Listen to Grunge! Exploring a Musical Genre provides an overview of this stripped-down and guitar-driven musical genre for scholars of grunge and curious novices alike, with a focus on 50 must-hear bands, albums, singers, and songs.

Listen to Grunge! Exploring a Musical Genre begins with contextual background—increasing dissatisfaction with metal and glam, burgeoning hip hop, further development of punk, and a resurgence of 1970s rock and metal—before examining the bands, albums, singers, songs, and festivals that best represent grunge music and culture. This volume is an ideal starting point for Gen Xers and millennials alike to understand the social, political, and musical circumstances that spawned the genre and provides a comprehensive list of its main practitioners and their work.



The book opens with a background and history of grunge, which contextualizes the examples covered in the must-hear music section. Listen to Grunge also examines grunge's impact on popular culture through its mainstream appeal on radio and in fashion, as well as its continuing legacy following the decline of grunge in the late 1990s. The book ends with a bibliography guiding readers toward additional resources on the topic.






Gives readers a thorough overview of artists and albums whose works came to define grunge music



Provides the reader with an understanding of how grunge came to be, who its main artists were, and why they are important to the genre



Considers grunge as both a musical and cultural phenomenon



Contextualizes the music in American history