What was the first grunge record to enter the US charts?
Alice in Chains’ 1990 album Facelift was the first so-called ‘grunge‘ record to achieve gold status in America, and a year later, Nirvana’s Nevermind completed the shifting of rock’s tectonic plates toward a new alternative re-alignment.
But if you’re seeking a true patient zero in the ‘90s grunge revolution, you might actually have to dip your toe back into the ‘80s for a moment. Among the bands that would later be remembered as the central forces of grunge rock and the ‘Seattle sound’, the first to get an album on the US Billboard charts was, of course, Soundgarden, the elder statesmen of the bunch.
When the band’s 1989 album Louder Than Love started making waves, however, no one was quite sure how to categorise it. Was Soundgarden a hard rock band in line with Guns N’ Roses (Axl Rose was a fan, after all)? Were they a metal band? A heavier breed of post-punk band? The lingo hadn’t been developed.
When the band’s guitarist Kim Thayil was directly asked how the band perceived itself in 1989, he gave a suitable response, telling the Baltimore Sun with a shrug, “I don’t know”, acknowledging the mix of alternative and hard-rock sensibilities.
“There are two distinct elements in the band,” Thayil explained, “I’m not talking about individuals. I’m talking about each of us having this serious, sincere desire to make music that’s real and powerful and affects people, which hopefully will come off like The Velvet Underground, and then there’s this other side which likes to have fun and twist people’s heads.”
There was no getting around the one comparison that would follow Soundgarden, and specifically frontman Chris Cornell, throughout the band’s existence. Led Zeppelin was there in the DNA, and it was evident, and quite appealing, on Louder Than Love, which, it should be noted, only topped out at number 108 on the Billboard. Tracks like ‘Get on the Snake’ also didn’t sound too dissimilar from some of the more serious hair metal bands of the ‘80s. What was clearly different in the Soundgarden package was an attitude and artistic intent that was light-years away from Ratt or Warrant.
“It’s funny, I think the reason there’s a crossover with us is not so much that we compromise the commercial aspects or compromise the punk rock aspects,” Thayil said, “but because of the fact that we pretty much hate rock. We like a lot of bands, but the idea of rock, the institution, is pretty silly…the fashions, the attitudes.”
Thayil didn’t know he was communicating the grunge ethos that would define the early ‘90s, but this complete rejection of tired rock ‘n’ roll clichés was central to the ‘movement’, if you want to call it that. Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam didn’t really sound all that much like one another, but they all seemed to agree that rock’s flamboyant, misogynistic, and heavily choreographed stage shows had alienated thinking people, and that a large audience was out there hoping for something better. And, as Thayil was finding out in 1989, even a lot of the fans of those hair metal bands were willing to come along for the ride if you challenged them.
“Originally, our audience was all punk rockers and guys in bands,” Thayil said, “Then, in the past year or two, we’ve been getting Army guys on leave who would drop into a club to see us. Some metal guys like us, I mean, like glam guys. [They’re saying] ‘Hey, everybody’s talking about this band. I’ll go check ‘em out’.”
