re: Rank the "Seattle bands" of hard rock from the early 90s

Well, clearly the grunge bands were influenced by both punk and metal. AIC and Soundgarden tilted more metal, Mudhoney and Nirvana more punk. Pearl Jam was straight up arena rock. I was a DC guy, so I was definitely into all the Dischord stuff at the time, but I also love SST Records. So I got into Sub Pop through Soundgarden, who was an SST band (when SST was going through its death throes). I viewed Sub Pop as the heirs to the SST legacy at the time.

And rock needed some killing. People who didn't live through the 80s cannot imagine how awful and prevalent the scourge of hair metal was. You couldn't throw a rock without hitting a guy in spandex, fingertapping a guitar in between applications of AquaNet.

Nevermind sounds "clean" now, but at the time, it sounded dirt and scuzzy. When you're used to Def Leppard's million dollar recordings, the standard of "low production values" is rather lenient. Listening to old late 80s/early 90s alt-rock, it's amazing how records that we thought were so dingy now sound so pristine. Like Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Man, if only they had come out 3 years later.