Many years ago, I read someone’s list of the top ten grunge albums, and I cringed to see Vitalogy by Pearl Jam at #1, En Utero by Nirvana on the list instead of Nevermind, and some really questionable anthology picks. So, as someone who was plugged into the scene and sort of in my musical prime, let me offer to you, the reading public, my sense of the ten most important (and by virtue among the 10 best, though I’m not sure many people listen to some of them) grunge albums. I have made a rule for myself that no band gets more than 2 appearances unless it includes a style-switched album like an Unplugged—I was going to go with no repeats at all, but some of the bands in the movement were just a lot more important than others.
I am also giving the most powerful album the top spot because it sort of WAS the grunge movement. I am well aware that it wasn’t, however, the originator.
So here we go.
- Temple of the Dog – Temple of the Dog
This album is almost an “honorary mention” pick because it’s more of a tribute than anything else. But it’s also the transition moment, so to speak. When Andrew Wood died, Mother Love Bone (who you’ll see later on this list) died, too. Temple of the Dog was all about remembering Andrew. It didn’t hurt that the band was Most of Mother Love Bone plus a Wood’s old roommate Chris Cornell (of Soundgarden) and Bad Radio’s vocalist, a guy named Eddie Vedder.
Still, the single “Hunger Strike” might be the best thing Cornell had anything to do with. Julie and I sing it all the time.
9. The Melvins- Houdini
Their earlier work is really more influential, but Houdini was the first album by the Melvins that really got out of Seattle and went for a serious walk in the rest of the world (thanks to Atlantic’s distribution). The Melvins are for all intents and purposes the epicenter of grunge. Kurt Cobain carried a torch for them. If you really want to understand grunge, you need to have heard the Melvins. Trust me. It’s not the same to not even know the principles.
8. Screaming Trees – Sweet Oblivion
Again, their earlier stuff was probably more indicative of the scene, but their major label debut hit right in the “sweet spot” of grunge. I think the Trees are particularly relevant because almost all the heroes of grunge have died or fallen from grace, but Mark Lanegan is still recording music. He’s the shocker dark horse vocalist from this era to still be performing in 2017.
7. Mother Love Bone – Apple
One has to think that if Andrew Wood hadn’t died, Mother Love Bone would have been in the #1 spot here, Eddie Vedder would probably still be struggling to find a project, and grunge might have been a slightly different thing. Unfortunately he’d die before their first album was released (of an overdose). Still, the spirit of grunge is clearly present in MLB. “Stardog Champion” feels like the opening salvo of the grunge assault on the heartland.
6. Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger
I have a real love/hate thing with Soundgarden. I always thought of Chris Cornell of the Puff Daddy of the grunge movement (give it up for BI… I mean Andrew!). I also thought that he got just a little too “into” himself when Superunknown was a hit (resulting in a dreadful, art-house-poser follow up). The band behind him, though, was quite good. And before Cornell got too full of himself, he was a decent vocalist. I just can’t forgive him for his selfishness and the way Audioslave was so-so but a bastardization of Rage Against the Machine. I also watched Cornell re-start “Black Hole Sun” 4 times at Lollapalooza, screaming at Kim Thayil the whole time. Thayil was, IMHO, the more important part of the band.
5. Hole – Live Through This
I am sure some would argue that this is way too high to list Hole, but I don’t think Grunge was totally a “dude” movement, and Hole could spread. It’s a mistake to think, even for a second, that “Violet” isn’t one of the very best singles to come out of the grunge era. Hole was a much better band than people give credit for due to what became of Courtney after Kurt died.T, and this album in particular is iconic because it was released right after Kurt Cobain’s death and serves, in many ways, as sort of the swansong for grunge’s prom king and queen; Courtney would go on to do more, but she was never this good again. And Kurt… well, Kurt wouldn’t do anything else, obviously, though he had demos popping up left and right like 2Pac.
- Alice in Chains – Dirt
I’m probably the biggest AiC fan you’ll run across. I have, on occasion, ranked them even higher in lists than Pearl Jam (which isn’t fair—it’d be a strictly political move). If you haven’t heard all the stuff in Music Box, though, it’s worth picking up. AiC was always the “darkest” of the grunge bands in my mind. Grunge was, in itself, rather dark, and singles like “Jeremy” and “Lithium” were all about dysfunction, but Layne Staley seemed to have the “I’m depressed, I was abused, and my life sucks” thing locked down. Jar of Flies might have been the most enjoyable of their releases, but Dirt hit the hardest. “Man in the Box” and “Would” are as good as grunge singles get.
3. *tie* Nirvana & Pearl Jam – Unplugged
I place these two side-by-side at #3 because I don’t think it is fair to claim that one or the other of them definitively said “look, this music can also be quite beautiful,” but in terms of turning the “haters” (and there really were still quite a few in spite of the popularity of the grunge movement) around, nothing served quite as well as putting Seattle’s two best on the acoustic stage.
In some ways it is quite unfair to contrast these two, as they were separated by a rather intense year of music, but that’s precisely why I think they go together. Pearl Jam’s 1992 unplugged gave MTV “pretty” versions of some of the amazing tracks on Ten. A year later Nirvana played a show that was more like Cobain and company inviting the audience into their living room, covering Bowie, the Meat Puppets, and in some outtakes even Skynard. The two bands were the yin and yang of grunge, and their acoustic performances are similarly bookends for the grunge sound but in surprisingly different ways.
- Pearl Jam – Ten
I’m just going to come right out and be elitist for a second: anyone who ranks any Pearl Jam album above Ten didn’t “get” grunge. You were either too old or too young or tried too hard to pick a darkhorse and be different. Ten is the Frampton Comes Alive of grunge. People who didn’t like the grunge movement had Ten. People who ate grunge up like it was mac and cheese had Ten. Quite literally no one… and I’m dead serious, no one… in the scene would turn their nose up at Ten.
If we were playing what-ifs, I’d say this spot—or maybe even the top spot on the list—would have gone to whatever Mother Love Bone did after Apple, but with Wood dead and gone, Eddie Vedder sure rose to the occasion. Ten is quite simply an amazing album that was mainstream, and while that might upset the ray bans, classic limited edition Chucks and ironic Ts out there, it was one of the best albums of the 90s and is essential grunge. The stuff that came after from Pearl Jam might have exhibited more polish, but they were never as essentially grunge as they were on “Alive,” “Even Flow” and “Jeremy.”
- Nirvana—Nevermind
Again, no offense to anyone who makes a grunge list and doesn’t put this album in the top spot, but you just didn’t live it. Trust me, I’m not just speaking from my own experience here. In the moment—this was it. “Smells like Teen Spirit” was the anthem. It was the recruitment video. It was the promise of what grunge meant. Even the insane music video was a love song to the grunge movement. Kurt Cobain, as I said before, was the slacker prom king of the grunge 90s. He was the guy.
Kurt Cobain was as close to John Lennon as the grunge generation had, and his depth of skill and artistry is on display all over Nevermind, from THE single of the grunge era (SLTS) to “Lithium” to songs that were never made singles at all like the haunting “Something in the Way” or surprisingly poppy but never radio played “Lounge Act.” Nothing that era could compare.