What killed 90s alternative/grunge?

The very nature of it necessitated that it be short lived as it was largely based around artists as opposed to a particular sound. If you were to try to lock it down to a specific sound the best you could really say is that it was anti-hair-metal/glam rock.

Grunge was a response to the 80s, mullet hair, mustache wearing, Trans Am driving, one man will rule the world, narcissistic, macho man attitude in music. The 1980s seemed to be a regression on equality with objectifying females and portraying the high fiving jock stud muffins as some type of ideal to strive towards.

There was an entire swath of people that didn’t identify with that image that the media and music industries of big big glam, make up, and costume rock that people just couldn’t connect to. It left them starving for some type of representation and it seen them turn away from mainstream looking for something more real that they could sink their teeth into which better represented the drought and recession climate that plagued the US and Canada.

It was the worst drought we had experienced since the 30s and interest rates were sky rocketing because of inflation and people were hit hard. Unemployment was high and the best that many people could do was slide by; so these bright pink, leather, makeup, larger than life bands screaming about Cherry Pies with 7/8s naked women dancing on poles in music videos simply did not resonate with the majority.

People got hungry for something that represented how they felt. They felt poor, they felt angry, they felt like they had no opportunities and they felt like they were misunderstood and give a world filled with crap to deal with that had so many legacy problems that none of them knew the reason for let alone firmly identified with the cause so there was a world of people that were no longer in sync with current events or the ruling elite’s agenda.

So Grunge when it came out of that North Western side of the US - it was coming from a particularly hard hit area that was loaded with poverty, unemployment, substance use issues and a serious lack of any future opportunity anywhere in sight. Combine that with the fact that for 1/2 the year its raining and cold in that area of the world and you’ve got an isolated population that is miserable and depressed. They started moving to the underground for their inspirations.

Punk largely inspired the Grunge upsurge but Punk was infused in multiple genres and sounds to create something distinct in a band by band case by case basis. Each of the big bands that were the heart of the Grunge scene erupting all had their own distinct sound. It ranged from punk, to rock, to metal. So Grunge in many ways was not able to be defined by what it was but more so by what it wasn’t and it wasn’t hair metal or glam rock.

As there was no true identifying sound for Grunge it became attached to a few bands that really made it into the mainstream. The top 3 of course are Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Nirvana - all 3 have very distinct sounds. Alice in Chains sounds more like a metal band, Pearl Jam like a rock band and Nirvana like a punk garage band. There were of course other bands that were key to the grunge movement like Green River, Screaming Trees, and Mark Arm’s various bands etc that all had varying degrees of success.

Out of the big 3 bands though, 2 of the bands front men would lose a life battle with Heroin and truly out of all of the original Grunge bands Pearl Jam was the only one to really sky rocket up into the spotlight and somehow manage to hold it together and not fall into that pit that the other grunge bands seemed destined for.

In the end, the root of Grunge came from punk and experimenting with sound. You can hear Kurt trying to stay true to that even in his last album with Nirvana where he still incorporated a lot of guitar noise into each of his song to create a calculated sound that would normally be filtered out of music - he purposefully put it there.

So from an era of experimentation where a band would just place their guitar over an amplifier and go for a beer during their set and let the guitar squeal and reverberate for 5 minutes and then pickup where the song left off - from that type of lackadaisical urgency and experimentation came a lot of noise. Noise is hard to incorporate into music and have it sound good - bands like Seether and Local H kept that noise going and they build it into their live shows….but in terms of studio albums it doesn't typically get incorporated into music anymore.

Depending on how you are defining Grunge - one could argue that it is still alive today because bands like Local H are still using guitar noise and that 70s rock vibe in their music and live shoes to this very day. If you’re referring to the Seattle Scene - the volatility, the sky rocket to fame, and the drug issues took out some of the best talent from the original bands where they quite literally had Grunge die with them. If you’re talking the absence of 80s glam then Grunge is still very alive today as the 80s never did return after Smells Like Teen Spirit put the veritable knife into the 80s hair metal - taking it out for good.

I’m no musicologist or music historian - this is only my interpretation of events at the time and how they effected the music scene. There may be other factors that I’m not accounting for but in my opinion this is a pretty good representation.