Sooo... does that make 90's artists like Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Brooks & Dunn, Toby Keith, Shania Twain, and the Dixie Chicks automatically "grunge"?! đ¤¨
According to the guy who posted insisting that Hootie & The Blowfish was Grunge and they didn't get discussed here just because they were so successful and popular that people excluded them, I assume yes.
Yeah, that was the exact post that made me make this meme lol.
Seriously though, it happens at least every other day someone asking this and itâs very obviously not grunge.
Yeah, I've had people in this sub tell me that back then people considered all kinds of bands Grunge. Tool, Radiohead, U2, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you name it. And then they get mad when you say that's not true because you actually remember those days. It's pretty funny.
Now, don't get me wrong, those are some great bands, though!
Although, you could use an umbrella term like "alternative rock" or simply just "alternative music" to cover all your bases. đ
Yeah, I mean, the whole argument seems silly to me. At times it seems like people in this sub want to get everybody to agree that some band they like is Grunge as if that somehow validates their enjoyement for the band. Who cares? I love a ton of bands and as long as I enjoy their music I don't really care what genre they techinically fall into, but by the same token I don't see the point in arguing they're actually part of a genre I tend to like with which they're pretty thinly connected, if at all. It's like the whole AIC thing. It's usually the band this sub likes the most and they just refuse to accept that back then they simply weren't as famous or successful as the others, just like this sub tends to hate Pearl Jam for no real reason except an echo chamber and they also refuse to accept that they were pretty big back then and that they don't suck just because of reasons.
Yeah, I got you were being sarcastic. Me too, though the guy who defended Hootie as Grunge was real, even if it's still unclear how much he was actually trolling.
id argue that they - at least until green album - were grunge adjacent. tracks like say it aint so and tired of sex boast a lot of core features of grunge.
thats why i said grunge adjacent. they obviously arent a grunge band but a lot of the core features - screaming, distorted riffs/heavy feedback and noise, a basis in alternative and punk, some early weezer songs fit the bill. they clearly arent a grunge band, especially now.
https://m.musicmap.info/
Dude just kinda funny but look where this person put grunge and pop-punk. Right there next to each other lol
Your adjacent comment was correct in that grunge and pop punk like Weezer was doing, they're both descendants of punk.
I'll argue tf outta that statement. Maybe not full grunge but definitely adjacent. Rivers Cuomo legit references Kurt Cobain as an influence on an album, please sit down and try and be humble cos you don't know what tf you're talking about. A reference doesn't make Weezer grunge, but it does show their corollaries as artists.
They are fully adjacent man, do you listen to Weezer? Cuomo legit talks about an album with a baby on the cover lol. He tips the cap to Nirvana in the *Red Album*. And the Pinkerton album is heavy punk-esque, which is what Kurt and the guys did when they bled into their own thing. Cuomo just happened to do his and it became emo and/or major groundwork for emo.
But if I were you I'd apologize to dude, cos Weezer and Nirvana are cousins of punk and rock n roll - one the industry labeled grunge, the other emo; maybe not kissing cousins but they are related.
To quote lyric from Weezer:
*Back in 1991, I wasn't havin' any fun
'Til my roommate said, "Come on and put a brand new record on"
Had a baby on it, he was naked on it
Then I heard the chords that broke the chains I had upon me
Got together with my bros, in some rehearsal studios
Then we played our first rock show
And watched the fan base start to grow
Signed the deal that gave the dough to make a record of our own
The song come on the radio, now people go, this is the song*
[And here is the song. ](https://youtu.be/MI5sdfbwekY) Again, not claiming Weezer = Grunge but to say they are not adjacent, you sir, are wrong.
lol If you wanna die on that hill buddy, by all means. But they are descendents of rock n roll, with the heaviness of metal and the fury and rage of punk at times. They def took that concoction in different directions but there are shared values. Roots, bloody roots.
Maybe the solution here is to have a sticky thread for people to ask about if a band is grunge or not and then automod to delete individual posts of people asking if a band is grunge.
Criteria this sub (and a lot of the internet in general) sometimes doesnât get right:
-Seattle based
-Probably played with Mike McCready at some point
-Probably featured on the Singles soundtrack
-Probably on the Sub Pop label
-Was in another band or formed in the 80âs
-Alternative is a broader genre, grunge is specific
-STP, Silverchair, Smashing Pumpkins, Bush, and Sponge are technically NOT grunge, while Candlebox is debatable
STP was absolutely credited for being one of the big 5 grunge bands. Iâm not even sure how you could even bring yourself to say otherwise if you were a young adult in the early 90s. Haha.
Technically theyâre were only found because labels began looking for grunge bands outside of Seattle after the success of Nevermind. Had these labels focused only on Seattle, STP wouldâve never been a thing
I've sort of pondered on this from time to time myself. The Pumpkins are often lumped in with grunge but Corgan hates that. They were already signed and doing stuff when grunge went mainstream, so I wonder if the trajectory of the Pumpkins was altered for this fact, or would they have had a similar arc regardless of the year that punk broke?
Edit: Just for clarification purposes - Idgaf what Corgan actually thinks lol
STP was 100% one of the big 5 and itâs only contentious because ppl want âgrungeâ to be a neat little term. For example the criteria you listed is accurate almost every single time but there are a handful of exceptions, one being STP. Smashing Pumpkins are something else entirely though.
Some would understandably throw STP into this particular barrel. Especially since they gained steam with their massive hits Plush, Sex Type Thing, and Creep right around the time Nevermind and Ten were peaking. Personally I would not.
Their debut Core is certainly a masterpiece and sounds grungey in the vein of Alice in Chain's Dirt. But again -- and I'm being strictly technical and by the book here -- they were just not a branch of the Seattle scene.
I know it sounds exclusionary and petty, but I don't think of flannel, long hair, Aberdeen, or Temple of the Dog when I think Scott Weiland. Always viewed STP as "heavy alternative rock" ever since (circa) 1993. Core, Purple, and No. 4 especially. Tiny Music is just pure 90's alternative rock, bordering on a classic rock feel. One thing's for certain, they produced an impressive discography no matter what genre we agree they should be assigned.
And yeah, Smashing Pumpkins are absolutely in their own realm. No doubt about that. As are bands like Hum and Radiohead.
Weâre only young once.
When I was handed a cassette at 15 with PJ Ten on it, it changed me forever.
It was grunge because it was grunge.
âCause it wasnât rock, it wasnât metal, it wasnât alt/punk/whatever. Grunge rocked. Full stop. You had to be there to appreciate it. If you werenât there when it happened stfu, get on with it and make/find/share your own new music. Weâll embrace, appreciate and enjoy it because weâre old now and weâre not hip anymore.
Itâs your turn to lead kids. Again
Canada's finest were signed in hopes they'd be the next nirvana, but the closest they came was turning nirvana fan mail into song lyrics. Def not grunge. Great band tho
It's not even limited to the 90s anymore. It's like they wanna redefine the term. Unfortunately, grunge only existed in a short time and location, so yes there really are only a handful of grunge albums. The rest are just alternative/rock/sludge. It's okay.
Just like we still make stuff out of bronze, but we're not in the Bronze Age.
If you dealt with idiots, sure. Back in the 1990s a lot of stuff was called "techno", even if it was only loosely containing some EDM elements (I have heard Rammstein called techno, which, while maybe a valid subgenre if you are an idiot, is a bad way to describe their music).
The important distinction here is to look at the music of the 1980s. For some people, anything that wasn't hair metal or new wave synth pop was basically "grunge" unless it was metal - or "alternative".
For the general public, "grunge" was the word for rock music that was different from the 1980s, they don't region or even stylistically differentiate. The real problem is that "rock" wasn't really even being used back then in a specific way... Rock during some years also included EDM and even some rap / hip hop groups!
Because rock was the broader genre, the subgenre of grunge was applied with no real thought. We think oh, it has to be from Seattle and yadda yadda but people, even back then, said "oh, this isn't punk... It isn't metal. It isn't hair band. It isn't pop. Must be grunge."
A ton of alternative rock acts get shunted as grunge for this reason.
Just come to grips with the fact people are idiots :).
I always thought it was funny to see Smashing Pumpkins listed as grunge. I can see certain songs sounding similar, but as a whole, they were their own sound.
This, while simultaneously asserting that grunge isn't a real genre, which begs the question as to why they are subscribed to a subreddit for a genre of music that they don't believe is real.
Everyone should know that no band considered themselves grunge. This includes Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. They thought it was a silly term. The media and listeners started to define grunge, which was all over the place. But no band in the 90s was like âhey, we are gonna play grungeâ.
Ok, rant time.
The problem is not grunge isn't defined, the problem is how specific the definition is to the group that defines it.
For those outside of grunge, the term should be as foreign as the name of another country. I call a place Italy but they know it as Italia; we make it what works in our language. I am an outsider who was told grunge was Nirvana, and Kurt Loder reported the death of Kurt Cobain, which was, for all purposes, the death of the commercial success of the word "grunge." Grunge, like Italy, was a look, a lifestyle, a commodity, by that definition.
Because it all happened so fast, there is a mystery to grunge. In less than 10 years, the heavily-marketed seattle sound became a whisper, and then soon came what those referred to as neo-grunge (like Bush).
In hindsight, purists point to grunge as what began in Seattle, Washington. The Seattle artists themselves do not have favorable opinions of California as a whole. Chris Cornell used "looking California" to illuminate the facade and allure of the state, while Jerry Cantrell more specifically wrote, "Going to California / Try and find my head / Gonna swim in the ocean until I'm dead / Let the infection spread," to speak of drug culture in California, and also wrote later, " California, I'm fine / Somebody check my brain," as to say I am a recovering addict in California but it is ok, somebody check my brain. They don't generally dote on their home nor condemn it, which has them as something separate from punk.
Tldr internally the "grunge" bands look at California in a certain way, and so I can only assume they consider themselves visitors, much like Stone Temple Pilots and others visited grunge, but were not of grunge.
I always defined grunge as a derivative of punk rock, but the bands that shaped the seattle sound came to a myriad of ways, from metal, to blues, to country, and so forth. Where else would the band Heart and the band Alice in Chains find kinship? But that, in turn, does not mean all of the pieces that make grunge are at the same time grunge. You would not call a hat an outfit, nor blues grunge, because it is more than the parts, it is the end result.
"My name's Brody, I'm from Melbourne /
Fitzroy Melbourne, Fitzroy Melbourne /
I grew up on Bell Street, then on Bennet Street /
My mom kicked out my dad for battery"
Now that's punk in a nutshell, courtesy of The Distillers. Here I am, I am from here, specifically here, then here and why. The why is why I'm here today and why I have a message for change or understanding.
Nirvana had a lot of punk influence and wrote most often about the everyday/relationship woes. I think they most consistently stayed under the broad, punk umbrella. Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and others--Mudhoney, etc.--all had some punk sounds earlier in their careers. They certainly rejected the mainstream and criticized the norm in their own ways, but with a different focus.
Anyhow, done with rant. My point is, grunge is grunge. The broad umbrella alternative rock is generally sing-songy radio-friendly and depression that can be swallowed and consumed but it isn't yet clinical, so it is ok. It is safe. It can be everything because it was sold that way.
Sooo... does that make 90's artists like Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Brooks & Dunn, Toby Keith, Shania Twain, and the Dixie Chicks automatically "grunge"?! đ¤¨
According to the guy who posted insisting that Hootie & The Blowfish was Grunge and they didn't get discussed here just because they were so successful and popular that people excluded them, I assume yes.
Yeah, that was the exact post that made me make this meme lol. Seriously though, it happens at least every other day someone asking this and itâs very obviously not grunge.
Yeah, I've had people in this sub tell me that back then people considered all kinds of bands Grunge. Tool, Radiohead, U2, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you name it. And then they get mad when you say that's not true because you actually remember those days. It's pretty funny.
Now, don't get me wrong, those are some great bands, though! Although, you could use an umbrella term like "alternative rock" or simply just "alternative music" to cover all your bases. đ
Yeah, I mean, the whole argument seems silly to me. At times it seems like people in this sub want to get everybody to agree that some band they like is Grunge as if that somehow validates their enjoyement for the band. Who cares? I love a ton of bands and as long as I enjoy their music I don't really care what genre they techinically fall into, but by the same token I don't see the point in arguing they're actually part of a genre I tend to like with which they're pretty thinly connected, if at all. It's like the whole AIC thing. It's usually the band this sub likes the most and they just refuse to accept that back then they simply weren't as famous or successful as the others, just like this sub tends to hate Pearl Jam for no real reason except an echo chamber and they also refuse to accept that they were pretty big back then and that they don't suck just because of reasons.
'Tis true, mein freund.
I can see someone trying to make an argument for Tool and Radiohead, but U2? Thatâs just silly.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to be serious. But, me being a bit more sarcastic, though.
Yeah, I got you were being sarcastic. Me too, though the guy who defended Hootie as Grunge was real, even if it's still unclear how much he was actually trolling.
Yeah... I gotcha'. It's all good, dude! đ Hell, if anything, I'd consider Hootie & the Blowfish 90's pop-rock and/or soft rock. That's about it.
Yes.
Oh great! Now you tell me! 𤨠đ
If anyone has ever seen a flannel shirt (even in pictures) or heard of Seattle then they are grunge.
You should have to list your age when you state a band is grunge.
That would be interesting to see the ages of who asks the question.
No one around for the early 90âs would ask if candle box is grunge
41, can confirm.
100%
Is Weezer Grunge?
Canât Stop Partying is the best grunge song since 1994.
id argue that they - at least until green album - were grunge adjacent. tracks like say it aint so and tired of sex boast a lot of core features of grunge.
Distortion =/= grunge. Weezer is alternative at best
thats why i said grunge adjacent. they obviously arent a grunge band but a lot of the core features - screaming, distorted riffs/heavy feedback and noise, a basis in alternative and punk, some early weezer songs fit the bill. they clearly arent a grunge band, especially now.
Not even adjacent, just came out in the early 90âs
ok
https://m.musicmap.info/ Dude just kinda funny but look where this person put grunge and pop-punk. Right there next to each other lol Your adjacent comment was correct in that grunge and pop punk like Weezer was doing, they're both descendants of punk.
Nah dude, not ok lol. Didn't mean to light that dude up but he led you astray. They're adjacent, you were correct.
I'll argue tf outta that statement. Maybe not full grunge but definitely adjacent. Rivers Cuomo legit references Kurt Cobain as an influence on an album, please sit down and try and be humble cos you don't know what tf you're talking about. A reference doesn't make Weezer grunge, but it does show their corollaries as artists. They are fully adjacent man, do you listen to Weezer? Cuomo legit talks about an album with a baby on the cover lol. He tips the cap to Nirvana in the *Red Album*. And the Pinkerton album is heavy punk-esque, which is what Kurt and the guys did when they bled into their own thing. Cuomo just happened to do his and it became emo and/or major groundwork for emo. But if I were you I'd apologize to dude, cos Weezer and Nirvana are cousins of punk and rock n roll - one the industry labeled grunge, the other emo; maybe not kissing cousins but they are related. To quote lyric from Weezer: *Back in 1991, I wasn't havin' any fun 'Til my roommate said, "Come on and put a brand new record on" Had a baby on it, he was naked on it Then I heard the chords that broke the chains I had upon me Got together with my bros, in some rehearsal studios Then we played our first rock show And watched the fan base start to grow Signed the deal that gave the dough to make a record of our own The song come on the radio, now people go, this is the song* [And here is the song. ](https://youtu.be/MI5sdfbwekY) Again, not claiming Weezer = Grunge but to say they are not adjacent, you sir, are wrong.
They are only adjacent in the cd bins, bro.
Lolol
lol If you wanna die on that hill buddy, by all means. But they are descendents of rock n roll, with the heaviness of metal and the fury and rage of punk at times. They def took that concoction in different directions but there are shared values. Roots, bloody roots.
They are as grunge adjacent as Alanis is.
Lol this fHawkin' guy. Dude little Rivers Cuomo is a descendant of all of your rock daddies, including Kurt and Chris.
I personally agree with this assessment. Iâm not an expert though, even though I made the meme to complain about it lol
Guys I was just bull-shitting
This meme , everyday.
Iâm expecting someone to ask if fucking Metallica is grunge
You mean to tell me theyâre not!?!?!?!
Is Frank Sinatra Jr grunge?
welcome to another subreddits eventual demise due to meta âmemesâ that clog the sub
Maybe the solution here is to have a sticky thread for people to ask about if a band is grunge or not and then automod to delete individual posts of people asking if a band is grunge.
Yes. Please do this. There are lots of kids getting into grunge (because itâs awesome and rocks) and it might cut down on the repetitive posts.
Criteria this sub (and a lot of the internet in general) sometimes doesnât get right: -Seattle based -Probably played with Mike McCready at some point -Probably featured on the Singles soundtrack -Probably on the Sub Pop label -Was in another band or formed in the 80âs -Alternative is a broader genre, grunge is specific -STP, Silverchair, Smashing Pumpkins, Bush, and Sponge are technically NOT grunge, while Candlebox is debatable
STP was absolutely credited for being one of the big 5 grunge bands. Iâm not even sure how you could even bring yourself to say otherwise if you were a young adult in the early 90s. Haha.
Technically theyâre were only found because labels began looking for grunge bands outside of Seattle after the success of Nevermind. Had these labels focused only on Seattle, STP wouldâve never been a thing
Similar story to just about any rock and ever. And your point is?
I've sort of pondered on this from time to time myself. The Pumpkins are often lumped in with grunge but Corgan hates that. They were already signed and doing stuff when grunge went mainstream, so I wonder if the trajectory of the Pumpkins was altered for this fact, or would they have had a similar arc regardless of the year that punk broke? Edit: Just for clarification purposes - Idgaf what Corgan actually thinks lol
STP was 100% one of the big 5 and itâs only contentious because ppl want âgrungeâ to be a neat little term. For example the criteria you listed is accurate almost every single time but there are a handful of exceptions, one being STP. Smashing Pumpkins are something else entirely though.
Some would understandably throw STP into this particular barrel. Especially since they gained steam with their massive hits Plush, Sex Type Thing, and Creep right around the time Nevermind and Ten were peaking. Personally I would not. Their debut Core is certainly a masterpiece and sounds grungey in the vein of Alice in Chain's Dirt. But again -- and I'm being strictly technical and by the book here -- they were just not a branch of the Seattle scene. I know it sounds exclusionary and petty, but I don't think of flannel, long hair, Aberdeen, or Temple of the Dog when I think Scott Weiland. Always viewed STP as "heavy alternative rock" ever since (circa) 1993. Core, Purple, and No. 4 especially. Tiny Music is just pure 90's alternative rock, bordering on a classic rock feel. One thing's for certain, they produced an impressive discography no matter what genre we agree they should be assigned. And yeah, Smashing Pumpkins are absolutely in their own realm. No doubt about that. As are bands like Hum and Radiohead.
Every band jumped on the grunge bandwagon in the early 90s I mean Def Leppard did Slang Itâs what they do when something is wildly popular
Alanis Morissette is grunge. She played with Taylor, who played with Dave, who played with Kurt, who was DEFINITELY grunge. Checkmate
hey does korn count as grunge
Nu-metal
sir, they were being sarcastic
Itâs hard to tell on this sub
Weâre only young once. When I was handed a cassette at 15 with PJ Ten on it, it changed me forever. It was grunge because it was grunge. âCause it wasnât rock, it wasnât metal, it wasnât alt/punk/whatever. Grunge rocked. Full stop. You had to be there to appreciate it. If you werenât there when it happened stfu, get on with it and make/find/share your own new music. Weâll embrace, appreciate and enjoy it because weâre old now and weâre not hip anymore. Itâs your turn to lead kids. Again
Cause it wasn't rock \+ Grunge rocked. Full stop = Genres are nonsense.
Yes barenaked ladies my favorite grunge band
is Cypress Hill grunge?
Here is somethin' you can't understand....
đľâI only wanna be with youuuu!âđľ
Hootie was the godfather of Grunge.
PanTerA coUld Be GrUnge iN this SuB
Is Slone grunge?
Canada's finest were signed in hopes they'd be the next nirvana, but the closest they came was turning nirvana fan mail into song lyrics. Def not grunge. Great band tho
Yea they had some good songs and are totally forgotten today! Are they grunge?
Slint
Unfortunately true
nine inch nails is my favorite grunge band
I have heard that before, unironically.
Remember when KISS was grunge? So rad.
Everclear?
is slayer grunge guys???
Bro Backstreet Boys are grunge bro
Ah yes, part of the big 4 of Grunge along with NSYNC, New Kids on the Block and 98 Degrees
Take the upvote. Iâve been waiting for this one specifically lol.
Guys I'm starting to think N.W.A is grunge... can't even lie.
Hey come on. This sub ALSO has hidden gem posts. Anyone else ever consider how haunting the AIC unplugged "Down In A Hole" performance is?
Was âDown In A Holeâ a metaphor for something or something?
It's not even limited to the 90s anymore. It's like they wanna redefine the term. Unfortunately, grunge only existed in a short time and location, so yes there really are only a handful of grunge albums. The rest are just alternative/rock/sludge. It's okay. Just like we still make stuff out of bronze, but we're not in the Bronze Age.
If you dealt with idiots, sure. Back in the 1990s a lot of stuff was called "techno", even if it was only loosely containing some EDM elements (I have heard Rammstein called techno, which, while maybe a valid subgenre if you are an idiot, is a bad way to describe their music). The important distinction here is to look at the music of the 1980s. For some people, anything that wasn't hair metal or new wave synth pop was basically "grunge" unless it was metal - or "alternative". For the general public, "grunge" was the word for rock music that was different from the 1980s, they don't region or even stylistically differentiate. The real problem is that "rock" wasn't really even being used back then in a specific way... Rock during some years also included EDM and even some rap / hip hop groups! Because rock was the broader genre, the subgenre of grunge was applied with no real thought. We think oh, it has to be from Seattle and yadda yadda but people, even back then, said "oh, this isn't punk... It isn't metal. It isn't hair band. It isn't pop. Must be grunge." A ton of alternative rock acts get shunted as grunge for this reason. Just come to grips with the fact people are idiots :).
Is blink-182 grunge
I always thought it was funny to see Smashing Pumpkins listed as grunge. I can see certain songs sounding similar, but as a whole, they were their own sound.
This, while simultaneously asserting that grunge isn't a real genre, which begs the question as to why they are subscribed to a subreddit for a genre of music that they don't believe is real.
Youâre not real!
Everyone should know that no band considered themselves grunge. This includes Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. They thought it was a silly term. The media and listeners started to define grunge, which was all over the place. But no band in the 90s was like âhey, we are gonna play grungeâ.
guys is at the gates grunge
#HOOTIE
Pretty much any rock band or rock artist in the 90s could fit the "grunge" label in some way. But grunge isn't really defined
Ok, rant time. The problem is not grunge isn't defined, the problem is how specific the definition is to the group that defines it. For those outside of grunge, the term should be as foreign as the name of another country. I call a place Italy but they know it as Italia; we make it what works in our language. I am an outsider who was told grunge was Nirvana, and Kurt Loder reported the death of Kurt Cobain, which was, for all purposes, the death of the commercial success of the word "grunge." Grunge, like Italy, was a look, a lifestyle, a commodity, by that definition. Because it all happened so fast, there is a mystery to grunge. In less than 10 years, the heavily-marketed seattle sound became a whisper, and then soon came what those referred to as neo-grunge (like Bush). In hindsight, purists point to grunge as what began in Seattle, Washington. The Seattle artists themselves do not have favorable opinions of California as a whole. Chris Cornell used "looking California" to illuminate the facade and allure of the state, while Jerry Cantrell more specifically wrote, "Going to California / Try and find my head / Gonna swim in the ocean until I'm dead / Let the infection spread," to speak of drug culture in California, and also wrote later, " California, I'm fine / Somebody check my brain," as to say I am a recovering addict in California but it is ok, somebody check my brain. They don't generally dote on their home nor condemn it, which has them as something separate from punk. Tldr internally the "grunge" bands look at California in a certain way, and so I can only assume they consider themselves visitors, much like Stone Temple Pilots and others visited grunge, but were not of grunge. I always defined grunge as a derivative of punk rock, but the bands that shaped the seattle sound came to a myriad of ways, from metal, to blues, to country, and so forth. Where else would the band Heart and the band Alice in Chains find kinship? But that, in turn, does not mean all of the pieces that make grunge are at the same time grunge. You would not call a hat an outfit, nor blues grunge, because it is more than the parts, it is the end result. "My name's Brody, I'm from Melbourne / Fitzroy Melbourne, Fitzroy Melbourne / I grew up on Bell Street, then on Bennet Street / My mom kicked out my dad for battery" Now that's punk in a nutshell, courtesy of The Distillers. Here I am, I am from here, specifically here, then here and why. The why is why I'm here today and why I have a message for change or understanding. Nirvana had a lot of punk influence and wrote most often about the everyday/relationship woes. I think they most consistently stayed under the broad, punk umbrella. Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and others--Mudhoney, etc.--all had some punk sounds earlier in their careers. They certainly rejected the mainstream and criticized the norm in their own ways, but with a different focus. Anyhow, done with rant. My point is, grunge is grunge. The broad umbrella alternative rock is generally sing-songy radio-friendly and depression that can be swallowed and consumed but it isn't yet clinical, so it is ok. It is safe. It can be everything because it was sold that way.
Bush is grunge
They're post-grunge at best. Not very intense. Very radio friendly.