10 Best Grunge Guitarists

Whenever you think of the sound of grunge, it’s typically something dirty. From the first time you hear something from the Seattle boom, the great tunes are always coated with a slab of sonic mud that gives it its character. A lot of these guitarists may not have been the cream of the crop, but Kim Thayil was probably the most complex musical mind in the entire city.

The power in Soundgarden will forever be linked to Chris Cornell’s voice, but the real complexity of the band comes from Thayil, whose lead lines and riffs had a character all their own. For one thing, Thayil’s appreciation for odd time signatures led to the songs being just slightly off-kilter from the very beginning. However, the way he wove his guitar parts in between the beats made everything make sense.

While Thayil always got a dirty tone and dug into his guitar hits, his lead style also owes something to classic rock players like George Harrison. The lyrical style with which he would approach some of his lines makes it even more difficult to comprehend how he’s able to play over such a weird time signature on songs like “Outshined.” Grunge is typically defined to be a relic of the ‘90s, but Kim Thayil’s playing represented everything delightfully weird about the city of Seattle.