grunge era and MTV was actually playing the first single from it and sales were OK but then Beavis & Butthead came along and helped kill the album for them by having their nerd friend in a Winger shirt and making fun of their videos. So many 80's bands kicked guitar ass, people took it for granted back then. It's indeed useless to name 80's band with strong guitar presence because generally it was guitar dedicated decade. Million pages won't be enough to name all the great guitarplayers and the great guitar oriented bands that reigned through this epoch. Quite different than todays music. Warrant had good tracks and were intentional about letting some of their bluegrass rise to the surface in some of their songs. Seriously, how many songs can anyone id that kicks ass and has a banjo in the intro? The lead singer, Jani Lane, died at age 47 from alcohol poisoning. He had such a sad story, I saw him in an interview talking about how all of a sudden grunge was popular and anyone who had anything to do with 80's music was screwed and that his record label dropped him because he was no longer relevant. He turned to alcohol and his life just fell apart and he wound up dying because of it. So sad because he really did have a lot of talent and I thought his voice was great. The problem that Warrant faced is that they were mixed into the Hair Glam Band era along with too many bands of much lesser talent. It was difficult for the good bands to segregate from that label. Another was Winger.

... Give any semi competent guitarist a Motley Crue song and guess what, they'll be able to play it. If it's complex musicianship you want, you shouldn't bash Tool. Most of the bands you mentioned couldn't go anywhere near what Danny Carrey can do.

You keep criticizing Alice In Chains and Soundgarden as bands that helped kill metal, but both bands are more metal than the likes of Def Leppard, Poison, and Motley Crue. Btw, I love hair bands AND grunge. I don't see why it's impossible for me to enjoy both genres.

Not even a TL;DR, f*ck this thread.

AIC was a heavy metal grunge band and yes there are different fasits of grunge not just grunge period and that's all. Nirvana is the most overrated band of all time. Basic story telling, masked as genius narrative, combined with absolutely mediocre guitar and drums, leaving only one thing I find decent, Kurt's voice. I remember many people around me then still loving the same bands they had for a while, but were just getting into these new bands that were coming along as well. No one was dropping bands they had long standing fandom with.... I still viewed Nirvana as a new band when they found Kurt dead! I remember thinking to myself when it was announced, "That's it??" Because, it had only really been three albums and a compilation up to then. In my mind at the time, they were just getting started. I didn't really notice people turning on 80's bands until closer to '94/'95. Whenever I read things regarding the way things changed in the early 90's, it seems like a lot of people either think or convince themselves that it all happened in an instant. The way I remember it was more like a snake shedding its skin. Not a snail's pace, but like a flash of lightning either. Just gradual. Hair metal was still pretty popular until late 1992, even mid-1993. Warrant's Dog Eat Dog (1992) went Gold, Leppard's Adrenalize (1992) went triple platinum, Scorpions Face the Heat (1993) went to #21 and probably close to Gold, Winger's Pull went to #41 in early 1993. Etc.

I would say, 1994-1999 was really the dead period. Cinderella's Still Climbing (1994) is good; but went mostly unnoticed. The vast majority of these bands had little real commercial success after late 1993 at the last. Anything that even remotely resembled hair metal didn't really have a chance to have a hit after 1993.

Bon Jovi was still huge but their sound moved away from pop rock to quadi-adult contemporary. They had to distance themselves from hair metal in order to survive the 90's. For me the best albums of that period 1992-1996 in the genre were Bon Jovi's Keep the Faith, Motley Crue s/t and Slang by Def Leppard. I always thought Motley Crue's s/t was really underrated and failed simply because it had the name Motley Crue attached to it, which wasn't "cool" in 1994. I bet had they changed the name for the new lead singer, the album could've gone over bigger. Hooligan's Holiday did get a bit of radio/MTV airplay but at that point in time, the name Motley Crue carried baggage of 1980s excess... a different band name could've led to a bigger album. I remember people who mostly listened to grunge and the sort who were actually shocked at how good that album was, but were hesitant to actually buy the album simply because they were teens and owning a "Motley Crue" cd to them would've been like owning Vanilla Ice or Tiffany.

Could you please trim it down? It's way too much of a commitment to read constant walls of text, and you're just saying the same things over and over again anyway.

I bet you also like to complain about how most pop stars don't play real instruments anymore. Hair metal died the same way everything dies. It comes along and captures everyone's imagination til they grow sick of it and walk away from it to whatever comes next. It's what happened to psychedelia in the sixties, punk in the seventies, synth in the 80's, alternative rock in the 90's, and so on. Grunge didn't kill anything. It simply had its moment in the sun.

Bon Jovi weathered the Grunge takeover quite well. Keep The Faith was still a huge album that spawned some big hits. The Crossroads compilation was also a huge success, and Always was one of their biggest hits ever. They were still one of the biggest bands in the world in the early 90s. It didn't change overnight and both genres coexisted for quite awhile. I think the two bands that most successfully weathered grunge, artistically if not commercially, are Warrant and Motley Crue. The grunge/alternative take-over didn't happen overnight and was gradual. Several bands still had popular singles/albums through '92/93 (Skid Row, Mr. Big, Extreme, Ugly Kid Joe, Saigon Kick, Damn Yankees, Jackyl) and the more established hard rock / hair bands still had big album sales through '93 (Kiss, Def Leppard, G n R, Alice Cooper, Coverdale/Page, Scorpions, Aerosmith, AC/DC). Warrant just kept getting better as they went. I love Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich and Cherry Pie, but you can't deny the quality of such albums as Dog Eat Dog and Ultraphobic. Warrant adapted to the change of climate pretty well. In fact Warrant Live 86-96 is one of my favorite Warrant albums as it contains a good mix of "hair metal" stuff with their more grungy stuff.

Poison also put out quality stuff. Although, Native Tongue was a commercial flop it contained some pretty solid tunes. Until You Suffer (Fire and Ice) is one of my favorite Poison songs.

Def Leppard is another one who put out pretty decent stuff at the time as well. Adrenalize had some pretty cool stuff and so did Euphoria. I think the song Promises can stand on its own with anything from Pyromania or Hysteria. Winger's "Pull" is a Helluva album. The narrative, largely created and driven hard by rock critics, that grunge killed hair metal is a complete myth. Many of those bands were already on their death bed, and bands like Guns N' Roses, Def Leppard and Bon Jovi still did well after grunge exploded.

And what's great is that hair metal has aged well as a fun part of rock history, while grunge, by and large, died a quick death, and ended up having no more than a handful of bands that are still looked fondly upon. During the time period, 1991-1994, Guns N' Roses sold more records and sold more tickets than Nirvana. And that's even with GnR being dormant from 1994 on. GnR headlined stadiums on their own, Nirvana played stadiums at a few festivals with 25 other bands. GnR played 4 sold out nights at the Forum in 1991, Nirvana was playing clubs at the time. Even at Nirvana's height I don't think they sold half as many tickets as Guns N' Roses. Nirvana played clubs, 3,000-5,000 seat venues, and some arenas on their last tour. GnR were playing huge arenas and stadiums at the same time, with many multiple dates in big cities. And I'm just using GnR as an example, there were other bands at the time that were just as big. GNR were bigger back then, no doubt. GNR sold more records and I think had a more worldwide appeal than Nirvana. Going on that alone Guns N' Roses was the bigger band and much more larger than life than Nirvana. Anyway, the "Illusion" period was positively huge for Guns N Roses - much, much bigger than even the Appetite era. Nirvana are about as original as the band Green Day. If you didn't notice Punk existed before Nirvana. They were so original that the riff to their biggest hit is pretty much "more than a feeling" by Boston and the band admitted to it. Please, Nirvana weren't original at all. They wrote a few catchy songs, a multitude of mediocre bands spawned in their wake and it quickly died off. There was zero original about Nirvana. I've been going over Billboard charts for, identifying musical trends, tracking the evolution of the pop industry, that sort of thing.

here's one thing that jumped out at me: the record companies and MTV screwed up in 1991 when they switched their focus away from straight ahead melodic rock and towards alternative and grunge. The charts don't lie: grunge went over with pop audiences like anchovies on ice cream.

Here's the evidence: From 1986, when Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" became the first hard rock/metal #1 hit since "Metal Health", the "hair bands" became a constant presence on the charts. Those of us who lived through that wonderful era know this. But then 1991 and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came, and that was the end, right? Grunge dominated, game over, end of story.

Well, it didn't work out that way. Smells Like Teen Spirit peaked at #7. After Smells Like Teen Spirit, there were still hair bands hitting the top 10 all the way until 1993, when Firehouse's "When I Look Into Your Eyes" became the last top 10 hit in the hair metal genre. Between 1991 and 1993, except for Smells Like Teen Spirit, not a single grunge song cracked the top 10, despite heavy MTV airplay. Only a few, softer alternative hits, like Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train", and Spin Doctors "Two Princes", became genuine hits. Grunge, while certainly popular among rock audiences, had no crossover appeal. The early 90s were almost totally dominated by rap and R&B. Ah, the glory days of "Baby Got Back" and "Whoomp! There it is!" So what was the music industry thinking? They managed to make it uncool to listen to hair bands, yet the alternative they put forward was never really as popular as it was supposed to be, and pretty much died out by 1995. MTV during that period was pretty much alternative around the clock, and some really weird stuff, too, much of which will probably never be shown again, even on VH1 classic. If you watch and episode of Beavis and butthead, there's some pretty weird videos there. It was a really strange era for music, most of it was garbage and quickly forgotten. Again, what were they thinking? An alternative band gets one #7 hit and that's a reason to dump your whole roster and sign anyone with a pulse from Seattle? Yet Meat Loaf had a #1 hit for five weeks at the end of 1993, and no one saw that as a reason to push more straight ahead melodic rock groups?

Why don't more people realize that both grunge and hair metal were great? I don't understand why people in both camps feel a need to jump on the hate bandwagon towards the other genre, all over some stupid, silly rivalry that's been dead for over two decades. I think both genres had some awesome music.

Guns n Roses suck though.

You seem very dim.

No melodic rock groups were pushed after 1993? So I guess bands like Weezer and Green Day are just a figment of my imagination.

Is this guy like a bizarro version of Jguy?

So he's like a literal Bizarro TH?

Trollheart's long winded stuff is mildly entertaining. This guy just repeats himself and doesn't actually respond to people's points. He just starts spouting a bunch of crap.

So was hair metal, and metal then lol. If you can say grunge is classic rock revival, then you can say it for any rock genre pretty much. Also, the bands that represent the genre are diverse whether you're willing to admit it or not. Nirvana draws a lot of influence from post-punk and 60s garage, Soundgarden is most influenced by 70s rock like Led Zeppelin, and Alice In Chains sounds like if you mashed Guns N Roses style song writing and musicianship with the slowed down gritty metal of Black Sabbath or The Melvins. Eventually they all sounded like Pearl Jam, but before that there was some decent variety.

You mean garage rock?

So fourteen years earlier.

Yeah, you're right just like how rock was barrier breaking for the popular music of the 40s like rhythm & blues, country & western and jazz. These barriers are constantly being reconstructed as new bands come out with new sounds, and grunge was really the biggest movement in rock for it's time by a long shot. It spawned other genres like it because it was so popular - I'd argue that other 90s alt rock staples like industrial rock/metal and nu metal were as big as they were because of how music was trending with grunge leading the way. Punk was the same way, but it's hard to overstate how big of an impact that grunge had on the industry.

Yeah, except that's an opinion and there are a lot of people who'd disagree w/ you, myself included - grunge sold out records and venues and landed a lot of new artists platinum selling albums. Those are facts.

I think grunge became stale in the late 90s with the "post-grunge" thing that became popular for around 12 years, but even that speaks to the significance of the genre. It was so big that it's sub-genre was the most popular alt rock genre for about another decade and a half and has only fairly recently died off.

Yes, we know that you don't like anything popular. Can you give something interesting to this conversation rather than the same crap?

My nephew's favorite band was Bon Jovi when he was a tyke. I guess he is still a fan. So I was never worried about kids these days missing out on Bon Jovi. Should I worry?

I came here to agree, because **** Grunge, but if it really somehow 'killed' all the lame-ass crap you're complaining it did, I might have found something worthwhile about grunge for the first time.
Also please make shorter posts and use more paragraphs and stuff. It's really hard to read.

I don't think grunge killed anything. Anything that had legs to stand on would have survived, like metal did.

Sometimes a little purge is good.

My original point was that the music industry made a conscious decision to jettison melodic rock, and that I believe this was a mistake and unnecessary. there's no reason that Warrant, Slaughter, Winger, etc. couldn't have existed side-by-side with the Seattle scene. An equivalent , what if when rap got big, the industry had decided to no longer promote R&B? But R&B and rap exist side-by-side, and collaborate with each other, with no tension.

What happened just didn't have to happen, the industry MADE it happen. As long as the industry kept releasing melodic rock, melodic rock did well. Keep the Faith sold well, Bat Out of Hell II sold well, Firehouse's Hold Your Fire, and even 3, which came out in 1995, did well. Mr. Big did well. But then the supply just dried up even with that trickle of good releases and everyone just moved on.

The common belief is that melodic rock got tired, then grunge came out, and grunge then dominated. But that's not what happened. melodic rock was at its peak when grunge came out. 1991 and 1992 were great years for it, sales wise. And during the height of the grunge era, melodic rock releases, what few there were, STILL charted well, on both singles and album charts. And then the record companies just gave up on it for no particular reason. It never went sour for anyone who enjoyed Nirvana's melodies. Funny that Nirvana made music with abstract lyrics, but yet you believe that the lyrics should only mean something special to awkward kids. When Guns n Roses were at their peak they were the next Rolling Stones if anyone ever was. Grunge pretty much died when Guns n Roses imploded anyway. Guns and Roses is the last really good American hard rock band. I'm a massive Aerosmith fan. Even in 1993-1994, at the height of alternative's popularity, Aerosmith also remained incredibly popular during the "Get A Grip" period. Eventually it became passe to like a lot of the "hair bands", mostly once Beavis And Butt-Head came on, but it was more of a gradual shift of tastes as opposed to the way history makes it out like one day Poison were the biggest band around then Nirvana hit.
It strikes me that if MTV hadn't suddenly changed course, that the 80s would have evolved into the 90s in much the way that the 70s evolved into the 80s. There wasn't some massive shift between the rock of the 70s and the rock of the 80s. Rock got big, it declined a little when disco became king, and then it emerged again repackaged. I think the same thing would have happened had the industry stayed the course. Instead, they did a massive 180, and while alternative kept people interested for a little while, when that mini-boom ended rock as an industry was mangled beyond recognition. There was no longer a "formula". Which a lot of people would consider to be a good thing from a creative standpoint, but makes the music less viable from a commercial standpoint. Everyone knows the formula for writing a successful pop, R&B, rap, or country hit, but there really isn't a way to predict what rock will sell and what won't, so the industry is cautious about promoting new rock artists. They just try a little big of everything and a few bands manage to stick. I think it was really the media and the record companies that killed "Hair" metal rather than the music itself, although I think that some of the bands were to blame too as they decided to jump on the bandwagon rather than stay true to their roots (although that blame could go to the record company forcing them to go in that direction). I don't recall the changeover being so immediate. Obviously MTV starting playing more grunge and less hair metal, but I think the process took two years. Nirvana ruined rock & roll. So Nirvana were pretty terrible, at least musically speaking, but so was most of the rest of grunge. For the most part, grunge was a media sensation, driven by hype. The bands from that era worth listening to, which can be named on a single hand (Alice in Chains, Mother Love Bone, Stone Temple Pilots), are the ones furthest from Nirvana’s divorce rock. When Nirvana came along, they broke everything and the pieces are never going to be put together again. People might still keep killing it on the underground circuit and that might be better, but since Nirvana, rock has slowly exited mainstream consciousness. Today’s rock audience prefers stuff like The White Stripes, The National and Arcade Fire. It’s over, kids.

Melodic rock didn't die. Weezer, Green Day, The Offspring, Nofx, Teenage Fanclub, etc. say hi.

Rock music in the 80's/early 90s was awesome! There were great bands with awesome talent like Guns n Roses, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, etc. The music was fun and full of energy! Bands actually knew how to play their instruments well.

Then along one day came Nirvana and a new revolution of no-talent boring depressing whiny music started. These "grunge" bands barely even knew how to play their instruments, but somehow got popular. I remember the first time I saw one of Nirvana's videos , I thought to myself "Is this a joke?" "How did these guys with no-talent actually get a music video?" "This just sounds horrible!". But little did I know that was the beginning of the destruction of rock music.

When I was looking at the charts I didn't see what I expected to see. I got to the point in 1991 where Smells Like Teen Spirit peaked at #7, so then I was like, "Okay, here we go, this is where the grunge era begins and melodic rock ends." But then for the next three years, I see no grunge hits and still quite a few melodic rock hits, although not as many as in the late 80s.I'm sure a lot of people would be surprised that melodic rock still had commercial success long after the record companies and MTV officially declared it "dead".What I don't understand is why the labels gave such shoddy promotion to the followups to the most successful releases from 1990-1993. The Scorpions had a huge smash with Crazy World, they were practically the Rolling Stones of metal, and Face the Heat just got a "meh" promotion and no MTV airplay. Props to Arsenio Hall for having them on though. Extreme followed up Pornograffitti with the amazing III Sides to Every Story. Meh again from the industry and MTV. Mr. Big followed up the smash hit Lean Into It with Bump Ahead. Double meh even though it was a great album. Wild World got a little airplay. Firehouse did VERY well as late as 1995, and then they just were quietly disposed of anyway. Why? These were all fantastic albums, without the ridiculous image, and the industry decided not to push them. What kind of a label stops promoting a band that's still producing hits? This ONLY happened to melodic rock bands! It would never happen in a million years to a country, R&B, or rap artist. You have to fail before getting dropped or not promoted. It's almost as if the industry was angry that people still wanted to listen to this kind of music and decided to just cut out the pretense and FORCE people to accept the new sound by taking away the old sound.