Which band started grunge

Someone sneezed, and the virus spread. Here are 10 bands who truly painted the world every shade of grunge.

Everyone in the Pacific Northwest took note. Melvins are still active today, as hard, vital and creative as ever. They appeared on early genre-defining collection Deep Six , alongside Melvins, Soundgarden and Malfunkshun.

This was punk with prog ambitions and stadium dynamics. From the git-go, Soundgarden obviously thought Seattle needed a post-punk Led Zeppelin. It was obvious via early releases Screaming Life and Ultramega OK that Soundgarden were passing through the punk club on their way to the arena. This was why Nirvana went mega—that and having as genius and hard-hitting a drummer as Grohl. Some of the most pivotal grunge releases came out 30 years ago — Temple of the Dog, Mudhoney 's Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, Pearl Jam's Ten, Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger and, of course, Nirvana's Nevermind — so we're going to look back on the beginnings of the Pacific Northwest scene to commemorate this moment in time that became so significant.

We went all the way back to the lates to highlight some of the bands that started doing things a little differently in the PNW, which ultimately ended up influencing the enormous grunge bands that we know today.

Scroll through the gallery below to see 12 pioneers of grunge. It sometimes consists of cuts that are designed to scare their mothers on purpose. Another form of rebellion. Punker's dye their hair various shades and sometimes even spray paint it.

Grunge music is really what started everything. Grunge may or may not have been a wise term to use for a delinquent youth generation. Historical perspective shows that it is best used to describe a record company phenomenon. By the early 's pop music was just plain boring!

Due to this fact generation X turned to a more alternative sound. In less than a decade, Nirvana and a handful of bands from the Seattle area had crawled out of obscurity and commandeered pop culture, rebuilding it in their own image. They pinned their hearts to their sleeves in their lyrics, they created an inclusive environment for women and others marginalized by the poofy-haired rock mainstream of the Eighties, and — taking a cue from punk rock — they did away with the artifice of rock stardom.

Their music was a hybrid of hard rock, metal and punk with a sprinkle of Neil Young here and there , which gave them a wide enough swath of flannel for each band to have its own unique snarl. Soon, bands from all over the world were getting widespread recognition after years of duking it out on indie labels. So snuggle into your best thrift-store sweater, lace up your Doc Martens and let your hair hit your shoulders, so you can properly enjoy the 50 Greatest Grunge Albums.