10 Amazing '90s Bands That Everyone Forgot About

A lot of people tend to forget that grunge was supposed to be a sort of DIY operation before it took over the world. These guys weren't looking to be the next Beatles or anything, and the folks at Sub Pop Records were originally looking to just promote their local scene, printing out their own flyers and making something a lot more artsy than what the genre ultimately became. This was as punk rock as it gets, and no one in the scene personified that kind of aesthetic quite like Mudhoney.

For as much respect as they get these days among the grunge faithful, Mudhoney did everything they could to make sure that they had the right amount of fame that they wanted, with Mark Arm even breaking up his first band Green River because they were veering towards mainstream rock and roll. This was the kind of dissonant punk that the '80s had started, and you can hear the band really trying to sound scrappy on albums like Superfuzz Bigmuff or Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. You're waiting for the entire song to either fall apart or go off the rails, and some of the best Mudhoney tracks manage to do both at the same time.

That's not to say that they didn't have some kind of impact on the mainstream, getting modest hits like Touch Me I'm Sick as well as rubbing elbows with more famous acts like Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam. We may still like to put people like Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell on a high pedestal for what they've done for grunge, but when you start to break it down, Mudhoney is what Seattle is supposed to sound like a street level.