{
  "slug": "grunge",
  "name": "Grunge",
  "aliases": [
    "seattle sound",
    "sub pop",
    "the seattle scene"
  ],
  "description": "Seattle from 1988: hardcore's volume and independence welded to Black Sabbath riffs and pop melodies, on a local label with a deliberate house aesthetic, three years before the whole thing was sold to the world as a youth movement.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "Seattle, Washington",
    "year": 1988
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "hardcore-punk",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/hardcore-punk/",
      "inherited": "The methods and the people. Everyone here came up through American hardcore's independent labels and touring circuit; grunge is what happened when those musicians slowed down and admitted they liked choruses."
    },
    {
      "genre": "psychedelic-rock",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/psychedelic-rock/",
      "inherited": "The riffs and the volume. The other half of the record collection was late sixties and early seventies heavy rock, which hardcore orthodoxy had spent a decade treating as the enemy."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 90,
    "max": 150
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-31",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/grunge/",
  "trackCount": 8,
  "curatedBy": [],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "nirvana--smells-like-teen-spirit",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/nirvana--smells-like-teen-spirit/",
      "title": "Smells Like Teen Spirit",
      "artist": "Nirvana",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/nirvana/",
      "year": 1991,
      "label": "DGC",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Cobain called it an attempt to write a Pixies song. Four chords, a quiet verse, an unintelligible chorus, and the end of one era of popular music inside three months.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Nirvana%20Smells%20Like%20Teen%20Spirit",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "mudhoney--touch-me-im-sick",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/mudhoney--touch-me-im-sick/",
      "title": "Touch Me I'm Sick",
      "artist": "Mudhoney",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/mudhoney/",
      "year": 1988,
      "label": "Sub Pop",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The founding document, and much funnier than what followed. A fuzz pedal, a Sonics riff, and no interest whatsoever in being taken seriously.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-eighties",
          "name": "The Eighties",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/the-eighties/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Mudhoney%20Touch%20Me%20I'm%20Sick",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=_nGsT_qFMBs",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "pearl-jam--black",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/pearl-jam--black/",
      "title": "Black",
      "artist": "Pearl Jam",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/pearl-jam/",
      "year": 1991,
      "label": "Epic",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Vedder refused to release it as a single because it was too personal, which did not stop it becoming the band's most requested song. Grunge's one great ballad.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Pearl%20Jam%20Black",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=qgaRVvAKoqQ",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "alice-in-chains--would",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/alice-in-chains--would/",
      "title": "Would?",
      "artist": "Alice in Chains",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/alice-in-chains/",
      "year": 1992,
      "label": "Columbia",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Written about Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone, dead of an overdose at twenty-four. Staley's harmonies with Cantrell are the most distinctive sound the scene produced.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Alice%20in%20Chains%20Would%3F",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Nco_kh8xJDs",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "soundgarden--outshined",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/soundgarden--outshined/",
      "title": "Outshined",
      "artist": "Soundgarden",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/soundgarden/",
      "year": 1991,
      "label": "A&M",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "In seven-four, which nobody in the audience noticed, and Cornell singing at the top of a range most people do not have. The most technically able band in Seattle.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Soundgarden%20Outshined",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=sNh-iw7gsuI",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "nirvana--negative-creep",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/nirvana--negative-creep/",
      "title": "Negative Creep",
      "artist": "Nirvana",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/nirvana/",
      "year": 1989,
      "label": "Sub Pop",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Bleach, recorded for six hundred dollars. Before the melodies took over, and a useful corrective to the idea that Nirvana were ever a pop group by accident.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Nirvana%20Negative%20Creep",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=xUgI2h35Pcc",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "trackKey": "tad--dyers-eve",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/tad--dyers-eve/",
      "title": "Dyers Eve",
      "artist": "TAD",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/tad/",
      "year": 1989,
      "label": "Sub Pop",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The heaviest band on the label and the one that never crossed over. Included because Seattle was a scene before it was a marketing category.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/TAD%20Dyers%20Eve",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=qbwFMZTFrmU",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 8,
      "trackKey": "pixies--where-is-my-mind",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/pixies--where-is-my-mind/",
      "title": "Where Is My Mind?",
      "artist": "Pixies",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/pixies/",
      "year": 1988,
      "label": "4AD",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Boston, not Seattle, and Cobain said plainly that he was trying to rip them off. The quiet-loud-quiet structure that defined the decade is theirs.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Pixies%20Where%20Is%20My%20Mind%3F",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ62RzJkYUo",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}