Funny that Nirvana and Pearl Jam get recommended as been akin to AIC and STP. Neither of them really did the ‘dropped D’ grunge thing at all. Nirvana were really a lo-fi Sub-Pop-sounding band, and PJ were just Mother Love Bone with a less glam rock singer All top bands obvs though!
Fair comment, but you are commenting as an insider (someone who is familiar with the music, and thus knows the minor (but significant) differences). To someone not so familiar with the genre (such as the person asking the question above) the bands mentioned have lots of similarities. For example, Scott Weiland’s vocals on Core were not a million miles away from Eddie Vedder on Ten. STP at the time had plenty of criticism for jumping on the grunge bandwagon. Then you have the fact that much of the work was from around the same time period, and you had all the common ground with grunge angst, drugs, and the reaction to pop music etc that was popular at the time.
The dropped D thing or lack of (though key to their sounds) hardly defined the bands mentioned overall (though certainly Soundgarden were associated with it).
Take a step back…..when people talk ‘grunge’ (not that the term means anything) the top 2 bands they think of will be Nirvana and Pearl Jam. I like all the bands mentioned, and I think the person asking the question might too!
I always found it interesting that Smashing Pumpkins expertly managed to avoid getting labelled as grunge, despite the all encompassing tag at the time and some of the similarities of the music up to the Siamiese Dream era. Geography was in their favour, and in retrospect they quickly moved on in ways the ‘grunge’ bands did not.
