I feel like we don't appreciate grunge enough as a genre. Like, yeah, it's super popular, but often misunderstood. Those who dislike grunge often write it off as "big, stupid, American rock" which is kinda fair with how oversaturated grunge becomes after the 2000s. But it was never meant to be that way. When Nirvana first started, they were just making their own form of punk music, which just happened to become really popular. They were never trying to be the next big thing. Even the label "grunge" was thrust upon them by the media, and was disliked by most grunge bands at the time. And while a lot of more modern grunge sounds pretty samesy, I think the progenitors of the genre had some interesting distinctions.
Take Nirvana for example. While they are the most popular and iconic band from this movement, they arguably had the least mainstream sound. Most of their songs sound messy and abrasive, and their lyrics are difficult to understand, both in terms of the actual words being said, and what they actually mean. And while Kurt only barely knew how to play guitar, most of his riffs are pretty complicated, using chords that would be more at home in jazz than rock (not that that was on purpose). Plus, Nirvana was a band that wore their influences on their sleeves.
Then in comparison, you have Pearl Jam. They arguably had a more mainstream sound, and lyrics that are much easier to comprehend than many of their peers. But this also meant it was easier to understand what they mean in their songs. While grunge was inherently political, being an offshoot of punk, Pearl Jam really wore those politics on their sleeves. Most people have no idea what Smells like Teen Spirits means (me included), but it's pretty hard to miss the meaning of songs like Even Flow and Glorified G when you read the lyrics (Even Flow being about the struggles of homelessness and Glorified G being about men who use guns, even pellet guns, as a shield to hide the fragility of their masculinity).
Originally, grunge was a respectable artistic movement that spoke to a generation. It's when you get into post grunge that it truly becomes the commercial, samesy cash cow of a genre that people know it as. Take a band like Stone Temple Pilots. Already, the name is literally just three random words strung together in a way that, admittedly, sounds pretty cool. They commercialized grunge, making it into a form of arena rock. And to be clear there's nothing wrong with liking this form of grunge. The music itself is pretty good, even if it's just a watered down form of what grunge once was.
Then you get to post 2000, butt rock grunge, with bands like Three Doors Down and Nickelback. This is what I think many people who dislike grunge imagine when they think of grunge. This is a form of grunge fully throws out the thin veneer of poeticism that post grunge held on to and replaces it with toxic masculinity and military propaganda. And once again, I will be fair and say that there is nothing necessarily wrong with liking this music (please recognize the propaganda though). I am not immune to liking Kryptonite by Three Doors Down.
I don't exactly know what my point is here. Grunge isn't really a genre that needs defending, but it still gets frustrating when people just treat grunge like samesy commercial rock when it was never meant to be that.
