Grunge Forum

I think there's a difference between copying a band you love because they sound great and inspire you vs. copying a band that was successful because you want to be a rock star

Who?

Green River was just a punk band that also included rock influences like Sabbath and KISS. I'd say Green River and Scientist came upon the same general style independently

STP (in my opinion) ripped off a genre just beginning to show promise as a road to stardom. Sure, they are talented, but they still rode the coattails of grunge to get where they are today.

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So... I'm sure someone else has pointed this out, but every single person on this site that has a band and is calling themselves "grunge" is a "Grunge rip-off".

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Essentially, yes. My own band included. Although I think when we say "grunge band" it's implied that we mean "grunge-influenced band". As there is such diversity in the music from the late 80's/early 90's that is classed as grunge that can mean a whole lot off different sounding music. Plus we "rip off" loads of other different genres of music as well as grunge. Most of the music I love the most was made in the late 60's and early 70's, those are the bands we're REALLY ripping off.

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Not really. A ripoff would be a band that copied a currently popular format in an effort to become famous... STP did just that. Kingdom Come back in the '80's sounded SO MUCH like Led Zeppelin, that when we first heard them on the radio we thought it was a new Zeppelin song. That's what STP was like.

I would like to say that the Scientists were a Mudhoney influence according to Steve... so maybe they were a Scientists ripoff...

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But it's too hard to tell when people are ripping off to be famous. Unless of course they came right out and said it, or are like Nickelback where they are talking about getting drunk and blowjobs and seem to have no knowledge of what the thing is really about like a poser, but perhaps they just were influenced. I mean if I were doing one style and something came along I liked better, I'd totally change, so I always hate the whole labeling everyone as a grunge ripoff because for all you know they could be 1) a band that honestly has influences that the other bands have that will make them sound like them (which I hear about a lot of those bands such as Silverchair and Bush because they did like the same bands so they would just happen to sound like them) 2) not trying to sound like them at all but of course it's the generation so they will rub off a little and everyone has to connect the dots with everything to the big famous thing at the time so I think that's why a lot of bands got labelled as post-grunge, because come on, Live and Collective Soul were obviously alternative bands that had the time rub off on them a tiny bit and used slight distortion so everyone jumped down their throats saying they were watered down grunge 3) they actually were another style, but then grunge came along and they realized how awesome it was and wanted to do that now instead because they actually liked it. If I were in a jazz band and then grunge came along, you better bet I'd change!

Plus, Alice in Chains did the same thing, glam first and then they were inspired by the other bands and changed, and people also say Pearl Jam ripped off grunge because they came along in 1990, Eddie wasn't from Seattle, and Stone and Jeff were kind of glammy and were in Green River and Mother Love Bone talking about being famous and playing arenas. People say Candlebox ripped of grunge WHEN THEY WERE FROM THE SAME SCENE AND STARTED THE SAME YEAR PEARL JAM DID, plus they were younger so they would have gotten their start later, I'm sorry but 1993 is NOT post-grunge. Plus their softest song was the one that got famous, so you could look at them as not even trying to be grunge, or their other stuff does sound grungey so one of the bands who got labeled stupidly because people only knew that 1 song and just went by that. So this is what makes me not take people too seriously when they say this and that band ripped off grunge, because there is NO way of knowing unless you have them saying they just wanted to make money off of it and jump on the bandwagon. You can't just assume that, but I know it's just so common that people say that because they heard it and jsut went with it and don't think twice. Plus, there are tons of bands that didn't get all the fame they deserved such as Nero's Rome, Paw, Dig, Dandelion, Greta, and Sugartooth, probably people people just passed them off and labeled them as rip offs of grunge. I felt the same passion with a lot of the bands people say ripped off grunge as I do Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, and I realize it was just that you had to be there and see these bands happening while they were happening and people just thought all these bands were rip offs because of the bad timing and patriotism to those from the scene who came first, but now that all that's over, it just seems silly to play the back and forth, this band ripped off grunge, no this band ripped off grunge. Alright there's my take on the whole thing.

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They were nicknamed 'Kindergarden' because of how quickly they switched to the grungy style they became famous for... I don't know if they were 'inspired' or just saw the change coming and rolled with it...





A lot of local bands were jealous because Mother Love Bone got picked up so quickly. They were considered sellouts, because the Seattle thing was a rebellion against corporate rock. The idea that Guns 'n' Roses and Motley Crue were 'corporate' is laughable, but that was the idea. Guns even had a Seattle veteran in Duff, but some considered him a sellout for going to L.A.




Again, jealousy was rampant. Candlebox supposedly didn't pay their dues, blah, blah, blah... Everyone felt that their band deserved to be the next big thing - funny since being anti-establishment was supposed to be the foundation... until big money was available.



I agree with what you're saying. My take on STP is they jumped on the bandwagon, as did Alice. Alice, in my opinion, was great because Jerry is phenomenally talented and Layne had the 2nd most incredible voice of that generation (Cornell was the best, Lanegan #3). STP just sounds like a junior version of Alice to me. I'll admit that I've never really listened to them in depth though. So, for the sake of arguments, I'll set aside some time this weekend to actually listen to them before I say anything else negative. I also have to say I liked Scott Weiland's stuff with Velvet Revolver (but that was more due to Slash and Duff's writing)


Ultimately, having been in Seattle at the time, I consider 'grunge' to apply only to Washington State bands... I'm biased.

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Truthfully, and I've seen STP live and I used to really love them, their first two albums are Grungy out of influence rather than originality. They heard the sound and thought it was cool and tried to emulate it. They sound more original than ever now, but nobody likes them anymore because they lost their Grunge sound. I actually really like them and their current sound, I think they're a damn good band..it just took a while for them to find their own space in the music biz.


Alice in Chains started playing low and heavy because, I'd like to think, they really weren't into the metal thing and were only playing it because it was all they really knew. I know that before I heard the Melvins and Soundgarden I had no idea that kind of sound even existed, and now they're two of the biggest influences on me (Love Battery being the third and Beck being the fourth, imagine how my stuff sounds). I think it might have been the same kind of thing with them. They were influenced, but they moved pretty quickly out of being "Kindergarden" into being who they were when Facelift came out, which was already morphing into what Dirt sounded like, according to Sean in some interview I read somewhere.

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I love STP--they're probably still in my top 5 of all time, but they have always been a reactive band. They don't set trends; they follow them. I don't hold it against them, because they wrote great songs and performed them well, often better than the people they were "imitating." I would take Core over Ten any day. But it's not just Core--Purple was their attempt at an In Utero-style, less conventional alternative rock record; Tiny Music was jumping on the Beatles Anthology bandwagon (I know of several huge Beatles fans who basically don't listen to anything beyond the early 80s but randomly have a copy of TM in their collections); No. 4 is as post-grunge as you can get. The last two albums are probably the closest they've ever come to doing "their own thing" and they were the least successful commercially and critically.

I find it funny because no one ever bashes on bands nowadays that blatantly sound exactly like the bands of today and try to emulate their style so vividly. (well maybe except for me since I hate their sound anyways)

Hmm... after carefully listening to some STP stuff (mostly "Dead and Bloated" and "Trippin' on a Hole..."), I've realized they sound less grungey than I thought they did. They don't have the "fuzzy guitars" of Nirvana or Mudhoney, and they don't have the "buzzy guitars" of Soundgarden or the "wahs" of Pearl Jam or Malfunkshun or Alice, so not sure if calling them "grunge" is really plausible. That being said, is it safe to call them "alternative rock" rip-offs?

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I just noticed they had their own unique sound, I mean grunge but within the group of grungers that don't sound much alike other than that they all sound like grunge. Somewhere along the line of listening to their music it just clicked, I think I was listening to Wicked Garden once when I was thinking that. It clicked like that with Silverchair, Bush, and also Pet Salad. Bands like that I tend to think of as extensions of the big four. They all don't sound that much like each other yet all sound like grunge.
I tend to call Smashing Pumpkins both a grunge and just alternative with grunge songs band, same with Sonic Youth, so call them whatever you want, though alternative rock is even less of a genre than grunge.

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Life isn't nearly as sacred as the appreciation of passion
Lesser Known Grunge
Good Newer Grunge
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I like STP for their first two or three albums (tiny music was weird, i liked paper heart). No 4 and shangri-la de da were generic and boring IMO. The new album is decent. It's too much in the vein of traditional classic rock though.

nah dude they're not "true grunge", but they're not "rip-offs"
Listen to Vasoline, it's pretty grunge to me

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that "Trippin" and "Vasoline" have the exact same verse melodies (only Trippin's is faster)?

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On the Alice subject, the guys were all involved with glam projects before Alice got started, they quickly started to work in other influences when they formed their new band, there's a lot of stuff from the Facelift era that still has a glam sound to it, they had just started to experiment with a heavier sound, honestly if Alice were from anywhere other than Seattle they would've just been another heavy metal band, not a 'grunge' band, I don't think they really jumped on any bandwagon, nor did Pearl Jam, they were just lumped into the sound that was known as grunge, I honestly don't think the big four grunge bands sound anything alike besides obvious things like crunchy distortion, the way they dressed and their general attitude.

I can't honestly believe someone said STP are way better than Pearl Jam, Ten alone shits on everything STP has ever made. We're they grunge ripoffs, well they quickly made two grunge sounding albums and made their money, then came out with albums with a bit of a different sound, essentially cashing in on a trend, a smart business plan if you ask me.

And honestly let's face it people, if pearl jam or soundgarden came out anywhere after 93-94 then they would've been considered post grunge bandwagon riders. It was all about the time and place

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