10 Albums That Created Grunge Music

There are many things that we can legitimately love hair metal and its ilk for, but the genre’s lyricism is not one of them. Songs of the era tended to revolve around hot chicks, fast cars, and having a blast, and while that’s absolutely a bedrock of rock ‘n’ roll, it can get a little tiresome.

Grunge tried to do something - in fact several things - different, and a key reference point is Patti Smith. Coming up in the ‘70s, she took inspiration not from the culture immediately before her - Dylan, the Beats - but from European poets like Baudelaire.

To this end she’s a far more rounded lyricist than most. On the seminal Horses, she can be relatively straightforward, on “Free Money” or “Break It Up”, or totally oblique, on “Redondo Beach” and “Horses”. Similarly, grunge stars like Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell felt able to wear their hearts totally on their sleeves singing songs of heartbreak and angst. Meanwhile, J Mascis and Billy Corgan could pen darkly twisted songs whose meaning fans puzzle over today.

Horses also features one track - “Birdland” - that lays out a sonic template for the slower parts of the Seattle sound, with a calm piano score slowly making way for waves of feedback.