Best band of the "Seattle Grunge Scene" In your opinion.

1. AIC
2. Soundgarden
3. Screaming Trees
4. Pearl Jam
5. Nirvana

AIC, only correct answer.

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Best band of the "Seattle Grunge Scene" In your opinion.

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I'm actually reading the book Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge and the entire genre is absolutely fascinating.

It's amazing how many great bands never took off because of drug abuse, internal conflict, and apathy. Bands swapped members like sex partners at an orgy.

What's also pretty interesting is how arrogant some of these guys were regarding their music. I have read about at least five or so bands who claimed to be the best Seattle band of the era.

By the way, are we talking longevity or creative peak?

I will confess that I have still never fully gotten into Nirvana so I will omit them due to my unfamiliarity.

If we are talking peak then a couple of the side project/super groups would be my favorites:

1. Temple of the Dog (the best guitar player from the scene, McCready, paired with the best vocalist, Cornell, is just sheer perfection)
2. Mad Season (the most interesting sounding album to ever emerge from Seattle, I love the jazz elements)
3. Alice in Chains (Dirt is the Downward Spiral of grunge; one of the darkest albums ever)
4. Pearl Jam (that debut is probably the most commercially accessible to ever be released by a Seattle group)
5. Soundgarden (in my opinion they just never could string together a full album, but they still had some bright spots that were much more powerful and epic than everyone else)

If we're talking consistency:

1. Alice in Chains
2. Soundgarden
3. Pearl Jam
4. The Melvins (better live act than studio performers)
5. Mudhoney

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they just never could string together a full album

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I don't know, man. Louder than Love, Badmotorfinger and Superunknown were great, complete albums imo.

Cornell

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Saw Sondgarden open for GNR in the early 90's and they were atrocious live.

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History has been kind to Soundgarden, but there may not be a band that sold out more than that particular foursome. I know people like to point the finger at Nirvana because of their major label affiliations, but Nirvana still sounded like an alternative rock band even towards the end.

On the other hand, Down on the Upside is one of the most uninspired, pedestrian releases you could ever conceive of from a band that at one point was considered one of the best, if not the best, in the country.

Kim Thayil likes to be a dick who claims that they weren't really influence by Black Sabbath aside from the utilization of drop-D tuning, but I think most fans would agree that Soundgarden was at their best when they teetered on that heavy metal sound and label.

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Louder than Love, Badmotorfinger and Superunknown were great, complete albums imo.

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I just find Superunknown to have about five or six too many tracks. I can only think of a handful of albums in the history of music with 15 or more tracks which didn't have a single filler.

Badmotorfinger starts son strong and then just seems to teeter out, while Louder than Love sounds like a band that at times is still very unsure of what they want to sound like.

But that's just my opinion.

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I never was a fan. MTV popularized them but I never thought they did anything to earn that popularity.

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Based on what I have read so far, it appeared that they played the corporate game and were just a tad more ambitious than their peers.

Mudhoney

Others some may not know: Flop, Malfunkshun, Skin Yard, Tad, Bundle of Hiss, Fastbacks, Mono Men



I'm ready to watch the Hype! doc, again.

Soundgarden. Badmotorfinger and Superunknown are classics.