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Grunge Influence On Pop Culture

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Delivering impactful and powerful social messages has not always been as prevalent in popular music as it is today. In fact, before the 1960s, it was frowned upon for popular musicians to put political or social messages into their work. The consensus belief was that popular music should be something people listen to in order to get away from the world’s issues. Once a shift in attitude occurred, primarily due to the counterculture of the 1960s, several of the musicians we deem legendary today, like Bob Marley and John Lennon, put brutal social commentary into plenty of their material. With this being said, what better way is there to accentuate a song’s lyrical message than creating an equally impactful music video? When executed correctly, …show more content…

Grunge originated from the Seattle area in the mid-1980s and quickly became the defining cultural movement of the 1990s. The melancholy, cynical and angst-filled lyrical content shaped the American teenage zeitgeist. Grunge artists were known to express their intense feelings about what they considered to be society’s flaws. Common themes covered include depression, drug abuse and addiction, disenfranchisement, alienation, and generally negative experiences. Often times, the lyrics were introspective in order to let the listener analyze themselves as well as the issues of the world being addressed. Many critics of the genre believed that the negative imagery might be harmful to the minds of younger listeners, but this didn’t stop albums like Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten from selling millions of records. These albums are considered part of the grunge canon, as well as Soundgarden’s …show more content…

Formed in Seattle in 1984, Soundgarden is often credited with helping to mold the distinctive grunge sound with albums like Badmotorfinger and Superunknown. Chris Cornell, Soundgarden’s late lead vocalist and songwriter, dealt with personal demons that found their way into the lyrics of Superunknown. The themes of substance abuse, depression, suicide, and destruction troubled Cornell to the point that he would eventually commit suicide in 2017. Raised in a generally suburban area and going through his teens and early twenties in the 1980s, Cornell felt the full force of America’s extreme consumerist and media-obsessed culture of the time. The superficiality of the era had a major effect on those who were growing up within it and made many of them feel as though they were lumped into a purposeless generation. This sense of disenchantment with the status quo is what inspires the vast majority of Soundgarden’s lyrics, especially when it comes to “Black Hole

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