alice in chains band with mike inez getty
Alice in Chains, (from left) Mike Inez, Layne Staley, Jerry Cantrell and Sean Kinney
Tucked way up in the rains-soaked greenspaces of the Pacific Northwest, Seattle is famous for its Starbucks coffee, its Seahawks and, of course, one of the biggest musical movements of the 20th century.
The Emerald City may not seem like a traditional a hotbed for music like L.A. or New York, but it’s also where Jimi Hendrix cut his teeth as a guitarist before heading overseas to launch his Experience. The Heart sisters got people all crazy for them back in the Seventies, yet it's the rise of grunge and the Sub Pop sound that set music fans into a permanent state of frenzy for the town.
With that in mind, we asked you to huck us your favorite Emerald City music picks like a fishmonger at the Pike Street Market, and these are the top-five vote-getters.
Though the comments were generally flooded with votes for a number of all-time grunge groups, Revolver readers also cast their support behind one of the Seattle’s proggiest breakthrough bands, Queensrÿche .
Indeed, leaving the ‘Rÿche off the list would be a mindcrime to many, with the long-running act having filled our thoughts with Eighties-anthemic hooks, conceptual whimsy and a sound that sometimes came off like a more a more metal-edged Pink Floyd. While balladic, the symphony-assisted “Silent Lucidity” made a heavy impression, being the band’s only U.S. Top 10 hit.
While formed in nearby Bellevue, Washington, dramatically raspy classic-era vocalist Geoff Tate and the rest of the band flew the flag for Seattle while touring with Ozzy Osbourne, Guns N’ Roses, AC/DC, Metallica and more.
Yes, they began further east in Aberdeen, Washington — somewhere near the muddy banks of Wiskhah river, they say. And, yes, before ultimately settling into the Emerald City, they found favor in Olympia’s DIY scene while partying with Bikini Kill, getting K Records tattoos and absolutely reeking of Teen Spirit deodorant. But few bands represent the way most people think about Seattle’s music scene more than Nirvana — selling over 13-million copies (and counting) of 1991 breakthrough Nevermind certainly helps cement that legacy.
Reluctant grunge icons, deceptively straightforward melodic geniuses, troubled souls… there are a number of reasons why music fans around the world continue to fixate around Kurt Cobain and his band, some 40 years after they first flung their fecal matter around Washington State.
The lighting-in-a-bottle success of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” unknowingly launched a musical revolution, further spotlighting any Sub Pop release or underground rock set at RCKNDY or the Crocodile for the next several years to come. Icons, to say the least.
Pearl Jam possesses one of the Pacific Northwest’s richest musical histories.
Without spider-webbing too deep into the lore, the path towards making smash debut album Ten included time spent in now-legendary acts like Green River, Mother Love Bone and Temple of the Dog — and those bands branch off towards equally iconic groups like Mudhoney and Soundgarden, to name just a few.
That band-to-band lineage means nothing, though, if you don’t have the chops to back it up. Instilled with a slightly more classic-rock-inspired feel, at least compared to the music of their metal-and-punk-channeling peers, Pearl Jam hits like “Even Flow” and “Alive” — led by the signature yowl of Eddie Vedder — quickly graduated the band from local clubs to arenas and stadiums. Though the catalog sometimes get super weird and experimental, they’ve stayed there ever since.
Readers had their badmotorfingers ready to start typing Soundgarden’s name the second we launched our poll last week. And, indeed, the group does exist in rarified air for music fans as one of the greatest to ever do it.
Founded in 1984, Soundgarden were there at the dawn of what would become known as the grunge scene, with the band and their contemporaries crafting songs that reflected a love of hardcore, Sabbath, Zeppelin and more — vocalist-guitarist Chris Cornell’s power-howl representing a heavy-edged evolution of Robert Plant.
Soundgarden were one of the first bands to release music through the Sub Pop label. They yielded a Grammy nomination and signed to a major label years before grunge officially broke, and then went supernova via back-to-back multi-platinum juggernauts Badmotorfinger and Superunknown. Their catalog contains progressively-twisted sludge, psychedelic gloom and the Nineties’ greatest spoon solo. Each moment more iconic than the last.
You could argue they kinda looked California. Cornell suggested sometimes that he felt pretty Minnesota. But Soundgarden are Seattle legends, through and through.
Perhaps no other band on this list conjures the feeling of a deep, emotionally punitive, gray-days downpour of a Pacific Northwest winter quite like Alice in Chains. And that musical moodiness is exactly what we love them for.
Among Seattle’s “Big 4” — this also including Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana — AIC are absolutely the darkest, an overwhelmingly ominous spirit coursing through detuned early chuggers like “Man in the Box” and “We Die Young,” while 1992’s landmark Dirt encompassed tales of wartime trauma and the band’s struggles with addiction. And yet, they also contrasted that heaviness with gorgeous, semi-acoustic explorations on their Sap and Jar of Flies EPs.
Would a list on Seattle’s greatest ever be complete without Alice in Chains? In a nutshell, the answer is a big “hell no.”
2024 BottleRock Napa Valley
2024 BottleRock Napa Valley
Pantera 1993 Getty
Pantera 1993 Getty
sepultura 1996 GETTY ROOTS
sepultura 1996 GETTY ROOTS
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