DiamonDArcy

Nice to see Alice In Chains get so much love, but I voted for a little band called 'Nirvana'. Frankly I'm shocked that they're trailing so much in the polls.

Unknown Soldier

Not really, Alternative Rock is too big an umbrella to be labelled as such. A quick glance at the type of bands and styles that make up alternative rock range from REM, Cure, PIL, Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, grunge and Britpop etc. The only thing a lot of these bands had in common, was the DIY ethos, different to the mainstream and usually came from a budding underground scene. For the sake of the thread though, only grunge is being looked at here, so based on that your claims can be refuted. If you're referring though to only AIC here as in post 312 I'd agree to most of the claims that you made minus the stadium rock one.

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Howard the Duck

i voted for "other" because i believe the best grunge band is a three-way tie between Melvins, Mudhoney and Tad

and maybe the U-Men

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

mr dave

Now THIS is the Hatemonger I remember from my first week here on MB.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHA


What you're doing right here is trying to apply your personal perspective to a general observation (not a generalization). Whether or not you like stadium rock doesn't change the fact that Alice in Chains was very much a stadium rock band and meant to appeal to that kind of crowd. Did you ever hear about Nirvana successfully touring with Van Halen back in the day like AiC did? Hell, Jerry Cantrell even had some amps waiting in his garage from EVH as a bonus when he got home. Not like the Guns N' Roses / Soundgarden tour which ended up more like WTF

Pearl Jam was a died in the wool classic rock band from the get go that could step into the studio with Neil Young and record an album and have it sound like they'd never been apart.

Alice in Chains started out as Diamond Lie in an attempt to cash in on the same sleeze LA Guns, Ratt, Enuff Z'nuff, used in their attempts for success as culminated by Guns N' Roses releasing Appetite for Destruction. Then it kind of started falling apart and pretty boys like Extreme and Mr. Big started getting the mainstream attention and this new dirtier, scuzzier, grungier style started taking root. Well the spandex and poofy hair didn't work initially, let's trade it up.

I've even seen interviews with Layne Staley around 1992-3 where he's full on honest about the fact that they're a 'hair' band. "Do you think these kids will like my hair now that it's green?" He wasn't really joking.

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Howard the Duck

now you're saying AIC doesn't have underground cred

does it really matter?

fact of the matter is they were playing a more melodic metal version of grunge and i respect them for it

so what if they pandered to the stadium rock crowd

their songs are still good, despite what UH said

for the record, i wouldn't class them as "grunge" either - they're sorta like The Who of grunge, appealing to the masses, and i love them for it

i don't need their underground credentials to like them

for underground, unknown, obscure, i'd champion mudhoney, melvins and tad

and the U-Men

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Urban Hat€monger ?

Seems our definition of stadium rock seems to be different.

My definition of is mass rock music produced corporate rubbish with no underground credentials that seem to sell millions and millions of albums to the total bafflement of anyone with any sort of musical taste.
As about 99% of bands that I have seen labelled 'Alternative Rock' back in the 90s rather than subsequently (So you can take P.I.L. off the list for a start) fall under that definition I don't feel it's being wrongly used. You can take it literally if you want, that's mine.
Can we move on now please, people are doing what nearly always happens around here, taking a good argument and sucking the life out of it until it becomes yet another boring debate about genres. At least have the balls to put your necks out once in a while you bunch of dullard fucks.

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Howard the Duck

but i concur Alternative Rock was marketed virulently to the extent of being the equivalent of stadium rock in the 70s - what with loolapalooza and all

what i'm disagreeing with is that stuff like AIC you seem to profer the view has no musical merit in your original post

me, i'll gladly stick to Mudhoney, Tad, Melvins et all but i do like the potpourri of variety in the Alternative Rock genre (if there ever was a umbrella of this genre)

why should there a need for authenticity to enjoy stuff like AIC

they're certainly great at what they do and deserve their placing in this poll, even if I don't fully subscribe to them being any sort of innovative novel lynchpin of the zeitgeist of its time

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Metal Connoisseur

I think radio rock could have sufficed. Moving on.

I agree with Howard that what about being underground makes a band innately good? Nirvana, STP, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and AIC all eventually arrived at the same place--in the mainstream, even if they started out in different places. Also, in order to have your music reach as far as those bands you certainly have to have some sort of "coming through the ranks" story like playing small clubs and such and then working your way up. It's not like a rep from Columbia saw Lane Staley on the street and was like "here's your recording contract, you should have 4 platinum albums to your credit in the next decade."

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Unknown Soldier

As said before, the whole thread is scandalous Alice in Chains have 16 votes, whilst all the rest have 20 between them!!! Take out Mudhoney as they don't really count and that leaves 15 votes between them! It's kind of sad that Nirvana, Soundgarden, STP and Pearl Jams all superior bands, have all floundered behind AIC by such a vast amount of votes. I think people really need to asses just how good these AIC albums actually are.

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Metal Connoisseur

It's my personal opinion that STP was the first "post-grunge" band as they just rode the coattails of the other Seattle bands. Listen to any of the hit singles from STP and I dare you to say their not nearly identical to any Shinedown, Seether, Puddle of Mudd, etc song.

Dirt from AIC is a classic. The metallic riffs and dark atmosphere were the heaviest thing on the billboard top 200 at the time--which set them apart for me.

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