Music / Styles A–Z / Guitars · 14 of 35
Grunge
Grunge, first called the Seattle sound, came out of Washington state in the mid-1980s. It fuses punk and heavy metal, but darker than punk, slower and more dissonant.
- Where and when
- Seattle and Washington state, mid-1980s
- Tempo
- Slower than punk: "sludgy"
- Played on
- Distorted, down-tuned guitars, bass, drums, voice
- Lesson
- Guitars →
What it is
Grunge, first called the "Seattle sound", came out of Washington state in the mid-1980s, particularly Seattle and Olympia. It fuses punk and heavy metal: distorted electric guitar, bass, drums and voice, but darker than punk, slower, and with more dissonant harmony.
For the producer. Down-tuned, riff-based guitars, loud feedback and heavy, "ponderous" bass lines. Early bands would take a metal riff, slow it down, distort it and bury it in feedback. The first records were made cheaply in low-budget analogue studios, and the sound kept that roughness.
The records that made it
From the lesson Guitars, where the sources are listed · links open a search
- 1986Deep Six · A compilation on C/Z Records, called seminal.
- 1989BleachNirvana · Their debut, recorded for $606.17.
- 1991NevermindNirvana · Brought the Seattle scene to the mainstream.
Grunge in this month’s records
New releases the press we read wrote about, tagged grunge on MusicBrainz · updated with every build