With a long playoff run by the Seattle Mariners followed by a Super Bowl-winning season by the Seattle Seahawks (!), Seattle 90s era grunge has seen an uptick in play on national television. For those unfamiliar with how these things work, in big games, when one team is doing well, the television networks will play a bit of a highlight reel of that team, set to music associated with that geographic area.
For the longest time, grunge was overtaken by Macklemore in this spot as “Can’t Hold Us” is maybe the perfect song to play as an outro before a commercial. However, Macklemore made the morally correct decision to speak out about a genocide, and now his music no longer exists in corporate America.
Seattle sports is having a moment, so we’ve heard a lot of this music in the bumpers over the past four months. The Seahawks run was so dominant that the NFL networks had to go beyond the Grunge Core Four (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains), and play The Screaming Trees and Mad Season. That’s what happens when you only trail your opponent for ONE MINUTE AND 35 SECONDS OF THE ENTIRE PLAYOFFS.
With this music getting so much play, it had me thinking about some of my favorites. I’ve never really been interested in music criticism, but I have listened to this specific type of music more than just about any other in my lifetime. My relationship with grunge is somewhat unusual, as I mostly missed it when it happened. I was around the right age, maybe a little young, but I lived in a house without MTV and was far more interested in listening to Ini Kamoze at the time. When I got into ECW, the outlaw wrestling promotion from Philadelphia, they used a lot of this music (unlicensed) on their show, which got me into it. Then, when I decided to move with my girlfriend to Washington state in 2001, I started studying it as if there would be a test upon entering the state. (There wasn’t, unfortunately.)
I’ve never really strayed far from it since. Some of that is the classic “guy who doesn’t want to listen to anything new after a certain age” syndrome, and the rest is simply that there is really nothing else like it. With that said, let’s get to the awards.
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Best Song:
“The Day I Tried to Live” – Soundgarden
Six months ago, this would not have been my winner, but sometimes you are just hit by a song in a way you never have been before, and it changes everything. That happened to me one day while snowblowing my sidewalk. This came on my playlist, and it just struck me. It ended, and I listened to it again, and then again. I finished snowblowing and went inside to make breakfast, then listened to it six more times.
One thing that kind of baffles me about Soundgarden is that people consider “Black Hole Sun” to be their best song. At their Hall of Fame induction, Jim Carrey called it their “magnum opus,” which feels correct commercially but not artistically. It’s one of those songs where the music video is so memorable that the song becomes entwined with it. It’s a fine song, but it’s much more of a mood, while “The Day I Tried to Live” is just a world unto itself.
It really is a showcase of everything this band does well. There aren’t many songs where Chris Cornell sounds better, and he really gets to flex here. There is also a balance of the instruments that is consistent throughout the album, but I like it best here. Everyone has a role to play, and it just comes together to make a perfect sound where every instrument complements the others. Honestly, it’s magic to me.
Lyrically, this is where I love this song the most because it is timelessly relatable. The idea of beginning your day with the best intentions, that today will be different from other days because you will get up and be a part of the world in the way other people are able to do, failing at that, and then hoping to try again tomorrow, is just incredibly on the nose for me. I’ve been doing it every day since this song came out, and one day, I might do it.
Also, the way Chris sings “I should have stayed in bed” belongs in a museum.
Best Supergroup:
Temple of the Dog
This is such a cheat code. You take what will become Pearl Jam, one of the greatest bands of all time, and add Chris Cornell, one of the most unique and talented singers of all time. It’s completely unfair to compare them to anything else, but I guess that’s why they call it a supergroup. If Pearl Jam was originally Mookie Blalock, then Temple of the Dog was Gary Payton. Does that work? Temple of the Dog was like if an NBA All-Star team actually tried.
I wanted to shout them out here because I said that there aren’t many songs where Chris Cornell sounds better than “The Day I Tried to Live”, and “Hunger Strike” is one of them. Eddie taking the low parts, which he’s great at, so Chris can really go nuts with the rest, is what these collabs are meant to be. All strengths, all the time. A cheat code.
“Hunger Strike” was written by Chris Cornell, who said that he didn’t really think of it as a Soundgarden song. It doesn’t seem like a Pearl Jam song either. It’s a Temple of the Dog song, and one of the best of the era. If only it had been made under better circumstances.
A quick word about Mother Love Bone
This song is really good! In a world without heroin, this band would’ve made some more really good music.
They wouldn’t have been as big as Pearl Jam, though.
Best Non-Core Four Song:
“Touch Me I’m Sick” – Mudhoney
This was seriously the hardest to pick. I wanted this pick to be somewhat original, but this is probably the right answer as a song that pretty much started it all. The perfect mix of punk, distortion and irony. It’s a fun listen, and I’m not sure there would be a Nirvana without it.
I will also accept “Nearly Lost You” by Screaming Trees in this spot.
Best Album:
In Utero – Nirvana
The answer here is probably Pearl Jam’s Ten as it is basically a perfect album, but this is my list, so I’m going with In Utero.
In Utero hurts my feelings. Nevermind is the one that changed the game, but this album feels like what Nirvana was going to be going forward, and it is a band I like much more than the one on the famous one. The world wanted Nevermind 2, and he refused to do that. Instead, he made an album about how much it sucked to do that. It replaces angst with anger, and it’s much better for it.
Kurt Cobain’s songwriting is stronger here, and there’s a lot less screaming at you. This is best on display in the opening track, “Serve the Servants”, which might be my favorite side one/track one of all time. The very first line, “Teenage angst has paid off well / Now I’m bored and old”, lets you know exactly where he’s at heading into this record, and he stays true to it.
The song also features some lyrics that have always hit hard with me. When I was 18, I came home drunk from a party, and my dad (also drunk) confronted me in the front yard, and we ended up in a bit of a scuffle. It ended with my stepmom calling the cops, and me running away. A warrant was issued, and I ended up spending a night in jail over it. (Plus, a fine.) This was so unforgivable to me that I didn’t talk to my dad for a very long time after that. A year later, when I was doing my Nirvana deep dive study for my move to Washington, I came to this song for the first time, and this bit hit me like a ton of bricks.
I tried hard to have a father
But instead, I had a dad
I just want you to know that I
Don’t hate you anymore
There is nothing I could say
That I haven’t thought before
As I’ve gone no-contact with the guy for the second time in my life for different reasons, it continues to hit.
Anyways, I’ve always felt like this album leaned more on Kurt’s admiration for R.E.M. than for The Pixies. The fact that for the album that would’ve come after this, he was planning to work with Michael Stipe and lean even more into that, like a mix of In Utero and Unplugged, is what really gets me. We were just getting started with this guy, and it really does feel like the best was yet to come.
When I think of this album, I’ll also think of that drive I made to Seattle at the end of summer in 2001. I listened to this album and Unplugged so many times that I’m surprised the relationship lasted all the way there. It was such an exciting time in my life, but also kind of scary and melancholic. With my whole life ahead of me, I guess you could say that I missed the comfort in being sad.
That line, “I miss the comfort in being sad”, is one that I can’t quite put my finger on why it resonates with me so much, but that sort of feeling is why this whole album hits so hard for me. There’s a lot of pain and anger in there, but also a lot of creativity and fun. It hits for me like few others. I wish I could say Nevermind was their best because I wish I was like you (easily amused), but I’m not, and this is my favorite.
One last thing I want to talk about is “R*pe Me”. This is an anti-r*pe song written in response to people taking “Polly”‘s meaning wrong. Of course, its meaning was also taken wrong. Still, I just think it’s kind of messy and doesn’t age well. Not the song itself, which is unfortunately catchy, but I just don’t want to hear that word 25+ times, and I imagine others feel the same. Also, if you’re writing a song to leave no question about how you feel about this nasty thing, I wish it were a bit more explicit about it and didn’t rely so much on tone. I still like it, I’m just not sure I need to hear it in 2026. Does this stop radio stations from playing it? Sometimes even more than other superior songs from this same album? Of course not. (I’m looking at you, Lithium on SiriusXM.)
Nirvana also wins the following awards:
Best MTV Unplugged
Best Politics (Kurt)
Worst Politics (tie – Krist and Dave)
Best Band:
Alice in Chains
If you think I was unfair to Pearl Jam with Best Album, get a load of this shit.
There are three things working against Pearl Jam here. Two are music-related.
First, the phrase “often imitated, never duplicated” 100% applies to them, but the first part of that phrase actively works against them. When you listen to Pearl Jam now, they don’t sound nearly as original as they are/were because of all of the imitators. If you are the reason Creed and Nickelback exist, that works against you. No matter what your feelings are on those bands.
(Highest recommendation of this Trash Theory video: Nickelback, “How You Remind Me” & The Slow Death of Grunge )
The second thing is the band’s pure longevity. Ten is one of the most important albums of all-time, and Vs. is pretty damn good too, but those are the only two I’d put firmly in the “grunge” era. Maybe you can say 1994’s Vitalogy goes in there too, but it’s a stretch. There is so much good music that comes after that, and they really don’t become Pearl Jam the best rock band in the world until after grunge was a faded memory. It seems almost disrespectful to call them the best a grunge band.
(That could probably be said about all of the Core Four. None of them ever wanted the label.)
The third thing is that Eddie Vedder is a Cubs fan from San Diego. Mike McCready does his best to keep the Seattle love, but the band is Cubs-coded. I’d love to see them live again, as those concerts are some of the favorites of my life. I don’t know if it will happen, though, as the Midwest means Wrigley Field, and Wrigley Field means that stupid World Series song. Someday that song will go all the way… to the trash!
Anyway, this part is meant to be about Alice in Chains, so let’s talk about them. The thing about grunge is that it sort of has no meaning. No two bands sound the same or have the same influences, and it’s almost more about aesthetics than anything else. Or maybe just geography. However, when I think about the word grunge and what it sounds like in my mind, I think of “Would?” or “Man in the Box”. It sounds like Jerry Cantrell’s guitar and Layne Staley’s voice. That hard rock sound that doesn’t quite fit anywhere else.
(Wikipedia is telling me it’s something called “sludge metal”. That’s not a real thing, get out of here.)
Even if “Would?” and “Man in the Box” are my most loved and grunge-feeling songs, I have to talk about “Down in a Hole”. It’s a love song that includes the line “kicking myself in the teeth,” so you know it’s good. The interplay between Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell is what makes this band tick, and that interplay is at its best with the duelling bridge on this song. Specifically, this part:
Bury me softly in this womb (oh, I wanna be inside of you)
I give this part of me for you (oh, I wanna be inside of you)
Sand rains down and here I sit (oh, I wanna be inside of you)
Holding rare flowers in a tomb, in bloom (oh, I wanna be inside)
It reminds me a bit of the Temple of the Dog song above, as Jerry Cantrell handles the melodic part and then just lets Layne cook with the second half. Layne’s voice is otherworldly all the time, but it sounds like he’s calling from the other side of the universe here. It’s awesome.
Also, it’s very funny to imagine Jerry Cantrell writing this love song for his partner and then being like, “Hey, Layne, I need you to sing ‘I wanna be inside of you’ four or five times.” Imagine if Fleetwood Mac did something like that.
Another little bit of singing that belongs in a museum is the first time Layne says “you know he aint’ gonna die” on “Rooster”.
I give them this place here because I think Layne Staley is a true 1/1 as a singer, and Cantrell is a 1/1 guitar player who is never ever boring. It’s always a pleasure to hear an Alice in Chains song.
I’ll finish this by going back to the Seahawks. Their 2025 run to the Super Bowl was one of the most dominant there has ever been, and they entered the big game as a favorite. Still, you’d expect some nerves and doubt heading into the game as a fan. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt until the team introductions. Then the Seahawks came out to “Man in the Box,” and I knew it was over at that moment. Even with Chris Pratt talking on their behalf, the vibe had been set. It was over.
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