Remembering Grunge
This April marks the 30 th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death, a cultural moment that shook the lives of people around the globe, especially younger folks - the angsty counter-culturists for whom Nirvana and their “grunge” contemporaries provided an emotional outlet. Cobain’s death happened to coincide with the more gradual decline of the grunge era, after having enjoyed roughly five years in the mainstream, from 1990 to 1994. But its influence lived on, and still lives on. While I was a bit too young to experience grunge at its pinnacle, the “Seattle Sound” still had a profound influence on my musical taste and, for better or worse, attitude. Whether I was passively listening to it on the radio, or blasting it through the speakers of my five-CD (yes, five!) stereo, grunge followed me everywhere. But what is grunge? Though that question has been debated since the scene’s beginnings, there seems to be consensus among critics, historians, and musicians that the single, unifying charac