By Michael Baginski/ From Hendrix to Heart and Brandi Carlile to the Foo Fighters, Seattle has consistently rated as one of North America’s premiere music cities. Perhaps most notably, the Pacific northwest city spawned “grunge,” the gritty sound that captured the zeitgeist of the late 1980s and early ‘90s.
Emerging early in ‘80s with bands like The Melvins and Green River, the style went mainstream with Nirvana’s 1991 album ‘Nevermind,’ which included now classic songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Come As You Are.”
Blending punk and heavy metal and infused with dark anti-establishment themes of alienation and a bleak, fatalistic attitude – Here we are now, entertain us/ I feel stupid and contagious… – Seattle bands Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and, perhaps most notably Nirvana – were at the forefront of the sound, some still producing music today.
Bumbleshoot festival
Visitors to Seattle later this summer will be able to get able to get their fill of grunge, and much more, at the bi-annual Bumbershoot music festival, described as “Seattle’s Mardi Gras… A vibrant collision of music, creativity, and culture” that features over 100 artists and “48 hours of art, sound and spectacle.”
Taking place over the Labour Day weekend (Aug. 30-31), Bumbershoot is a full-spectrum arts and music experience that encompasses everything from “punk to performance art, ballet to wrestling, pole dancing to roller skating, food to fashion, and all manner of ingenuity in between.”
Moreover, the festival “celebrates creators and innovators of all kinds, breaks stereotypes, champions a more inclusive art community and bets on the dreamers, makers and performers who call the Pacific Northwest home.”
In the meantime, here is Nirvana’s “All Apologies,” performed in late 1993 for an MTV Unplugged special, seven months before Cobain died.
Lyrics
What else should I be?
All apologies
What else should I say?
Everyone is gay
What else should I write?
I don’t have the right
What else should I be?
All apologies
In the sun, in the sun, I feel as one
In the sun, in the sun
Married, buried
I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt
Everything is my fault
I’ll take all the blame
Aqua seafoam shame
Sunburn, freezer burn
Choking on the ashes of her enemy
In the sun, in the sun, I feel as one
In the sun, in the sun
Married, buried
Married, buried
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
All in all is all we are
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