IdRatherBeSkiing's Top 20 (Sunday, June 21st, 2020 version)

IdRatherBeSkiing said:
I'm not really. I only see maybe 1 song I would call grunge on this tape and It's no longer in my favour. Perhaps we have different definitions.
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Creep - Radiohead
Cherub Rock - The Smashing Pumpkins
Quiet - The Smashing Pumpkins
My Wave - Soundgarden
Mayonaise - The Smashing Pumpkins
Rocket - The Smashing Pumpkins
Hummer - The Smashing Pumpkins

Dude, I'm not sure what to say. Siamese Dream is the grungiest of grunge, and the songs you picked are the grungiest on the album. It's the pinnacle of grunge. Same with Superunknown.
 
scotchandcigar said:
Creep - Radiohead
Cherub Rock - The Smashing Pumpkins
Quiet - The Smashing Pumpkins
My Wave - Soundgarden
Mayonaise - The Smashing Pumpkins
Rocket - The Smashing Pumpkins
Hummer - The Smashing Pumpkins

Dude, I'm not sure what to say. Siamese Dream is the grungiest of grunge, and the songs you picked are the grungiest on the album. It's the pinnacle of grunge. Same with Superunknown.
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I never considered them grunge. Only Soundgarden. I thought the others were just plain alternative. Maybe its just the harder grunge I am not into (and this is something that may also have developed over time too. I obviously liked Soundgarden when I made the cassette). This is clearly a language/definition issue.
 
IdRatherBeSkiing said:
I never considered them grunge. Only Soundgarden. I thought the others were just plain alternative. Maybe its just the harder grunge I am not into (and this is something that may also have developed over time too. I obviously liked Soundgarden when I made the cassette). This is clearly a language/definition issue.
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Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Veruca Salt, Screaming Trees, Stone Temple Pilots, Juliana Hatfield (at the time), Belly (to some degree), Dandelion, Hole, L7, Foo Fighters, Toadies. If it was the early to mid 90's, and it was a wall of sustained guitar chords, it was grunge. A major part of the movement came from Seattle, but there was pre-Seattle grunge, and other branches - like Chicago and LA. Rolling Stones list of the greatest grunge albums includes the first 3 Smashing Pumpkins albums.
 
I agree with that description of Grunge.

Where does alternative and pop split?
Hootie was pop, but Counting Crows and Oasis were alternative? Alanis, Chili Peppers, Soul Asylum, Goo Goo Dolls, etc.
 
First, let me congratulate IRBS; you like grunge! It's like thinking you don't like sushi, but then you realize you've been eating sushi and like it. It's a good thing.
Aaron said:
Where does alternative and pop split?
Hootie was pop, but Counting Crows and Oasis were alternative? Alanis, Chili Peppers, Soul Asylum, Goo Goo Dolls, etc.
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This drives me nuts. For example, I hate Mumford & Sons, and I can't think of a more mainstream band than them. Yet they get played on Alt Nation. I feel the same about songs like Losing My Religion (R.E.M.) and Under the Bridge (RHCP); these are mainstream adult contemporary (AC) songs, yet they top the list of Alt music songs.

A few years ago, Memebag went into this whole thing about "I know what rock music is, I know what dance music is, I know what blues music is, but what kind of music is alternative music?" And the answer is this: You have popular (pop) music, i.e. top 40 radio; and you have mainstream rock. Alternative is an alternative to those two, it's not like pop (vocal-centric), and it's not like classic rock.

Having said that, it doesn't make a lot of sense. If an alternative song becomes really popular, and gets into the top 40, is it still alternative? And how is the chord structure of Nirvana's music any different than that of 1960's rock & roll? Or Green Day? And yes, Counting Crows sounds very mainstream to me.

Sometimes I think it's based on subject matter and audience appeal. Stuff aimed at kids and teens is mainstream, while stuff aimed at adults and sophisticated musical types is alternative. Really, it's all pretty dumb.
 
I would have only listed a couple of those artists as grunge. So how do I describe the obvious subsection of grunge I no longer like? Soundgarden for example. I cringe every time I hear Black Hole Sun now. I did used to like them in the 90s but not so much any longer. Same with a lot of stuff played on Lithium vs old Lucy. I loved most of Lucy playlist. Not so much new Lithium. Or is there just no classification?

And for the record I definitely do not like suchi and I am positive I am not eating it and enjoying it.
 
IdRatherBeSkiing said:
I cringe every time I hear Black Hole Sun now.
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That's a pop song, just like Under the Bridge is a pop song. Just because you're sick of hearing (or never liked) a pop song from a grunge band doesn't mean anything. I hate Tempted, but I love Squeeze. I'm sick of hearing 1979 but I love Smashing Pumpkins. If you're sick of the song Daughter, it doesn't mean you can't still like Pearl Jam.

I say try some sushi.
 
scotchandcigar said:
That's a pop song, just like Under the Bridge is a pop song. Just because you're sick of hearing (or never liked) a pop song from a grunge band doesn't mean anything. I hate Tempted, but I love Squeeze. I'm sick of hearing 1979 but I love Smashing Pumpkins. If you're sick of the song Daughter, it doesn't mean you can't still like Pearl Jam.

I say try some sushi.
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I used to like it but I no longer do. It's still an alternative/grunge song even though it may have had success on pop charts.

I have tried it once. Disgusting.

ETA: It would appear we have different tastes. I like all the songs you mention and a couple of the artists. I really don't know much about Squeeze to comment on them.
 
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IdRatherBeSkiing said:
I used to like it but I no longer do. It's still an alternative/grunge song even though it may have had success on pop charts.

I have tried it once. Disgusting.

ETA: It would appear we have different tastes. I like all the songs you mention and a couple of the artists. I really don't know much about Squeeze to comment on them.
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The songs I mentioned are not songs I dislike, but they are overplayed, and also more pop than grunge. They are examples of songs that are not very representative of the band.

Having clarified that, I agree we have different tastes.
 
This is a topic that I have tried hard to resolve for myself, and am not quite there. But here's how I currently see it. I won't be offended if anyone gets 1/3rd the way through this and stops reading. I'm sure it comes across like I'm pontificating....

Imagine an umbrella, a bunch of rods all meeting at the top.

Each rod is a different style of music. Blues, rock, country, jazz, dance, rap, metal, etc.

High up on the rod (the top, where the rods meet) is how "mainstream" the song is. In the middle, it's "standard" (for that genre). The furthest away from the top at the far end of the rod, it's "alternative" (for that genre).

A song can be directly on the rod (a pure 'rock' song), or between two rods. Country-rock, rap-metal, punk-rock, etc.

Now we test it out..... Let's start with a few "pure" (on the rod) songs:

Bryan Adams "Summer Of 69" = mainstream rock
Ted Nugent "Cat Scratch Fever" = standard rock
Breeders "Cannonball" = alt rock

Metallica "Enter Sandman" = mainstream metal
Iron Maiden "Run To The Hills" = standard metal
Faith No More "Caffeine" = alt metal

Will Smith "Getting Jiggy With It" = mainstream rap
Run DMC "Run's House" = standard rap
Watsky "IDGAF" = alt rap

Sometimes a song is a "fluke" ... it starts out as an underground song but finds pop success, so it gets both labels

Eddy Grant "Electric Avenue" = mainstream alt dance (with new wave influence)

So with the songs being discussed in this thread, here's how I would classify them (with other examples thrown in):

Radiohead "Creep" = mainstream alt rock
Radiohead "I Can't" = alt rock

Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under The Bridge" = mainstream alt rock ballad
Red Hot Chili Peppers "Nobody Weird Like Me" = alt rock

Soundgarden "Black Hole Sun" = mainstream alt rock
Soundgarden "Rusty Cage" = alt rock

Counting Crows "Mr Jones" = mainstream rock (I don't think they are alt, they were a nice alternative TO alternative music)
Counting Crows "Angels Of The Silences" = standard rock

Pearl Jam "Jeremy" = mainstream alt rock (this was originally alt, but became the mainstream - killing what was mainstream before it)
Pearl Jam "Spin The Black Circle" = alt rock

Smashing Pumpkins "Today" = mainstream alt rock
Smashing Pumpkins "1979" = mainstream rock (the only slight bit of alt to this song is that they are an alt band at heart performing a pop song)

Goo Goo Dolls "Slide" = mainstream rock (nothing alt-y about it)
Goo Goo Dolls "Name" = mainstream rock ballad

REM "Losing My Religion" = mainstream alt rock
REM "Pop Song 89" = alt rock
REM "Shiny Happy People" = mainstream rock (like "1979" it's an alt band at heart doing a pop song, but the song itself is not alt)

As for "grunge", that's just a sub-classification of alt-rock to me. All grunge is alt-rock. But not all alt-rock is grunge. I disregard the term, for the most part.

Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit" mainstream alt-rock
Nirvana "Breed" alt-rock

Anyway, that's my take on it all. I don't think it's totally workable. But it's the best I got.
 
sadchild said:
This is a topic that I have tried hard to resolve for myself, and am not quite there. But here's how I currently see it. I won't be offended if anyone gets 1/3rd the way through this and stops reading. I'm sure it comes across like I'm pontificating....

Imagine an umbrella, a bunch of rods all meeting at the top.

Each rod is a different style of music. Blues, rock, country, jazz, dance, rap, metal, etc.

High up on the rod (the top, where the rods meet) is how "mainstream" the song is. In the middle, it's "standard" (for that genre). The furthest away from the top at the far end of the rod, it's "alternative" (for that genre).

A song can be directly on the rod (a pure 'rock' song), or between two rods. Country-rock, rap-metal, punk-rock, etc.

Now we test it out..... Let's start with a few "pure" (on the rod) songs:

Bryan Adams "Summer Of 69" = mainstream rock
Ted Nugent "Cat Scratch Fever" = standard rock
Breeders "Cannonball" = alt rock

Metallica "Enter Sandman" = mainstream metal
Iron Maiden "Run To The Hills" = standard metal
Faith No More "Caffeine" = alt metal

Will Smith "Getting Jiggy With It" = mainstream rap
Run DMC "Run's House" = standard rap
Watsky "IDGAF" = alt rap

Sometimes a song is a "fluke" ... it starts out as an underground song but finds pop success, so it gets both labels

Eddy Grant "Electric Avenue" = mainstream alt dance (with new wave influence)

So with the songs being discussed in this thread, here's how I would classify them (with other examples thrown in):

Radiohead "Creep" = mainstream alt rock
Radiohead "I Can't" = alt rock

Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under The Bridge" = mainstream alt rock ballad
Red Hot Chili Peppers "Nobody Weird Like Me" = alt rock

Soundgarden "Black Hole Sun" = mainstream alt rock
Soundgarden "Rusty Cage" = alt rock

Counting Crows "Mr Jones" = mainstream rock (I don't think they are alt, they were a nice alternative TO alternative music)
Counting Crows "Angels Of The Silences" = standard rock

Pearl Jam "Jeremy" = mainstream alt rock (this was originally alt, but became the mainstream - killing what was mainstream before it)
Pearl Jam "Spin The Black Circle" = alt rock

Smashing Pumpkins "Today" = mainstream alt rock
Smashing Pumpkins "1979" = mainstream rock (the only slight bit of alt to this song is that they are an alt band at heart performing a pop song)

Goo Goo Dolls "Slide" = mainstream rock (nothing alt-y about it)
Goo Goo Dolls "Name" = mainstream rock ballad

REM "Losing My Religion" = mainstream alt rock
REM "Pop Song 89" = alt rock
REM "Shiny Happy People" = mainstream rock (like "1979" it's an alt band at heart doing a pop song, but the song itself is not alt)
Anyway, that's my take on it all. I don't think it's totally workable. But it's the best I got.
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Not alt per se, but would fit right in with Adult Album Alternative, Counting Crows, R.E.M, Hootie and the Blowfish played along side bands like Indigo Girls, John Mayer and Melissa Etheridge. There was a local station that tried playing Hootie and the Blowfish along side bands like Filter and the Beastie Boys, they stopped after a while. But they still got heavy airplay on the AAA format which featured artists like Etheridge, Springsteen and other similar.
 
I guess the whole "alternative" tag is kinda like the underground resistance warriors successfully taking over the government. Now the "underground resistance party" is in power. Do you still call them the "Underground Resistance Movement"? Probably not, because there'll be some members of the old power secretly uniting, trying to take the power back - resisting the "Resistance" - doing it underground against the "Underground".

So basically alternative had a successful coup, and are no longer the underground resistance. And the name of the movement never changed.
 
Sadchild, I agree with much of what you said. I also agree that grunge (a style) is a subset of alternative (a category). However, there's no mystery as to what songs are grunge. There's a style to it, like these:
Cherub Rock - The Smashing Pumpkins
Quiet - The Smashing Pumpkins
My Wave - Soundgarden
Mayonaise - The Smashing Pumpkins
Rocket - The Smashing Pumpkins
Hummer - The Smashing Pumpkins

Grunge is a musical style just as emo or goth or punk is a musical style. As a matter of fact, if Memebag were here, he'd approve of identifying a style of music as grunge, more so than categorizing it as alternative. And of course, bands that are known for putting out grunge music are called grunge bands. So even their non-grunge songs are lumped in with it.

I think the category "alternative" makes sense if you look at its origins. In the 70's you had pop music and rock music. Pop is generally vocal driven, whereas rock is driven by guitar chords. In the mid 70's, disco was big, and in it's wake, punk was born (I'm not suggesting cause/effect). Punk was not pop, but it wasn't Foreigner either. It was "alternative" music. It had a distinctive style that was different than Zeppelin, Boston, and Steve Miller Band.

Punk was the style of alternative, and then it was post-punk, and then the "new wave". And a lot of new wave was poppy dance music, but we all knew the difference between Depeche Mode and Madonna. As the 80's came to an end, the new wave was dead, and grunge became the standard-bearer for alternative.

And that's what I think. :)
 
I have a couple more top 10s to do based upon recent discussions. Today: The Smashing Pumpkins.

10. Luna
9. Hummer
8. Bullet With Butterfly Wings
7. Disarm
6. Quiet
5. Spaceboy
4. Landslide
3. Thirty-Three
2. Today
1. 1979
 
scotchandcigar said:
Sadchild, I agree with much of what you said. I also agree that grunge (a style) is a subset of alternative (a category). However, there's no mystery as to what songs are grunge. There's a style to it, like these:
Cherub Rock - The Smashing Pumpkins
Quiet - The Smashing Pumpkins
My Wave - Soundgarden
Mayonaise - The Smashing Pumpkins
Rocket - The Smashing Pumpkins
Hummer - The Smashing Pumpkins
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Great. Now I want a Hu......

Never mind.....
 
Cassette AQ Recorded 1994/10/29&30
AP, AQ, AR and AS were all planned at the same time. AQ looks to have been recorded before AP. I have no idea why.

Side 1
Loser - Beck
Shine - Meat Puppets
Selling the Drama - Live
Fall Down - Toad the Wet Sprocket
Laid - James
Self Esteem - The Offspring
Time and Time Again - Counting Crows
Interstate Love Song - Stone Temple Pilots
RIght Here, Right Now - Jesus Jones
Death on the Beach - Spirit of the West
Even Better Than the Real Thing - U2
Spaceboy - The Smashing Pumpkins
Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden

Side 2
1000 Easy - XC-NN
Supersonic - Oasis
Supernova - Liz Phair
It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - R.E.M.
Soma - The Smashing Pumpkins
In the Days of the Caveman - Crash Test Dummies
Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses - U2
Grace, Too - The Tragically Hip
Intermittently - Barenaked Ladies
Swiming in Your Ocean - Crash Test Dummies
Anna Begins - Counting Crows
Barney - Molly Half Head
 
Laid - James
RIght Here, Right Now - Jesus Jones
Supernova - Liz Phair
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Definitive 90s songs in my book. Excellent ones.

Time and Time Again - Counting Crows
Anna Begins - Counting Crows
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Such an amazing album. If you include "Einstein On A Beach", six of songs from the August And Everything After era are on my 500+ list.
 
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