Ground Rules 2: WHEN was Post-Grunge

For today, let’s just focus on the question of “when”

I’m treating the release of the Stone Temple Pilots’ debut Core as the start of post-grunge as a genre.

First, let’s review the genre’s guidelines.

• Quiet-loud
• Inspired by Pearl Jam
• Gruffsad
• Expository lyrics
• Critically reviled
• Guitars

Core was a loud guitar rock (check) album that was eviscerated (check) for ripping off Pearl Jam (check). While “Sex Type Thing” was supposed to ironize abuse, it was so clumsily executed that some thought it was intended to be taken as straightforward while others viewed the band's claim to irony with suspicion. “Wicked Garden” has fewer pretensions, which is why we all knew what Scott Weiland meant by “run through your wicked garden” well before the line “I wanna drink from your naked fountain.” Yeesh. Expository. Check.

Also, while the album’s biggest hit “Plush” doesn’t feature the quiet-loud dynamic the genre embodied, their song “Creep” does, complete with an acoustic beginning building to a distorted electric guitar-driven chorus. This song is not as well remembered as the other three I’ve mentioned so far, but it is what I believe makes Core so seminal as a piece of post-grunge.

In addition to the dynamics of the song, Scott Weiland says the song is about “the idea of being a young person somewhere, caught between still being a kid and becoming a young man. It's that youth apathy, that second-guessing yourself, not feeling like you fit in.” In other words, you’re a teenager and that really sucks. If that doesn’t describe the general tone of post-grunge, then how about Staind singer Aaron Lewis’s appearance on a 2001 re-recording? I thought so.

Despite the apparent connection with the post-grunge that came after, a lot of people have a problem with putting STP in the P-G pile. Some people try to argue that Core was a label creation, a perversion of the band’s vision that was finally realized on the follow-up Purple. Others argue that they can’t possibly be a post-grunge band because of their influences. They were more inspired by 70’s arena-ready hard rock and metal. This statement is correct (they certainly don’t take much from 1980s hardcore or punk), but that hardly makes them out of step with grunge or post-grunge (even if the fit of their post-Purple albums into the genre isn't quite as clean).

1970s arena-ready hard rock and metal were also the principal influences for Pearl Jam and the Smashing Pumpkins and clearly played a part in Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. While bands like Mother Love Bone and Jane’s Addiction applied these influences differently than the grunge bands who followed them, they could hardly be seen as out of step with popular hard rock circa 1992. In other words, even if they weren’t exactly like the grunge bands who were hitting it big as Core came out, the argument that their music was coming out at the wrong time because of stylistic reasons strikes me as almost deliberately contrarian; their influences and style placed them at precisely the right place and time in 1992. So why make the case in the first place?

When I hear this argument, I hear mostly subtext. I think there’s more than a whiff of “well, they’re good, so they couldn’t possibly be lumped in with all this bad.” As such, the argument is less about what kind of band STP was and more about how good of a band it was. STP was good, therefore they weren’t post-grunge. The critical revulsion of Core (which, although not universal, was certainly a thing) was a mistake. Critics should have aimed their barbs at the real bad bands. Like the band (and album) that ended post-grunge.

Nickelback’s Here and Now.

Why is this the end? Aside from graduating to the land of bands whose album titles are ultimately meaningless phrases absent any context (see also: 90% of country album titles (fun game: find an album whose title is less depressing on accident than "Born Here Live Here Die Here"), there are three things that make this The End.

1.     It still sort of mattered, and by extension, they still sort of mattered. The album went gold and had a handful of singles, the last of which was released in August of 2012.

2.     It was the definitive end of the band as a going concern. I know they’ve put out albums since, but this was the last one before the optimistically titled Greatest Hits Vol. 1.

3.     This compilation also came out just one year later, coinciding with a few other noteworthy post-grunge and post-grunge-proximal best ofs.

The critics hate them (and they’re not alone). Quiet-loud dynamics feature prominently (e.g. on the single “Lullaby”). “When We Stand Together” isn’t really expository, but the abstraction is so immediately obvious that it may as well be. Grunge’s roots are pretty diffuse here, with more Mötley Crüe in a song like “Bottoms Up” than anything from Pearl Jam. Sure, you could maybe hear the faintest ringing of a song like “Deep” in the polished riffs here, but punk has been replaced with alt-metal. They’re also not as gruffsad as they’ve been in the past, embracing the optimism of their forbears Creed on “When We Stand Together.” Diverging even further from the formula are the songs that sound like Girls, Girls, Girls except Chad Kroger didn’t register that Nikki Sixx was channeling existential emptiness on it (“Bottoms Up,” “Midnight Queen,” “Gotta Get Me Some”; this will come back later). In other words, the genre fit isn’t exactly perfect. So why is the distinction less contentious than on the more obviously post-grunge Core?

Simple—it sucks.

From Benjamin Boles's review of the album:

"While cool, critically approved bands struggle to reinvent themselves each album and keep up with the trends, Nickelback sell a bazillion records and fill stadiums by making the same record over and over. Their radio-friendly post-grunge sound hasn’t been fashionable for well over a decade, but they wear that as a badge of honour [sic; Canada strikes again], spinning it as proof of their authenticity."

Because it’s not supposed to be cool (or good), it’s not a problem for Boles to call it post-grunge. It functions less as a descriptor of their sound and more as a mark of shame (or, in the case of their fans, a badge of honor).

This isn’t the only quibble I have with the review. Despite their notorious penchant for straight-up recycling songs, they’ve taken some weird swings over the years, especially on 2008’s Dark Horse. On it, there were weirdly dancy rockers like “Burn it to the Ground” and “Gotta Be Somebody” complemented with a laid-back acoustic frat rock jam called “This Afternoon.” All three are sonic abominations, but they’re at least different.

Just like the argument about Core, Boles’ review is less about the nature of the album than what its existence says about the band. Hell, he even calls their sound “radio-friendly.” For a rock band in 2011, what does that even mean? Radio was in free fall even then, and hard rock built on electric guitars was going extinct as a going concern. The phrase “radio-friendly” doesn’t mean anything about the radio. It means that it’s accessible and familiar. It means “I bet their dumbass fans will eat this shit up.”

He calls them post-grunge because they’re bad, not because they’re especially indicative of the genre’s traits. He says the band never changes because they’re always going to occupy the same cultural space, not because they never change (except for when they literally recycle songs).

This isn’t to put Boles on blast, mind you. The thesis of his review (This album changes nothing—if you like them, you’ll like it, if not, the fact that this exists is infuriating. They’re still around, though and still doing their thing) is essentially correct, which is much more than can be said for many reviews of albums the reviewer doesn’t care about. This is to say that from the beginning, post-grunge has meant “macho dumbass hard rock.” This is also to say that the answer to the “when” question is “between 1992 and 2012."

Ground Rules 1: What is Post-Grunge?

Quick—think of a rock album. Is it good? Is it more than 10 years old? If the answer to both questions is yes, it probably got an anniversary rerelease or was performed in its entirety by the surviving band members. Rock might not matter anymore, but people sure are spending a lot of time and effort making sure that people remember it. It’s not just anniversaries, either. Rock music’s memorialism is lousy with retrospectives, oral histories, and re-examinations of What Was and Never Shall Be Again, even if the answer to the question “is it good” is “not really.”

Something tells me that post-grunge isn’t going to get one. Oh, sure, individual bands will get a bit of ink. Where post-grunge is concerned, though, most of it will be “they weren’t actually post-grunge” (the subtext being “they were actually good, so they couldn’t be post-grunge,” *cough cough, Stone Temple Pilots cough*) or even “if you thought [fill in the blank] was bad, check out [even worse band].” This seems like a problem to me, and not because all these bands were bad (again, see STP), but rather because the bands and the loosely defined genre that connected them both deserve to be remembered as it was. After all, even if you didn't admire the genre's quality, you can't deny its quantity.

By my reckoning, post-grunge lasted roughly 20 years (we'll get to that later). That’s pretty impressive, no matter how you slice it. Post-grunge saw the rise and fall of britpop, ska, skatepunk, mallpunk, emo, neo-garage rock, nu metal, britpop again, emo again, blog rock, and several others who took an honest shot at crossing over into popular music as rock music’s vanguard. Hell, even Coldplay was losing steam by the time the curtain fell on the Hurr Burr Urmy.

How did post-grunge last so long? What was it about these Gloomy Gusses that made their particular brand of rock and roll the default for so long? It’s not like there weren’t challengers. Still, even as rock music’s cultural cache dwindled and major label economics imploded in the new millennium, post-grunge soldiered on as a going concern, much to the chagrin of critics and detractors. Cribbing song dynamics from the Pixies and just about everything else from Pearl Jam, arena-ready sad n’ gruff boys around the world were gruff-sad about the world, their girlfriend, or whoever “you” needed to be for two solid decades for fame and profit.

But before we answer the “how,” we need to answer the “what.” What is post-grunge?

For how many records its flagbearers sold, post-Grunge sure is a squirrelly genre. Sure, there are a few reliable markers, but it won’t be long before you start sounding like Potter Stewart talking about porn, though. Even if he did have a point—you usually know it when you see it—that’s a pretty piss-poor way of defining terms. Let’s start with my own description of the genre above:

“Cribbing song dynamics from the Pixies and just about everything else from Pearl Jam, arena-ready sad n’ gruff boys around the world were gruff-sad about the world, their girlfriend, or whoever 'you' needed to be…”

Many of the bands adopted the same “quiet-loud” song dynamics which inspired post-grunge’s forbears, especially Nirvana.

Second, the connection to Pearl Jam borders on obvious. Eddie Vedder’s, uh, intonation looms large. So does the band’s recontextualization of 70’s hard rock. The hooks and guitar acrobatics that were supposedly killed off when hair metal died found safe harbor in Ten, and if they could, many post-grunge bands did their best to pick up the torch.

Third, post-grunge was often (but not always) gruff-sad. There are plenty of vulnerable-adjacent moments in post-grunge, but it’s usually accompanied by just enough gruff to let you know they’re definitely not crying. Definitely not. You probably are. But they’re not. No way.

That said, the writers are rarely angry. The angst in post-grunge is more likely to have an air of surrender than righteous anger. This isn’t to say that the genre’s nothing but downers (interestingly, many of the genre’s more optimistic songs are more vulnerable than the sad ones), but generally, it’s not a very chipper style.

Pearl Jam’s influence combined with these feelings also determine the vocal stylings. The style is notorious for its singers’ aping of Eddie Vedder’s Hurr Burr pronunciation (see: Scott Stapp), but that’s just the beginning. An innovation on Vedderspeak shows up fairly early, with his Hurr Burr cut with some of the gravely “passing a kidney stone” manner of Kurt Cobain. Nirvana partisans will probably riot at the comparison, but the best-known of this variety is also the most notorious (at least as far as the music is concerned) post-grunge singer—Chad Kroger.

“But wait” I hear you say. “There are post-grunge singers who don’t sound like Eddie Vedder or a mix of Vedder and Kurt Cobain!” Settle down. I know. There is a third category. It’s easy to miss, since there’s hardly anything to set it apart. There are plenty of post-grunge singers who more or less sound like generic rock singers—masculine, not terribly high in terms of register (although there are exceptions), and not a ton that is all that distinctive. 3 Doors Down's Brad Arnold is an adequate vocalist, but the shadow of a southern accent is the most distinctive thing he’s got going for himself as a singer by a wide margin.

The songs themselves were often pretty expository. Post-grunge’s songwriters were usually not far away from the literal and concrete. There are some instances of singing about ideas instead of just stuff or people (especially the infamous "You" song--see Seether's "Country Song," Three Days Grace's "I Hate Everything About You" for examples), but no one’s mistaking post-grunge for R.E.M., lyrically (or in any other way, really).

Finally, notice how I described post-grunge as “cribbing” instead of “taking inspiration from.” That wasn’t a mistake. Music journalists did not like it. The Pixies were awesome, but they definitely don't benefit from this association with post-grunge. The same could be said for Pearl Jam, but many people thought of Pearl Jam as less authentic (and therefore, less cool and good) than Nirvana in the grunge pantheon, at least at the time.

Oh, and the guitars. They’re there. If they’re electric, they’re pretty loud. There’s more to it than this, but put a pin in the sound of the guitars for a moment. For now, all you need to know if that they’re definitely there.

So let’s review:

• Quiet-loud
• Inspired by Pearl Jam
• Gruffsad
• Hurr Burr Durr
• Expository lyrics
• Critically reviled
• Guitars

At a glance, that’s not a bad checklist. There are definitely some bands that don’t quite fit the bill, but these are the general guidelines I’ll be using for defining the genre.

First Things First: What is This?

I don't like books about good bands. It too easy to wax rhapsodically about how amazing (and more importantly, underappreciated) they were. Books about bad bands are way more interesting. I'll take Chuck Klosterman's hair metal memoir Fargo Rock City over Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life--a well-done if self-satisfied account of indie bands unjustly overlooked by the Great Unwashed--every day of the week and twice on Sunday (This isn't about musical taste, either--I love the Replacements more than any band Klosterman mentions).

The biggest problem with Klosterman's book is the same thing that likely led him to write it in the first place--he likes hair metal. In the end, it's difficult to give an unvarnished critical perspective on art that you like, but if he didn't like it he probably would have done what most other rock critics have done with the genre and ignore it (The only exception I know of is Andrew Beaujon's Body Piercing Saved My Life, but for all its many merits, Beaujon's outsider's look at Christian rock is still that--an outsider's look).

This is a blog about post-grunge, another kind of music most music critics dismiss. Like Fargo Rock City, this is about music I listened to when I was younger. Unlike Fargo Rock City, it's not about a kind of music I have much affection for.

This isn't an excuse to dunk on bands who are lame, though. Other people have done that well enough. No, I'm writing this because I think that post-grunge is a story worth telling. It was enormously successful and staggeringly long-lived, fighting off a myriad of challengers to the throne of "default hard rock." I may not have the secret to its success, but any musical movement as long-lived as it deserves to be chronicled.

So there you have it. That's this blog. It won't measure up the above-mentioned books, but maybe it'll answer some questions about this pseudo-genre that seemed so unkillable for so long. That said, I'm still not sure who it's for. If you like post-grunge, you'll probably think I'm being too hard on the bands I talk about. If you don't, you'll probably wonder why I'm bothering at all. Regardless, thanks for reading this far.