'As a friend, as a trend, as an old memory': Popular

music, memory and power

Catherine Louise Strong

Submitted June 2008

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The AustraUan National
University.
^USTRAL/^--..^
This work contains no material which has been accepted for the award o f any other degree

or diploma in any other university, and, to the best o f my knowledge and belief, this thesis

contains no material previously published or written by other person except where due

reference is made in the text of the thesis.

Signed:

Catherine Louise Strong

I^ • I( • O ^
Date:
Acknowledgments

There are many people who have made this thesis possible. To begin with, I would like to

thank the Department o f Education, Employment and Workplace Relations for the

provision o f an A P A scholarship that sustained me through much o f the research process. 1

am also deeply appreciative o f the support provided by the Australian National University,

whether through giving me office space for so long, funding for conferences and fieldwork,

or providing opportunities for professional development through training courses, teaching

and seminars. All the staff o f the university from lecturers to administrative staff have been

important and supportive during my time as a postgrad, in particular Dr Chris Forth and Dr

Rachel Bloul in their capacity as members o f my supervisory panel.

The individuals who participated in the research by allowing me to interview them are

central to this thesis, and 1 am grateful to them for giving up their time to speak to me. 1

hope 1 have made good use o f that time.

1 would also like to thank my family—Amanda Murray, Peter Strong, Christopher Strong

and James Strong—for their incredible support and constant exhortations to 'just finish it!'.

There have been many friends and other family members who have also kept me going,

particularly Julie Enzerink and Safka. The encouragement, sympathetic ears and lunches

provided by the 'PhDivas'—particularly Emily Rose, Shanti Sumartojo, Ro Martin,

Vanessa McDermott, Kirsty McLaren, Rebecca Olson and Angela Lehmann—have also

kept me on the path to submission. 1 would furthermore like to thank Marian Sawer,

Christopher Strong and Patricia Woolcock for reading and commenting on drafts.

in
Finally, there are two individuals to whom 1 owe an enormous debt o f gratitude, and

without whom I doubt this thesis would ever have seen the light o f day. My supervisor, Dr

Alastair Greig, has been an extraordinary ally, mentor and friend, and is without doubt the

most patient man alive. M y partner, Andrew Woolcock, has given me love and support

throughout the thesis. 1 cannot put into words how much I appreciate what these two people

have done for me.

Thank you!

IV
Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between memory and popular music. In order to make

a claim for the validity o f the field, popular music studies have often focused on the

political and oppositional qualities o f such music. It is argued in the thesis that although a

form o f popular culture such as grunge presents challenges to existing power relations,

these challenges are often defused in the way grunge is remembered by the majority o f

fans. This is demonstrated through the examination of how collective memories are formed

through the media, especially in dispersed groups, in contemporary societies. The formation

o f memory in this manner does not necessarily allow the media to control these memories

or impose meaning, as memories are used to support and construct present identities. As a

result, different groups may have different requirements o f the past.

The concept o f memory is examined using the grunge musical 'movement' which was

popular during the early 1990s. While exploring the sociology o f memory, this thesis

therefore also contributes to popular music studies, as few studies have investigated grunge

in depth, or examined popular music retrospectively. The thesis uses interviews with

grunge fans and content analysis o f media articles about grunge as materials to explore the

way popular culture is remembered. The main concepts used are collective memory, as

theorised by Halbwachs and others, and Bourdieu's ideas o f power, tastes and cultural

fields. The thesis will use this context to demonstrate how gender roles can be reinscribed

in retrospect, and how the life-stories o f individuals can be used to reinforce prevailing

myths and narratives within a society. It also suggests that class operates in a similar way

through the influence that it has on tastes and lifestyles, as well as influencing what (and

who) is remembered and the form that memory takes.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 1
The structure of the thesis 3
Limits of the thesis 8
What is grunge? 11
'Grunge is Dead' 18
Conclusion 20

CHAPTER ONE: Literature Review 22

Academia and grunge 23
Popular music studies 23
Grunge, politics and commercialisation 26
Mainstream 34
'Can you fake it for just one more show?': Rock and authenticity 43
What this thesis will contribute to the study of popular music 48
Rearviewmirror: The social nature of memory 49
Collective Memory and History 53
Counter-memory, Dominant memory and Popular memory 56
What this thesis will contribute to the hterature on memory 64
Conclusion 65

CHAPTER TWO: Methodology 66

Recruitment 72
The Respondents 77
The Interview Guide 83
Analysis of Interviews 87
Subjectivity and Narratives in memory 90
Content Analysis 100
Conclusion 103

vi
CHAPTER THREE: Defining grunge in the media 105
Field theory 106
Symbolic capital 112
Media accounts of grunge 116
The construction of grunge in the NME 117
Conclusion 130

CHAPTER FOUR: Defining grunge in memory 131

Respondents' definitions of grunge 132
Geographical and temporal elements 133
Musical elements 134
Cultural Elements 144
Memory and media 151
Conclusion 157

CHAPTER FIVE: The Memory of Kurt Cobain 159

Commemoration 161
Anniversary journalism 163
'It's hard to headbang to a saint': The media characterisation of Cobain 168
'There goes my hero—he's ordinary': The account of respondents 172
Official commemoration of Cobain 184
Conclusion 188

CHAPTER SIX: Gender and grunge 189

Why do women disappear? 190
Grunge, Riot Grrrl and Gender 194
What is Riot Grrrl? 195
The disappearing women 202
'The girl you know': Memories of Courtney Love 207
'Pretty on the Inside': Female respondents and the gender equality project of grunge..218
Conclusion 222

CHAPTER SEVEN: Generation X, 'The 90s' and Youth 224

Generations 226
vii
 Generation X 229

Generation X and Grunge 234

The 90s 239

The Meaning o f Youth 242

Conclusion 254

C H A P T E R EIGHT: Class and the memory o f grunge 256

Class and popular culture 257

'He don't know what it means': The 'class' o f grunge 261

High-brow and Low-brow memory 266

Musical tastes 273

Symbolic and practical approaches 276

Historical approaches 281

Conclusion 286

CONCLUSION 288

Final words 296

Appendix A: Outline of questions for interviews 299

Appendix B: Codes used during analysis 301

References 302

vni
Table of Figures

Figure 2. 1: Method o f recruitment 73

Figure 2. 2: Current location o f respondents 75

Figure 2. 3: Location o f respondents during grunge era 76

Figure 2. 4: Age o f respondents 77

Figure 2. 5: Sex o f respondents 78

Figure 2. 6: Recruitment methods by gender 80

Figure 2. 7: Current musical involvement 81

Figure 2. 8: Attendance at live performances 82

Figure 2. 9: Current music purchasing 83

Figure 4. 1: Bands labelled as 'grunge' bands by respondents 138

Figure 4. 2: Bands excluded from 'grunge' by respondents 139

IX
INTRODUCTION

In the early 1990s a new type o f rock music emerged from the north-west o f the United

States that came to be known as 'grunge'. As someone in their mid-teens at this time, 1,

along with what seemed like every other young person in the world, was soon a fan o f

bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Hole and Stone Temple Pilots. Their sound, look and

attitude were something completely new to a girl raised on 'hits and memories' A M radio

stations in small country towns. I followed events surrounding the bands in the music press,

and came into contact with other bands and musical genres that 1 had never heard o f before,

leading to a love o f what was called 'alternative', as well as punk, heavy metal, industrial

and eventually electronic music. 1 also experienced the feeling of being a part o f something;

a realisation that if 1 loved this music because it said something about the way I was

feeling, then a hell o f a lot o f other people probably felt the same way, and that was a good

thing as far as 1 was concerned.

Ten years later (including nine years o f working part-time in a record store) when searching

for a topic for my PhD thesis, 1 realised that the music I loved so much as a teenager had

been neglected within academia. The reasons were immediately apparent. Grunge was

considered an overly-commercialised, debased form of the rock music academic's genre o f

choice, punk, and as such was dismissed as unworthy o f consideration. I also had been

initially considering punk as a field o f study, because 1 knew if 1 wanted to make a

sociological case for the benefits o f popular music (something at that stage I felt would be

required) then punk would deliver politics, community and resistance to consumerism, but

the teenage girl inside me protested that grunge was a worthy object o f study too.
While I decided grunge would be the subject o f this thesis very early in the process,

memory was not initially a major theme. At the outset, 1 hoped to examine grunge more in

terms o f identity formation (still a sub-theme o f the thesis) and the relationship between

music and emotion. However, it quickly became apparent that the amount o f time that had

elapsed since the heyday o f grunge was an important element in the data being collected,

especially since respondents' identities and emotional relationship to this music had

changed considerably over time. Theories on memory provided a path to better analysis o f

this data and a theoretical framework through which to understand the relationship between

grunge and social structures. Nevertheless, these theories did not seem to provide all that

was needed to adequately explain the place o f culture in society and its relationship to

power. This vital theoretical aspect o f the thesis was found in the work o f Pierre Bourdieu.

Therefore, within the framework o f Bourdieu's theories, the establishment o f memory as

the central way o f trying to understand popular music led to the following research

questions:

What is the relationship between popular culture, memory and power? Does a form

o f popular culture such as grunge present a challenge to the power structures in

society, and i f so, what is the outcome of this challenge?

These research questions reflect the way that this thesis is dealing with three bodies o f

work: popular music studies, memory studies and the work of Bourdieu. These are ail being

used to support a sociological argument, although one informed by other disciplines,

particularly cultural studies. Although all three are equally important to the arguments
being made, each becomes more or less central at different stages. The literature on popular
music and the literature on memory studies both require explanation and exploration, and as
such are central to Chapter One of the thesis, as well as providing the groundwork for the
exploration of the data in following chapters. While Bourdieu's theories also underpin the
entire thesis, his ideas are most explicitly dealt with during the early and closing chapters.
In the beginning, Bourdieu is brought to the foreground to establish a theoretical basis for
understanding grunge. At the end his theories on tastes are used to attempt to unify the
work on popular music and memory. The overall argument being made in this thesis is that
although a form of popular culture such as grunge may present explicit challenges to
existing social structures, these challenges can be defused as memories of grunge are
organised in a way that reinscribes the overarching power relations in society. However,
this does not occur unproblematically, nor is it accomplished completely, for fans of grunge
individually or as a group.

The structure of the thesis

As the focus on the three central bodies of work being utilised shifts through the thesis, it
also moves between different levels of analysis in terms of the respondents. The empirical
chapters expand in scope from a very close focus on the respondents' experiences with
grunge and the media to a broader examination of the relationships between grunge and
respondents' positions in the power structures of society. This allows the thesis to
incorporate some of the most central concerns of sociology, such as gender and class.

The thesis begins by situating the study of grunge within the wider field of popular music
and memory studies. Particular attention is paid to the literature that does exist on grunge,
to demonstrate how grunge is constructed by academics as an apolitical 'poor cousin' to

punk. However, it is also demonstrated here and elsewhere in the thesis that grunge did

contain both explicit political messages and a more generalised questioning about the

nature o f society and how it might be changed or improved. The success o f grunge is

considered in relation to theories o f authenticity and commercialisation, and it will be

shown that these are still central concepts in the making of value judgements about music

in academia and wider society that must be taken into consideration in order to gain a full

understanding o f how grunge has been remembered. The chapter will then close with an

examination o f how memory can be central to the reproduction or alteration o f power

relations in society, by exploring the way that individual and collective memories are

socially shaped. Memories are formed through social expectations about what should be

remembered and there are conventional forms (narratives) that such recollections take. The

sociological literature on the nature o f memory, and in particular the way certain groups

who have more power or wealth have been theorised as having greater control over

memory, will be examined in order to demonstrate the social nature o f respondents'

memories and to establish a framework for subsequent chapters.

Chapter Two details the methodology used to obtain the data used in this thesis. Given the

focus on narratives and the relationships people experience with popular culture, a

qualitative approach was determined to be the most appropriate. The majority o f the data

was collected through semi-structured interviews with people who self-identified as fans o f

grunge during the time that it was most popular (the early 1990s). Interviews were also

considered appropriate as no other published work on grunge had concentrated on the

experiences o f audiences o f this music, and interviewing these people allowed this gap to
be addressed. Respondents were mostly located in Canberra, Sydney and Perth at the time

of being interviewed, but this represented a wider spread of locations during the time of

grunge, including some respondents who did not reside in Australia at the time. In addition

to interviews, this thesis employs content analysis of media reports, both from the time of

the greatest popularity of grunge and from more recent periods. In particular, reports from

the British publication New Musical Express {NME) during the time of grunge and the

journalism focused on the 10-year anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death were utilised as

points of contrast with current accounts of respondents. Data from respondents will also be

introduced in this chapter to demonstrate how the discussion of memories played out in

interviews and to show the mechanisms through which memory is shaped by and shapes

social situations.

The following two chapters deal with the question of the nature of grunge. Chapter Three

examines grunge from the perspective of media reports at the time when the movement was

most popular. This is done firstly to provide a 'base line' (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994, 15) of

events and understandings of grunge which are, in Chapter Four, compared to respondents'

current definitions of grunge to see if these meanings have remained constant overtime.

This chapter also contains a consideration of Bourdieu's work on fields as a way of

understanding how and why grunge emerged at the time that it did. Grunge holds a

particular position within the field (in Bourdieu's sense) of popular music, and this position

can only be understood with reference to other musical forms and the time at which it

occurred. Bourdieu's theories present a way of rethinking concepts such as authenticity and

the mainstream, and introduce the idea of culture as an arena where power is situated.
In Chapter Four, data from respondents is introduced to demonstrate how their memories of

grunge have been given particular forms, and it is argued that the way respondents

remember grunge constitutes a form of collective memory. These collective memories

cannot be understood without referring to the media, as it is the media accounts discussed

in the preceding chapter that helped to shape these memories and connect this otherwise

dispersed group. It will be demonstrated that grunge is not endlessly open to interpretation,

but has a definite centre of meaning which matches up across different groups and has

remained relatively stable over time. Grunge has certain musical, cultural, temporal and

geographic meanings which have not changed significantly since the time of its popularity,

and these will be described in order to provide a base line of understanding for the

remainder of the thesis, where audience perspectives as well as media definitions are

incorporated.

In Chapter Five memory is brought further into focus as a space where power can be

challenged through an examination of how both fans and media remember Kurt Cobain and

his death. It will be demonstrated that while the memories of fans have been (necessarily)

constructed by the media, their accounts have diverged from those of the media over time.

The memories of fans and journalists differ due to the different requirements that these

groups have in how they relate to and use Cobain. This shows that although the media plays

an important role in memory construction, it does not control memory over time. Memory

can be a site of struggle and contestation, and the group that may appear to have greater

power over it (in this case the media) cannot necessarily control the memory of others.
Chapter Six continues the examination o f the connections between grunge and wider power

relations in society by concentrating on the role that women played in the grunge

movement and how their contribution has been remembered or, more often, forgotten.

Although rock music is almost completely dominated by males, there were a significant

number o f important female musicians during the time o f grunge. Both male and female

musicians saw gender equality as a worthwhile goal, and this was one o f the most

prominent political elements o f grunge. However, over time the contribution o f the female

grunge musicians has been forgotten, with the exception o f Courtney Love, who is vilified

and used as a cautionary tale. The way that women were denied a place in grunge history

suggests that memory can sometimes be used to reinforce power relations in society.

However, it is also noted that for a minority o f female respondents, grunge offered new

ways o f thinking about gender that have had ongoing effects on how these respondents

express their femininity.

Chapter Seven will examine different ways in which the period o f grunge has been framed,

specifically in relation to youth and youth culture. Grunge has often been discussed as

being the music o f 'Generation X ' or o f 'The 90s', and both of these are connected to the

notion o f youth and the position o f youth as a relatively powerless group in society.

Sociological theories that consider membership of particular generations to be an important

aspect o f inequality, as well as a type o f collective remembering, are discussed, along with

the idea that youth is no longer associated with biological age. Accounts o f respondents

suggest that they remember youth as a specific, bounded period o f their lives which they

have moved past. In doing so, they have also dismissed the questions about society that
grunge raised as being part o f an inauthentic youthful experience, thereby reinforcing the

status quo.

The final chapter o f the thesis turns to a discussion o f the relationship between class and

memory. In moving away from early work on subcultures that used class as a major

theoretical framework, more recent studies o f popular culture have suggested it can serve as

an egalitarian, classless space where youth and musical appreciation become the most

important aspects o f shared identity. This chapter argues that although a youth culture like

grunge may have appeared to be a classless space at the time, the way it is remembered

may be different depending on an individual's class position. In order to demonstrate this,

Bourdieu's concepts o f 'high-brow' and 'low-brow' tastes are extended to memory to

suggest that respondents relate to their memories in the same way as they relate to cultural

objects. Insofar as taste and the use o f culture are elements of social standing, this suggests

a new way o f theorising memory's relationship to power. However, it should be noted that

this concluding chapter is exploratory in nature, and the concepts it deals with require

further research and development that were outside the scope o f this thesis.

Limits of the thesis

The scope o f the thesis also needed to be restricted in other ways. If it was being researched

at the time o f its formation and early success, grunge may best have been understood using

theories relating to scenes (for example, see Connell and Gibson, 2003, Jipson, 1994,

Finnegan, 1989, Cohen, 1991) or subcultures. Scenes are usually described as 'situations in

which the distinctions between informal and formal music activity, and between the

activities and roles o f music audiences, producers and performers, are blurred' (Cohen,
1999, 239). While it is recognised that local scenes are embedded in global processes,

especially as 'cultural activity is increasingly important to the "branding" o f regions and

cities as markers o f difference' (Homan, 2003, 16), given that this thesis is not focused on

Seattle as such these theories were deemed to be less relevant to this study.

With regard to grunge being a subculture, since the heyday o f the Birmingham School (see

Hall and Jefferson, 1996, Hebdige, 1979) there has been much debate on the usefulness o f

the idea o f subcultures. It has been suggested that the concept o f the subculture is

fundamentally flawed as it has been centred only on the visually spectacular member of

these groups, thus disregarding differences and change within subcultures as well as

ignoring women (see Redhead, 1997, Bennett, 1999, McRobbie and Garber, 1997). More

recently the ideas o f the Birmingham School have been revisited and reconceptualised in

order to broaden their applicability and to redress some of the omissions o f the original

body o f work (for example, see Thornton, 1995, Muggleton, 2000). This has lead to a

situation where the term 'subculture' is now often used interchangeably with 'scene' and

'community' (Cohen, 1999, 239), with all o f these notions suggesting a group that is still in

some way easily identifiable and 'special'. Although these theories will be touched on

throughout this thesis, 1 will not attempt to contribute in depth to the debate. The present

study concentrates on grunge's effects as a large-scale cultural phenomenon, which 1 will

argue in Chapter One was more an inhabitant o f the mainstream than a subcultural space,

while not denying the ability o f the audience o f grunge to create their own meanings in the

way that participants in subcultures are seen to do. This conceptualisation o f grunge as

mainstream and globalised also means that the localised or Australian context o f

respondents' experiences is not a major focus o f this work.

Furthermore, as a consequence o f the choice to place the emphasis o f this thesis on the

experiences o f audiences and media reports, there has been little room for the analysis o f

grunge from the perspective o f the music industry. This would still be a fruitful and

interesting perspective to take in regards to grunge, especially considering the concern

academics and respondents display over the commercialisation of the genre. An explanation

o f the mechanisms by which grunge was marketed to a huge international audience would

also be a valuable contribution to the literature, but unfortunately the discussions in this

thesis on audiences' memories o f grunge and their connections to societal change and

reproduction do not allow for any in-depth analysis of this issue.

Finally, the music o f grunge—the sound itself—is not as central to the thesis as it might

have been. Although sociologists working on popular music have often been criticised for

not focussing enough on the role that the sound of music plays in creating meaning

(DeNora, 2003, 36) and sound in general is, in many ways, something that social scientists

are still grappling with (for example, see Attali, 1985, Shepherd, 1991 on the relationship

between the sound o f music and the organisation o f society; and Jarviluoma, 1994,

Jarviluoma and Wagstaff, 2002, Kassabian, 2002 on soundscapes and 'ubiquitous' music),

in this instance the retrospectivity o f the study made the connection between sound and the

social more difficult to map out. The connection between music/sound and memory is,

however, discussed in Chapters Two and Four.

10
What is grunge?

Before beginning with in deptii analyses of grunge and its relation to memory, it seems
necessary to provide a broad outline of the history of grunge, including an attempt to trace
its musical roots, and an account of the cultural and ideological issues associated with it. It
should be noted that this is by no means a definitive account, as it would be impossible for
such an account to be produced, given differences of opinion and the inevitable revision
that happens in the wake of a cultural phenomenon such as grunge. The consequences of
such revisions and the impact of memory will be addressed later in this thesis. This account
sketches out points that most people with an interest in grunge would recognise and
generally agree with, and which have been consistent across many different printed
accounts of grunge (for example, see Morrell, 1996, True, 2001, Cross, 2001, Huq, 2006).
However, it is necessary for the frames of references being used in this thesis to be
established early on.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to definitively describe any musical genre. Despite this,
they are central to the way popular music is organised and understood (Shuker 2001b, 149-
59). In trying to understand how we think of genres, Kirschner (1994) has identified two
streams of thought. These are 'essentialists', who believe it is possible to claim that a genre
such as grunge exists in the real world, which is a position usually taken by fans and critics,
and 'anti-essentialists', who argue such labels have no real meaning because of the infinite
possibilities for fans to apply labels in their own ways. Kirschner points out that identified
centres of culture can be described, but these are always surrounded by moving, porous,
contested borderlands. Therefore, although every fan has a different idea of what grunge is
(see Grossberg, 1992), there will be some consistency among them (as will be

demonstrated in Chapter Three).

This thesis defines grunge as a musical genre and a culture centre that existed in the late

1980s and early 1990s, with associated fashions and ideologies, as well as political and

musical alliances. The exact meaning of grunge according to media reports and respondents

to this study will be discussed in Chapters Three and Four. However, it must be noted that

there are overlaps between grunge and other genres, particularly metal, punk and alternative

(which could also be considered a meta-genre that grunge could fall under [Shuker 2001b,

150]), and at times other terms have been used to describe what 1 am referring to as grunge

(for example, Kirschner [1994] uses the term the 'hip-mainstream' to describe something

very similar to what I am defining as grunge).

Rock histories usually accept that grunge started in Seattle with the record label Sub Pop, or

at least that Sub Pop was a major player in the growth of the scene. Sub Pop was founded

in 1988 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, and was focused on releasing albums by

the heavy, guitar-based bands that were playing in Seattle at the time. The first Sub Pop

releases included Soundgarden, Mudhoney (whose lead singer, Mark Arm, is credited with

first applying the term grunge to his band's music [Cross, 1997, 88]) and Green River (a

forerunner of Pearl Jam). The label later released the first Nirvana album Bleach, before the

band signed to a major label.

The Seattle scene slowly began to attract interest over the next few years, and with the

support of Sub Pop gained the attention of music fans, music journalists and record

12
companies around the world. An important release at this time was the Deep Six

compilation (on CZ records), which included tracks by Green River, Soundgarden and

Mudhoney amongst others. This, and the growing success of these bands, attracted the

attention of a number of major labels, who began offering contracts to bands such as

Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. An important element of grunge mythology states

that these bands signed only after specifying significant artistic control over their music and

recordings. Sub Pop also took a hand in promoting their bands and the scene to a world-

wide audience, sponsoring journalists from influential UK music magazines to fly to Seattle

to cover the scene (True, 2001, 102).

The climax (in the narrative sense, the point after which everything changed) came in 1991

with the release of the Nirvana album Nevermind. The David Geffen Company (DGC), to

which Nirvana had signed, initially pressed only 40,000 copies, expecting it to be a minor

success. Instead, it sold millions of copies, and replaced Michael Jackson at No. 1 on the

Billboard charts 6 weeks after its release, an event that has been given symbolic meaning in

terms of the replacement of the 'old guard' of music and the arrival of grunge in the

mainstream. Major record companies started signing up similar bands and for a while bands

such as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and non-Seattle bands, such as Stone Temple Pilots and

Smashing Pumpkins, enjoyed much commercial success.

Musically and attitudinally, grunge was grounded in certain contemporary streams of heavy

metal, punk and 'alternative' music. By the mid-1980s. Heavy Metal had split into a

number of (almost exclusively male) distinct sub-genres (Weinstein, 2000). One of these

was hair metal (also known as pop or lite metal), which was enjoying considerable chart

13
success at this time (Harrison, 2007). Examples o f this style included bands such as Motley

Crue, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake and Guns'n'Roses. This type o f metal and grunge's

relationship to it is discussed in depth in Chapters Three and Four in order to show that

grunge took the form it did as a response to what was popular prior to its rise, in opposition

to hair metal was thrash metal, which was musically more aggressive, fast and distorted,

heavy on the bass drum in particular, with vocals growled or screamed as often as sung.

These bands eschewed the theatrical elements o f hair metal, preferring to visually match

their audience's jeans, t-shirts, and long but unstyled hair, which was everyday street wear

for a metal fan. In their lyrics, and in associated imagery such as album covers, these bands

concentrated on themes o f the occult, the abuse o f authority and power, and the darker

aspects o f life, such as alcoholism, suicide, environmental degradation, alienation,

technofear and depression. Examples of bands associated with this style include Metailica,

Slayer and Anthrax. Weinstein (2000) and other commentators (Moynihan and Sonderlind,

1998, Harrell, 1994, Friesen and Epstein, 1994, Walser, 1993) have identified further sub-

genres o f metal, but hair metal and thrash metal are the most relevant to this discussion o f

grunge as these are the ones grunge is most closely associated with (thrash) and most

oppositional to (hair).

The form o f punk most relevant to grunge is not the UK-based punk that emerged in the

1970s (most closely associated with the Sex Pistols) but the form found in the US during

the 1980s, more generally referred to as hardcore (Goldthorpe, 1992). Hardcore is not

associated with the extreme visual elements of British punk; Mohawks and bright hair

colours were not unknown, but most o f the bands preferred short or no hair and, like thrash

metal bands, wore unremarkable clothes. Musically, hardcore was brutal, unprofessional

14
and loud, with songs that were short and vocals that were an unmelodic shout. Hardcore

emphasised politics and political activism, with an emphasis on community and do-it-

yourself ( D I Y ) (Goshert, 2000), and the lyrics o f the songs often reflected these concerns.

Recognised bands o f this genre include Black Flag, Minor Threat, Fugazi and The Dead

Kennedys.

Grossman (1996-1997) and Martin (2004) trace the development o f grunge in relation to

this hardcore version o f punk (called 'post-punk' by Martin, who also describes grunge as a

subgenre o f post-punk). They both note that although participants in the hardcore scene

shared certain characteristics (for example they were more likely to be politically left wing

or radical than conservative and were more opposed to militarism), the scene became

increasingly divided over time. Divisions arose between those whose lifestyles

encompassed drinking and/ or drug taking, and 'straight edge' punks who rejected such

behaviours, sometimes militantly (see also Irwin, 1999). Musically, the hardcore scene also

developed in different directions as some bands became more melodic, and some also

became more open to influences from metal (particularly thrash metal) (Grossman, 1996-

1997). The differences in opinion in the scene led to some participants rejecting overt

political statements or conflict in favour o f introspection or more generalised expressions o f

dissatisfaction. According to these writers, it is at this point that sections o f what was

hardcore became known as grunge.

From both thrash metal and hardcore punk, grunge carried on a tradition o f equality with

the audience, grounded in the idea that anyone could start a band. Musically, grunge had a

'dirty' sound (possibly where the name grunge came from), especially in the early days

15
when low recording budgets, lack of expertise and money and a deliberate lack of

professionalism affected the recording process. The music was quite visceral, with the bass

low and guitars alternating between roaring and quiet. The form of grunge that eventually

gained commercial success also had a strong melodic aspect to it and, in general, grunge

did not question the 3-minute 'verse-chorus-verse' formula of song writing (in accordance

with punk ethos) but generally avoided virtuosic guitar solos (see McDonald (2000) for a

musicological discussion of the differences between 'alternative' and other forms of

music). Although related musically to heavy metal, stylistically grunge was a sharp and

deliberate contrast to hair metal (with the latter's over the top theatrics, virtuoso

musicianship and idol worshipping) and the other music of the late 80s that was finding

chart success. The basis for and meaning of these oppositions will be discussed further in

Chapter Three.

Lyrically, grunge was also different to other successful music of the time. It has already

been described above how grunge in part traced its lineage to a strand of hardcore punk that

was moving away from explicit political statements, and neither did it have the hedonistic

('sex, drugs and rock and roll') or apocalyptic vision of metal lyricists. When grunge dealt

with 'love' the songs tended to be about failed, boring, doomed or destructive relationships

(for example, the Pearl Jam song Black). Songs were more likely to be about more

generalised negative experiences or feelings, sung in a collective rather than individual

voice. For example, the two most successful albums of the period. Nirvana's Nevermind

and Pearl Jam's Ten, contain between them only three songs that are about romantic

relationships (and just one of these. Oceans, is in any way positive). Other songs dealt with

themes such as homelessness {Something in the Way, Even Flow), youth suicide (Jeremy),

16
drug dependency {Deep), rape {Polly) and the problems of conformity {In Bloom).

Overwhelmingly, though, the main themes of these albums are alienation and depression,

but with an ironic sneer—'just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you,'

Cobain sings on Territorial Pissings. Studies of the lyrical content in hard rock/ heavy

metal music during the i990s found that there was a decrease in sexist lyrics and an

increase in lyrics dealing with social justice issues (Sloat, 1998, Friesen and Helfrich,

1998), and the inclusion of grunge bands in these studies clearly influenced these findings.

So while the politics of grunge may not have been as overt as was sometimes the case with

punk, a political element was still evident.

Stylistically, grunge fashion was pared down, generally unremarkable street wear. The

uniform for both males and females was old (preferably torn) jeans, t-shirts (preferably with

band logos), either with another longer sleeved shirt underneath or a flannelette shirt

(preferably second-hand) over the top, and Doc Martens boots or sneakers. It began as a

very anti-consumerist movement—the less you spent on your clothes, the more credibility

(or 'coolness') you had. This was, however, one of the aspects of grunge that changed most

noticeably with time. Part of the mythology of grunge is the story of how grunge fashions

were commercialised and designer flannelette shirts appeared on catwalks in Paris and

Milan (Connell and Gibson, 2003, 114).

Attitudinally (as partly read from lyrics but seen more in statements by band members and

journalists) grunge, 'its ideology, values, politics, image and SOUND, [was] the complete

antithesis of the fundamental conservatism that flourished in the eighties' (Kirschner, 1994,

85). Tolerance and the celebration of diversity were encouraged, as can be seen at the

17
Lollapollooza tour where, alongside bands of many different musical affiliations, there

were stalls promoting women's and gay rights and anti-racism. Tolerance of difference and

support of women were dominant themes in the politics of grunge, and these will be

examined in more depth in Chapter Six. Along with this tolerance of difference came a

mistrust of authority, and a deep cynicism towards big corporations. However, this rarely

spilled over into statements against capitalism as such, only towards those who were seen

as misusing the mechanisms of capitalism. By asking questions about equality and wealth

within society issues of power became central to grunge.

'Grunge is Dead'

In the first months of 1994, Kurt Cobain was photographed wearing a t-shirt with 'Grunge

is Dead' printed on the front. After a period of extraordinary success, it was certainly dying,
,th
and it probably breathed its last as he did. Cobain's body was found in his garage on the 8

April 1994, some days after he committed suicide using a shotgun. The electrician who

found Cobain's body immediately tried to find a way to cash in on his knowledge; before

calling the police or an ambulance, he called the local radio station to give them an

'exclusive' in return for some free tickets. While many people believe grunge died at the

same time as Cobain in 1994 (DeRogatis, 2003, 56), others believe it lasted until the

demise of Soundgarden in 1997 (Shuker, 2005, 130). Regardless of the exact timing,

grunge is generally considered to have been over by the mid-to-late 1990s.

Many of the original grunge bands also self-destructed in the mid-1990s. Hole bassist

Kirsten Pfaff and Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon, among others, died of heroin

overdoses, and others had careers destroyed by the drug. Soundgarden and the Smashing
Pumpkins broke up, but only after releasing increasingly 'un-grunge' albums through the

late 1990s. Interestingly, some o f the bands that were associated with grunge, but did not

succeed commercially to the extent o f bands such as Nirvana, still exist, and are still

releasing albums with a grunge sound. These bands include Mudhoney and The Melvins,

both o f who were signed by major labels at the height o f grunge, but soon after returned to

small independent labels. Pearl Jam have continued to release albums, but their music now

bears little resemblance to grunge. They have, however, more than any other band

attempted to adhere to the grunge anti-commercial ethos, through refusing to co-operate

with typical corporate rock strategies such as releasing film clips and singles, and pursuing

commercially unviable strategies such as releasing bootleg copies o f every show played on

an North American and European tour in 2000, and an Australian tour in 2003. They also

attempted to reduce the prices o f tickets to their shows by (unsuccessfully) suing

Ticketmaster in the US over the surcharges on ticket sales (Wall, 2005).

The success of grunge is often described as heralding the crossover o f alternative into the

mainstream, and as such has had a lasting impact on the music industry. In particular,

theorists such as Kruse (2003) see grunge as being one of the catalysts that led to a

restructuring o f the mainstream music industry to allow greater inclusion of marginal

musics, and the subsequent fragmentation of the popular music audience. The influence of

the music is also still apparent. Contemporary bands such as Creed and Nickelback rely on

some o f the visual and musical aspects o f grunge in a commercial setting, while other

musical movements such as 'emo' and 'stoner rock' also make use o f some o f the

conventions o f grunge (which themselves come from a long line o f previous rock

19
movements, as described above). The type of music and the ethos of grunge continue in

other forms, as do punk and metal.

This account of grunge is necessarily broad and, as noted earlier, is not the only possible

representation of how the movement occurred or what it represented. However, it sets up a

sketch for the remainder of the thesis to work within, and throughout the following chapters

certain aspects of this picture will be given more detail. The way that this account also

conforms to certain narrative forms (for example, 'the rise and fall') will also be discussed.

It will further be shown that this account is based on both media reports from the time and

post-grunge, and on the replies of respondents, therefore stepping beyond my own

experiences with, or ideas about, grunge. This ultimately means a concentration on the most

well-known and commercially successful bands, as these were the ones most often

remembered by interviewees. The bands from Seattle that remained 'underground' and who

have not become part of the collective memory of the time are not the focus of this thesis;

however, that does not mean 1 am presenting this account as the only story to be told about

this period of time.

Conclusion

This chapter has presented an overview of the arguments that will be made in this thesis,

and has begun the discussion of what grunge is considered to be. This account will be

fleshed out considerably in Chapters Three and Four. The following chapter will give an in-

depth account of how grunge has been treated by academics in order to set the stage for the

places where the thesis addresses gaps in the literature on popular music. It gives a fuller

account of grunge than has previously been offered and in doing so offers a retrospective
20
account o f a music phenomenon, something that has rarely been done in a field that

concentrates more on the 'here and now' effects o f music. The discussion o f memory will

also begin, as an understanding o f how media can create communities of memory that are

dispersed across space (and possibly time) has become more important as culture becomes

increasingly globalised (Lipsitz, 1990). The ways that these processes are connected to

more traditional power structures in society, and the way that memory can in fact reinforce

these structures, are the main focus of this thesis.

21
CHAPTER ONE: Literature Review

This chapter serves to situate this study in the wider fields of Hterature to which it belongs.

It begins with an account of the small amount of academic writing on grunge, and places

this writing within the broader field of popular music studies. This discussion is built

around particular concepts that have been central to academic discussion of grunge,

specifically authenticity and the idea of the mainstream. Finally, it presents an examination

of the literature on memory. Grunge, in the sense that it is being used in this study, is not a

current musical form. It is therefore necessary to take into account how the responses of

interviewees are affected by being filtered through memory. This provides an opportunity

to examine the social aspects of memory and its relationship with popular culture. The

discussion here focuses on how memory can be central to the reproduction or alteration of

societal values and norms, and thereby power relations in society, by examining the way

that individual and group memories are shaped by social expectations about what should be

remembered and the forms such recollections should take.

Each section of this chapter concludes with an overview of the contributions that this thesis

will make to the literature. This thesis redresses the lack of work on grunge in general, the

failure of popular music studies to retrospectively engage with such popular music

movements, and enhances our understanding of popular culture's relationship with social

power as it is related to memory. The theories discussed in this chapter provide a starting

point to which further theoretical perspectives (such as the work of Bourdieu) will be added

in later chapters to develop the overall argument of the thesis.

22
Academia and grunge

Academic writing on grunge has, for the most part, been very negative about its effects and
impact on its audience and society more generally. It has generally focused on issues of
commercialisation and authenticity. In particular, negative attention has been focused on
the commercial success of grunge and the flow-on effect that this had in terms of bringing
other previously 'underground' musics and their commercial potential to the attention of
major labels, thereby leading to their commodification (a critique, it will be argued, that is
grounded in academics' own connection to concepts such as authenticity). Grunge has also
been criticised for not being political enough, or more specifically for not living up to the
political potential of its punk roots. All of these concepts are relevant to the idea of the
mainstream and its use in academic writing. Each of these themes will be addressed below,
but I will first present a (necessarily brief) discussion of the development of popular music
studies.

Popular music studies

The rise of popular music' in the first half of the twentieth century was intimately tied to
the development of new communication technologies. The invention of the gramophone
allowed music to be recorded, and the development of processes that allowed records to be
mass produced together with the widespread popularity of radios gave huge audiences
access to this new music. (For a full account of the early years of popular music see Wicke

' The meaning of the term 'popular' is contested, and although it can be used to refer to that which has the
largest audience, or folk culture, it is also often connected with 'debased' or mass produced culture that is
opposed to supposedly superior 'high' culture (Cans, 1974, Kassabian, 1999). Similarly, there is no definitive
meaning of'popular music', and it is often defined less in terms of how it sounds than in regards to its
commercial, social and technological characteristics (Shuker, 2005, 203).
23
[1990]. For a further account of the relationships between music and technology, see Jones

[2002]). One of the earliest and most significant sociological critiques of popular music in

this mass-produced recorded form was by Theodor Adorno. In his essay On Popular Music

(1941), Adorno is unrelentingly critical of both popular music and its audience. In

opposition to what he calls 'serious music', Adorno (1941, 311) sees popular music as

standardised and pseudo-individualised, which involves 'endowing cultural mass

production with the halo of free choice or open market on the basis of standardisation

itself. According to Adorno, the use of interchangeable, standardised songs performed by

famous bands gives consumers the impression that they are choosing what to listen to,

despite that choice being meaningless. He believes that the function of such music is to

refresh the masses in order to keep them working while also ensuring they are not presented

with different ways of thinking about the world.

Adorno's work has had a significant influence on subsequent literature dealing with popular

music. Many scholars have reacted to the elitism inherent in his work, particularly his

assumptions about the ability of the upper classes to intellectualise their leisure activities

and the comparative mindlessness of the working class. His rejection of emotional reactions

to music is associated with Enlightenment concepts of the superiority of logic and intellect,

and the denigration of emotion as feminine (and therefore weak). His rejection of embodied

responses posits the body as uncivilised and associates it with the feminine and the non-

Western. Adorno has also been criticised for equating repetition with standardisation

(Fenster and Swiss, 1999), for failing to do empirical research with the audiences he is

discussing (Green, 1999) and for not granting his audience the ability to create their own

meanings for music (see discussion of the Birmingham School below). In this way,

24
Adorno's critique of popular music mirrors (or is mirrored by) many other criticisms of
popular music in academia and wider society (for example, see Bayles, 1994, Gross, 1990).
Such critiques can be connected to power relations in society, and questions asked about
who has the ability to designate cultural items as being 'good' or 'bad'.

What makes Adorno interesting, however, is his attempt to link musical forms with the
structure of society (see DeNora, 2003). His concerns over rationalisation continue the
traditions of Weber (Turley, 2001), issues that continue to manifest themselves as concerns
over the increasing commercialisation of music which, it will be shown, are central to
discussion of grunge (for more positive applications of Adorno's ideas, see Gendron, 1986
and Scherzinger, 2005). Although 1 will argue that Bourdieu's theories are more useful in
connecting culture to society, I mention Adorno because of the shadow that his work still
casts over popular music studies, and also because there are places where the conclusions
of this thesis parallel his, even though they have been arrived at through very different
means.

The popular music that Adorno was attempting to theorise included jazz and Tin Pan Alley
songs. However, from the 1950s onwards a new form of popular music based around
guitars and centred on the newly discovered youth group of teenagers began to develop.
'Rock'n'roll', and later simply 'rock', often celebrated rebelliousness and hedonism.
Continuing Adorno's attempts to connect music to social structure (although not in the
tradition of Adorno), Grossberg (1992) sees the youth who were the first generation to
adopt rock as their own during the 1950s as being disaffected and confused by the times
they were in, as the gloom of the Cold War combined with the growth of consumerism as

25
the ' A m e r i c a n way of life' to create a disjointed outlook on the world. Rock appealed to

this generation as a strategy for engaging with the here and n o w through excess and affect.

It 'opened up the possibility of investing in the present without the necessity of a future

which transcends it' (Grossberg, 1992, 205), and gave the youth a space of their own. The

idea of art being based in authenticity was necessarily taken from older generations and

applied to rock to give it legitimacy, and was grounded in oppositional pairings such as

commercial versus independent and rock versus pop, establishing rock as more than 'mere

entertainment' (Grossberg, 1992, 206). Over time, rock, as one strand of many different

types of popular music available, developed into different sounds and genres, until grunge

emerged in the late 1980s (as described in the Introduction).

Grunge, politics and commercialisation

One of the main criticisms that has been levelled at grunge by academics, and which relates

back to the criticisms A d o m o made of popular music more generally, is that it is not

'political' enough. Commentators who note the connection between grunge and punk often

comment on g r u n g e ' s failure to continue with punk's political critique. For example,

Goshert (2000, 95) contrasts p u n k ' s ability to create community and political activity on

important issues to ' a certain, always ineffectual, benign liberal politics in the

alternative/college radio rock of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and the like.' Similarly, Shevory (1995,

32) writes that 'while 1 appreciate C o b a i n ' s music, 1 also believe that Nirvana represents a

depoliticised and domesticated version of original punk. Its melodic character subverts

punk. Moreover, the intense sadness of the music is overwhelming, robbing it of the sense

of danger that suffused early punk'. However, Shevory does acknowledge that grunge had

26
some political aspects, which he categorises under four headings: generational conflict,

independent recording, style and gender politics.

In terms of generational conflict, while pointing out the difficulties with the concept of a

'generation' (which will be discussed in more detail in Chapter Seven), Shevory (1995, 34)

claims that for the middle-class youth of Generation X 'the politics of grunge occupies an

emotional terrain in which the need for self-help devolves into the desire for self-

annihilation', positioning these youths in a place of non-action. Shevory sees grunge's

commitment to independent recording as important, as independent labels are perceived as

being closer to the audience and community than major labels. However, while independent

recording 'thus presumably challenges political power by creating alternative communities

that can be inspired and financially supported by those companies' at the same time this is

criticised as it ' m a y be a commitment as much to a liberal success ethic as to a democratic

egalitarian o n e ' (Shevory, 1995, 38). This emphasis on independent recording, which was a

feature of the early stages of grunge but was seen less at the time of the greatest success of

the genre, constructs grunge as a more marginal movement than it ultimately was.

Shevory's discussion of grunge style focuses on the coopting of grunge fashion into the

mainstream fashion world, and its subsequent decline, again with an unfavourable

comparison with punk style. Finally, Shevory discusses the gender politics of grunge and is

more positive about how, through Riot Grrrl and play with gender roles, grunge was

somewhat forward moving in promoting women in rock. Grunge and gender will be the

subject of Chapter Six of this thesis, where the effect of the gender equality project of

grunge will be examined in detail.

27
However, Shevory concludes that ultimately grunge 'softened' the musical and political

agenda of punk. This is an odd conclusion given that he had earlier identified grunge as a

combination of punk and metal, and that punk has continued as a musical form in its own

right regardless of (though not unaffected by) the success of grunge. Shevory does not

explicitly state whether he is attributing the political motives he discerns in grunge to the

audience or bands of grunge—he appears to be discussing both at once. Similar conclusions

about the relationship of grunge to punk can be found in the work of Martin (2004) and

Santiago-Lucerna (1998).^ However, the critiques that construct grunge as 'worse' than

punk are possibly relying on a misrepresentation of the politics of punk itself Phillipov

(2006, 383) argues that the political nature of punk has been overstated by academics, who

have 'continued to reiterate many of the same assumptions which characterised the initial

work in the field: assumptions about resistance, subversion and political radicalism'. In

fact, much punk either has no political message, despite academics' attempts to find one, or

is as conducive to right-wing or fascist politics as left-wing thought. Hence, using punk as

the exemplar against which to measure grunge and find it wanting misrepresents both punk

and grunge.

This approach to grunge seems to stem from a tradition in the study of popular culture that

concentrates on finding political motives and outcomes in their objects of study in order to

argue for their value (Maxwell, 2002, 109). Thinking specifically about the audience of

grunge, and the ways in which popular music studies have tried to grant audiences power,

Shevory and other writers on grunge have concentrated exclusively on the type of audience

^ Other writers compare grunge unfavourably to rap (Beebe, 2002) and progressive rock (Mazullo, 2000).
28
power that constructs audiences as consciously resisting consumers with expHcit poHtical

agendas (as discussed further below). As such, they have neglected to consider the more

everyday or affective effects o f grunge. Critiques such as this, while making an important

contribution to the literature, therefore leave unexplored other possibilities that were

contained in grunge as well as a consideration o f the impact grunge messages may have had

on audiences. This is one issue that will be explored in this thesis, not only by giving

audiences o f grunge a voice for one o f the first times but by examining the effect that

grunge had on them either 'politically' or otherwise.

Moreover, such studies tend to be overly dismissive o f the politics that grunge did contain.

In comparison with some types o f punk at some points in time, or in comparison with the

punk 'ideal type' that academics are most likely to discuss, grunge may appear less

political. However, as part o f the music mainstream it had a relatively strong political

component. Krist Novoselic, the bass player for Nirvana, has described how 'Nirvana

headlined a fundraiser opposing [proposed institutionalised discrimination against gays and

lesbians] in September 1992. We also organised a benefit in April 1993 to bring attention to

the plight o f women in the Balkan conflicts o f the time' (Novoselic, 2004, 25). Pearl Jam

singer Eddie Vedder made public statements in support of pro-abortion groups in the USA

(Wall, 2005, 96), as did L7 (Tonge, 1993). These were not the only bands taking such

actions. For example, as noted earlier, grunge lyrics had a greater tendency to contain

issues o f social concern than other types o f rock music. It is therefore inaccurate to dismiss

grunge as promoting a politics o f apathy, especially when no empirical work was done with

audiences at the time to determine what messages they were receiving from the music.

29
While not wishing to make the same mistake noted by Phillipov in studies of punk by

overemphasising the poUtics grunge contained, it is important to note that the dismissal of

grunge on the basis of its 'lack of politics' perhaps tells us more about the tastes and beliefs

of the writers w h o make these claims than provides an accurate reflection of the (possible)

messages of grunge. One aspect of grunge this thesis will examine is whether fans did see it

as having a political message and, if so, what it was. More importantly, it will also examine

what has happened to this message over time. However, 1 am not emphasising this explicit

political aspect of grunge in order to then make a claim for its worth; it simply needs to be

noted that it was not as bereft of political statements as it has sometimes been claimed. The

politics that will be the main focus in this thesis will be the less explicit political

dimensions of grunge and popular culture in general, in terms of how they help position us

in relation to the power structures in society and can either help reproduce these structures

or present opportunities to oppose them. These concepts will be developed further in

Chapters Three and Four.

Of all the articles dealing exclusively or mostly with grunge, only one uses empirical data

f r o m audiences as part of its evidence, and this is not from people who are necessarily fans

of grunge but college students who could be considered part o f ' G e n e r a t i o n X ' (Pecora and

Mazzarella, 1995). As Grossberg (1990) observes, a style cannot be defined simply through

the music, but instead 'understanding rock and roll requires asking what it gives its fans,

how it empowers them and h o w they empower it' (Grossberg, 1990, 114). Therefore it is

important to look at what the music means to its audience, even if that meaning cannot be

found in the music itself Analysis of media reports, such as those by Jones (1995) and

30
Mazzarella (1995), while valuable, are only one part of a fuller understanding of the effect

of grunge on its audience and society.

Furthermore, articles concentrating on grunge lyrics only can miss important elements of

the surrounding culture or even cues in the music itself as to how the lyrics could be read.

For example. Fish (1995) examines the artistry of Cobain's work through his lyrics, and

concludes that Cobain failed in his attempt to create his own form of art through being

absorbed into the corporate mainstream, and that this failure led to his suicide. This

argument is less than convincing because looking only at lyrics misses important aspects of

C o b a i n ' s delivery (such as an ironic tone of voice) that affect the meaning of the words,

and the sound of the music itself As Beebe (2002) argues, although Nirvana's lyrics may

seem depressing if read, this ignores the irony implied in the delivery and the empowering

sound of the music—or, as Fish's own son puts it '"His lyrics are so depressing but the

music makes you feel so g o o d . ' " (Fish, 1995, 89) (for a further critique of lyrical analysis

see McClary and Walser, 1990).

Other writers have tried to understand what grunge meant for capitalism and the place of

youth within it, and have again c o m e to pessimistic conclusions about what grunge and

alternative music have achieved. The way grunge and alternative music have become the

mainstream they were once opposed to is seen as being representative of the impossibility

of avoiding or stepping outside of capitalism and symbolising the increasing

commodification of everything in our lives. For example, it has been suggested that 'the

current state of the rock business may serve as a metaphor for a major restructuring of

capitalism...that is, the inclusion of marginal and oppositional phenomena as part of its

31
strategies of survival. ... Rather than living under the auspices of capitalism, we may be

existing in pan-capitalism,' where transgression is no longer meaningful (Santiago-

L u c e m a , 1998, 193-194).

Similarly, Weinstein (1995) looks at the use of irony among young people and in their

music. She sees grunge as punk attitude with pop musical sensibilities, looking backward to

the 'authentic' youth culture of the 1960s, which she contrasts with the supposedly

'simulated' counter-culture associated with grunge. She claims grunge fans looked back on

the 1960s with an understanding of the way things have changed and how we are trapped in

consumerism, and thus are not going to have a revolution or change the world. She

concludes that grunge was about young people feeling rebellious without really wanting to

change anything because they no longer saw change as a realistic option. While the idea

that musical forms such as grunge arise in response to socio-economic circumstance (such

as 'pan capitalism') is interesting, once again the experience of the audience themselves is

conspicuously missing from these accounts. Were the audience of grunge thinking about

the culture of the 1960s? Do they feel change is unobtainable? Weinstein also focuses much

on the idea of generational politics, as does Shevory, and this will be discussed in Chapter

Seven, where the value of discussing generations at all will be questioned.

Following f r o m this, Grossberg (2002) identifies what he sees as the major failings of

academic work on popular music and issues a challenge to people writing in the area.

Grossberg criticises academics for using their writing to defend their own musical tastes,

and points out that in many cases they (and others such as journalists writing about popular

music) are using the same ways of describing and judging music that were used in earlier

32
eras (mainly the 1960s, but in this case punk f r o m the 1970s), despite the fact that music

has changed significantly since then, along with its audiences. This allows older music to

maintain a type of hegemony that m a k e s it seem 'better' than newer music. By using this

'residual apparatus', writers are failing to understand the current politics of music, and in

particular are missing the issue of the increasing erosion of the rights of youth (Grossberg,

1993, 1990, 1992). He wonders 'whether popular music studies has not become an

exemplary field for the new century: interdisciplinary and yet with no theoretical anxieties

and no poHtical pressures' (Grossberg, 2002, 54).

The challenge he issues is to leave behind assumptions about what music should mean

based in the politics of hippies or punks, to try to leave personal tastes to the side, and to

reinvigorate the theoretical aspects of these studies. The challenge is relevant to this study,

as it appears that many of the articles written about grunge are authored by people who

have found punk to be a worthwhile musical form, perhaps during their o w n formative

years, and are then using this as a measure for grunge. Grunge is found wanting by this

measure, but in the process much of what was important or interesting about grunge is

overlooked.

In particular, the way grunge called attention to the nature of commercialisation should be

one of the most interesting elements of what was in many ways a typical rock formation.

However, it appears that instead of making grunge of greater interest to researchers, its

critique of capitalism has had the opposite effect and made its eventual (and probably

inevitable) co-optation appear more complete, but without this aspect of it being explicitly

taken into account. There is likely to be a generational effect taking place here. Rock was a

33
subject studied more often during the early days of popular music studies, and since this

time it would appear that many scholars see it as having been covered adequately by the

discussions of the music of their youth, the rock of the 1950s and 1960s and punk from the

1970s, leaving little to be worth saying about the major rock movement of the 1990s. In

addition to this generational effect, changes in the organisation of the music industry and

habits of audiences lead prominent music scholars (as well as many non-academics) to

declare the 'death' of rock in the late 1980s (for example, see Frith, 1988, Grossberg,

1992). While such claims have not held up over time (see Dettmar, 2006, Negus, 1996),

this contributed to the reduced emphasis on rock since. Also, younger popular music

scholars have tended to concentrate more on newer musical forms—particularly hip hop

and, during the 1990s, the newly formed dance scene—which, while valid and important

scenes to document, left a gap when it came to the continuing rock scene. Rock has become

an unpopular choice for studying, leaving grunge unexamined.

Mainstream

In this study grunge is seen as being part of the mainstream due to its global commercial

success and its impact on popular culture. However, in order to argue this the meaning and

uses of mainstream must first be discussed. As Thornton (1995) and others have noted,

academics, music critics and audiences have often posited the mainstream as the 'Other' to

which resistant and marginalised cultures are opposed. It is discussed in the same way as

the 'Mass Culture' that writers like Adomo were so opposed to. Despite the overwhelming

criticism of Adomo amongst writers on popular culture, the idea of an undifferentiated

mass, of consumers who mindlessly accept whatever is handed to them has survived in the

idea of the mainstream. This was initially an important factor in being able to argue for the
34
productivity and agency of consumers. The Birmingham School, which led the way in

studying consumers of culture as active participants rather than 'cultural dupes,' focused

mainly on smaller groups that were clearly oppositional, and could be identified visually

through their c o m m o n style (see Hall and Jefferson, 1996). Thus, a body of academic work

has built up around these subcultures (such as punks [Hebdige, 1979], skinheads [Clarke,

1996] and goths [Hodkinson, 2002]) that could be easily defined as separate groups with

the attributes that academics were looking for in active consumers—creativity, political

agendas and, most importantly, the ability to redefine consumer items and claim them as

their own.

Academics from the Birmingham School onwards have focused particularly on the resistant

possibilities of punk, as it is here that the most obvious and coherent anti-capitalist

statements have been made, and where practices that support such critical statements are

found (for example, see Andes, 1998, Davies, 1996, DeChaine, 1997, Goldthorpe, 1992,

Goshert, 2000, Middleton, 2002). However, possibilities for resistance are also seen in

independent record labels (Lee, 1995) and other musical styles such as rap (Lipsitz, 1994).

This resistance may be a very political anti-capitalism type, or it may be more of a

resistance to the mainstreaming and 'selling out' of artists and musical styles, and in this

form is closely linked to the rhetoric of authenticity (discussed below).

An examination of much of this literature reveals that the mainstream still features largely

as a common-sense reality. It tends sometimes to be used to refer strictly to that which is

commercially successful, in that the mainstream is directly equated to that which is selling

the most (for example, 'the largest market for musical recordings in the U.S.' [Dowd, 2004,

35
1413]) or acts associated with major labels (Hesmondhalgh, 1998). According to this

reading, grunge certainly became part of the mainstream. Alternatively, the mainstream is

not strictly defined, but is loosely connected with not only commercial success, but also

societal norms. An example is found in Halnon, who defines the mainstream as 'all that is

generally understood to be decent, civil, or sacred' (Halnon, 2004, 1) and later refers to that

which is 'anti-mainstream or anti-commercialistic' (4), the 'commercial mainstream' and

the 'conformist, image-driven mainstream' (11), suggesting the mainstream is both

connected with commercial success and less tangible qualities such as conformity. An

examination of the literature on popular music, especially in relation to rock and

subcultures, reveals the word appearing in many articles and occupying the same space as it

has for Halnon and the others quoted here; the mainstream is that which is commercial and

conformist. The less than critical, common-sense usage of this term by some academics, 1

would suggest, often leaves room for unexamined assumptions about ' g o o d ' and ' b a d '

music to creep into the field.

In an effort to understand h o w the idea of the mainstream has been used, Thornton (1995,

97) discusses h o w previous work in subcultural theory has often (uncritically) positioned

the mainstream as being either commercial mass culture or dominant bourgeois ideology,

both of which are set in opposition to subcultures, which are more often than not the subject

being studied. Thornton concludes that the mainstream should not be treated as an

empirical reality by researchers, and is more a construct that the young people in her study

employ to define themselves and their place in the world. She sees not one mainstream, but

the possibility of many mainstreams, a view which supports the ideas of Grossberg, who

36
sees a postmodern mass of different tastes that no longer has an identifiable centre: 'the

centre is a constantly floating configuration of marginality' (1987, 148).

Thornton's solution to the difficulty she observes in defining the mainstream is to assume

that there really is no mainstream apart from its existence in media texts and the minds of

consumers (especially subcultural consumers). She is in effect agreeing with Grossberg's

reading of contemporary youth culture as fragmented, but emphasises the importance of the

idea of the mainstream. It is important to academics as a foil against which the positive

qualities of the oppositional groups they are studying can be highlighted. It is even more

important to members of particular musical communities because it gives them something

to be opposed to and as such increases their sense of community, status and identity. This

maintains a modernist dualism—'us' (or the good, active consumers) versus 'the

mainstream' (the bad, passive consumers)—while masking the fact that the reality is more

complex, embracing a collection of different communities.

Because of the value judgements associated with the mainstream and the way it has been

constructed as a less worthy object of study, to date there has been relatively little work

examining what happens when music becomes commercially successful. Similarly, the

focus on extreme fans and subcultures also means few studies have been done on the

everyday use of music by people who do not belong in one of those groups (Williams,

2001, Hesmondhalgh, 2002). However, there is a growing body of work that examines the

audience of cultural forms that were once denigrated as part of the 'mass' or mainstream.

Work on 'fandom' or fans has examined the devoted audiences of cultural objects such as

37
television shows like Star Trek (Jenkins, 1992) or The X-Files (Hills, 2002) or bands like

the Beatles (Scodari, 2007, Ehrenreich et al., 1992).

The work on fandom has evolved through a number of stages to date (Gray et al., 2007).

Early work by groundbreaking writers such as Jenkins (1992) performed a similar role to

the work of the Birmingham School in making a claim for the worth of the groups under

consideration, and hence for the value in conducting research on them. Jenkins used the

work of de Certeau (1984) to show how fans were 'textual poachers' that created new

objects (such as fan fiction, songs, artwork) based on the television shows that were the

object of their affection. He refers to these groups as subcultures. However, it has been

noted by Hills (2002) that by concentrating only on very active fans, Jenkins' early work in

a way served to reinforce the dualism o f ' g o o d ' active consumers and 'bad' inactive ones,

maintaining the concept of the passive mass by omission (see also Fiske [1992] for a

similar construction o f ' a c t i v e ' fans).

However, more recent work on fan cultures has needed to take into account the way that

fan activity has increasingly become a part of everyday life for many people in Western

society. This shift came about partly from a recognition of the limits to the way fandom had

previously been defined, with its requirement o f ' a c t i v e ' participation, and partly from a

greater appreciation of the way the love of particular types of culture (such as academic text

books or opera) had been spared the dismissive label o f ' f a n d o m ' because of differing

levels of cultural capital associated with the audiences involved (Gray et al, 2007, Jenkins,

2006). As with Thornton's examination of the mainstream that found it disappearing the

closer it was examined, the idea o f ' f a n s ' as being specific groups standing in opposition to

38
' n o n - f a n s ' became harder to defend. Similarly, the concept of the ' m a s s ' was found to be a

way of classifying audiences that was useful to those working on the 'institutional' side of

culture but not a useful reflection of the practices of those audiences (Ang, 1991).

This leads us to a situation where the positive qualities that were once found by researchers

in specific, bounded groups such as f a n d o m s or subcultures are increasingly recognised in

all consumers of popular culture. For example, there has been an increase in work on

popular music that shows h o w consumers who might once have been thought of as

uncritical—that is, they do not think a lot about the ideology of where or how they buy

musical goods such as C D s or concert tickets—can still be creative in their use of what they

buy. The meanings they find in what they hear cannot be dictated to them by the producers

of these goods (Bielby, 2004). The meaning of the music purchased can be changed by the

context it is played in or h o w it is played (on a Walkman/ipod, a car stereo or a $10,000 hi-

fi), or it can be altered by having tracks skipped or putting tracks onto home-made

compilations (see Goodwin, 1990).

Academics further emphasise the agency of audiences by pointing out that even if music is

listened to as it is ' s u p p o s e d ' to be (however that may be), producers still cannot control

what the listener thinks the music means. Also, although some consumers may not be

critical of the processes of capitalism itself, this does not make them uncritical of the goods

they are buying. Music purchasers always have the option of withdrawal if they find

nothing to their liking, and this does indeed happen (Peterson and Berger, 1990).

Concordantly, the music industry is very unpredictable, with record companies unable to

determine in advance what will succeed and what will fail (as discussed earlier in relation

39
to the unexpected success of grunge). Through this consumer sovereignty and the abihty of

consumers to decide on the meaning of cuhural goods, all consumers are seen as being

capable of resisting the commodification of music (Frith, 1996, 13), regardless of whether

they buy the most extreme Death Metal the or latest Top 40 ballads (for example, see

Balliger [1999] for her discussion of how Celine Dion and Whitney Houston ballads are a

'coping mechanism' for women in Trinidad. For an interesting counter view to this, see

Zanes (2002), where he argues that sometimes not resisting but instead surrendering

agency to an idol figure may be an overlooked and underrated element of identity

formation.)

As such, the respondents in this thesis are assumed to be active, creative agents in their own

encounters with forms of popular culture such as grunge. Although they do in some ways

form a collective, especially in relation to the way they share memories of grunge, beyond

this no further claims need to be made for this meaning they are part of a subculture or any

other type of'special' group. As will be seen throughout this thesis, the respondents in this

study are constantly creating their own meanings from the materials handed to them as part

of grunge, and this creation of meaning is also occurring in relation to their own memories.

However, these activities are not unusual; they are activities that by now it might be

accepted are undertaken by all people in their encounters with popular culture (for example,

see Alters, 2007, Hill, 2002), and, it will also be demonstrated, are always undertaken in

relation to memory. So although the respondents will often be referred to as 'fans' of

grunge, this label will be used in line with the more recent work on fans as outlined by

Gray et al (2007) that sees all people who have any type of emotional connection to cultural

objects as fans, not only specific subgroups. Furthermore, in this way the respondents could

40
be conceived o f as belonging to a mainstream audience, given that the 'masses' have now

been reconceptualised as creative, active consumers.

One trend that can be noted in the literature on subcultures and fans is a continued focus on

the capacity for consumers to resist meaning suggested by those in control o f cultural

production. It is common in works in this field for an acknowledgement to be made o f the

limits o f the power o f consumers/fans/audiences and the constant struggle o f the dominated

against the dominant. For example, Ang (1991, 6) notes that the freedom o f television

audiences 'can only be seized within the parameters o f the system they had no choice but to

accept', and Jenkins (1992, 27) states that 'in one sense, that o f economic control over the

means o f production... viewers truly are "powerless and dependent" in their relationship to

the culture industries.' However, despite these caveats, little work has been carried out on

how dominant culture is reinforced (see also Frank, 1997a), although it is assumed that this

is what is happening. Therefore, in this thesis, although as stated above 1 am assuming the

agency o f fans in constructing meaning around grunge, 1 will not be concentrating solely on

the resistant qualities o f grunge, but also examining the places where social control is

reinforced. The theories o f Bourdieu, as discussed further in Chapter Three, provide an

excellent way of doing this, as his theories always emphasise the way the social subject is

encapsulated in wider social structures that always have some influence on their actions and

thoughts.

Understanding the way the idea o f the mainstream has been used is important to this thesis

because through its commercial success grunge can be seen as part o f the mainstream, and

its journey is often described as being from the underground to the mainstream. This means

41
it is implied or assumed that it is (or became) 'bad' without the real meaning of its

incorporation being examined. By thinking of grunge as mainstream music (ahhough it

must be noted that this is not necessarily how it is thought of by fans) in terms of its

commercial success and cultural impact, it can be examined without the need to lay claims

to its marginality, or rebelliousness, or oppositional status. 1 believe this will lead to a more

honest appraisal of its effects.

While acknowledging that this is often the way that the idea of the mainstream is used by

audiences and academics, there are still some cultural forms that are considerably more

commercially successful than others, and that as a result have an effect on other forms of

culture, people's memories and music history that more marginal cultural forms do not

have. Such cultural forms could be thought of as belonging to the mainstream (or a

mainstream). The success of grunge meant that in countries such as Australia most people

knew what grunge was, even if they were not fans. It affected fashions, changed the type of

music that was being produced and. as will be demonstrated in this thesis, exists in

collective memories of that particular time. In this way, grunge can also be connected to the

idea of the conformist mainstream, in that it became so successful that, to a certain extent, it

influenced what it meant to conform. The mainstream can also be said to exist in terms of

power relations, whereby some members of society have a greater ability to define success.

This aspect of the mainstream will be discussed in more detail in Chapter Four. Conceiving

of grunge as part of the mainstream for this thesis is also useful in that it removes the

pressure to find a way of defining grunge as marginal or subcultural, as tempting as it may

be to try to do this in order to make stronger claims for its political importance.

42
'Can you fake it for just one more show?'^: Rock and authenticity

Closely connected to the idea of the mainstream and questions of commercialisation is the

problematic concept of authenticity in music. It is often a taken-for-granted assumption in

the minds of fans and music critics (and some academics) that some songs, bands and

movements are more worthy of attention than others because they are perceived as being

more real, more serious and of greater merit. The importance of this narrative cannot be

understated, as it is the principal way fans of rock (as opposed to pop) determine what is

good and defend their likes and dislikes.

The concept of authenticity is relevant to this discussion of grunge as it is the authenticity

of grunge and the Seattle scene which was said to be destroyed or compromised by

commercial success, in particular, the death of Kurt Cobain has often been linked to the

pressures placed on him to live up to the ideals of authenticity demanded by his audience

and the media. Mazullo (2000) argues that what Cobain was expressing in his music no

longer represented his 'true s e l f , but was read by fans as authentic, and this contradiction

and his inability to create truly authentic music contributed to his suicide. Marcus (2000,

750), while disagreeing with Mazullo's understanding of Cobain's music, agrees that 'the

notion of authenticity, as worked through in pop music, was destructive for Cobain'. He

notes that this is partly because of the misunderstandings that can arise between an artist

and their audience. The message that Cobain thought he was sending out was not

necessarily the message that was received. As noted above, this is generally the case with

' Lyric from Smashing Pumpkins, Bullet with Butterfly Wings, from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
(1995), Virgin Records. ^^
all forms of popular culture, although it is usually portrayed as a positive reflection on

audience agency rather than a problem for the artists. This shows how powerful the concept

of authenticity is still seen as being (despite claims of writers such as Grossberg [1992] that

it is becoming less important), and this is a theme that will be touched on throughout this

thesis in order to demonstrate how grunge was constructed and understood.

Although the real/authentic is usually contrasted to the commercial/sell-out or the contrived

when guitar-based music is being discussed, in the dialogues of rock fans and critics this

realness can generally come about in three ways. First, some bands are seen as authentic

due to their status outside the commercial structures of the music industry, a status achieved

mainly by working through independent record labels, or through stepping outside the

record company structure altogether and finding other ways to make their material

available, as has recently been the case with online releases. The second form of

authenticity discussed by fans and critics is that of'artistic control'. This is where a band is

involved in the corporate side of music, usually through being signed to a major label, but

are seen as being uncorrupted by this. This method of claiming, or more often retaining

authenticity, despite an apparent capitulation to the demands of capital, was used frequently

during the grunge era. especially when many bands which had previously been on

independent labels such as SubPop were signing to major labels (Kirschner, 1994). The

third way a band or artist can be seen as authentic is through being perceived as 'truthful'.

This can be through honesty about themselves and their lives, expressing an inner truth (a

necessary criterion for 'true' art), or somehow capturing the truth of the lives of their

audience or the times, and is connected with romantic conceptions of the artist. For

example, Halnon (2004, 35) describes how bands such as Marilyn Manson or Eminem gain

44
authenticity through exposing honest, inner feelings: 'they dare to tell it the way it is, and to

expose the full truth of their selves to the audience without limitation'.

Different forms of music and different scenes also have different criteria that will make an

artist appear authentic to that particular musical form, and this can change over time. For

instance, in the early years of rock'n'roll, authenticity was gained through being able to

accurately copy the rock'n'roll sound, usually by doing cover versions of other band's

songs (Gudmundsson, nd). During the 1960s, this changed so that authenticity was more

closely related to having your own original sound, and became aligned with the 'artistic

vision' version of authenticity (Wicke, 1990). This change also served to help legitimise

rock as an art form. Rock was constructed as authentic while pop was positioned as music

made purely to make money and therefore deemed inauthentic (Weinstein, 1994, Shuker,

2001b, 8).

As popular music has become more diverse, different types of authenticity have been

associated with different genres and scenes. For example, punk bands are seen as authentic

when they minimise the gap between themselves and the audience both physically and

psychologically, by playing on a low or no stage, dressing like the audience, allowing the

audience access to them and playing in a way that requires little virtuosity, implying that

anyone could do what they are doing (Davies, 1996, DeChaine, 1997, Goshert, 2000).

Death metal bands rely on a similar aesthetic (Harrell, 1994). In feminist bands,

authenticity is gained through overt rejection of male ideals and stereotypes (Bayton, 1993).

in the dance music scene, authenticity can be gained by DJs who can read, tap into and

control the 'vibe' of a crowd (Thornton, 1995), and in rap it comes from 'street cred',

45
verifiable connections to the dangerous areas o f urban poverty where rap originated from

(Wenn, 2003). Even among tribute bands, a group that at first glance would appear to have

difficulty claiming honesty or 'realness', authenticity is established through 'levels o f

musicianship, stage presentation and motive' (Homan, 2006b, 45).

Artists can also borrow from traditions such as world or folk to gain authenticity, due partly

to the fact that the folk music o f our own and other cultures is perceived as extremely

authentic, coming (supposedly) from places unspoiled by the consumer culture that now

infringes upon everything in our society (as discussed above). This search for the unspoiled

has been going on since the advent o f rock, with this type o f authenticity previously being

found in the blues, and in working class culture (Gudmundsson, nd, Middleton, 2002). In

the grunge movement, authenticity derived from a connection to 'real' working class roots,

and also, due to its punk connections, from aesthetics that were similar to those o f their

audience and, at least in the early days, an adherence to independent recording.

Early academic writing on popular music attempted to define what made music authentic,

often using frameworks similar to those outlined above (see, for example, Landau, 1972).

However, the debate moved quickly to the question o f whether there was any such

phenomenon as authenticity in popular music—or, perhaps more to the point, whether any

music can be considered more authentic than any other. For example, Simon Frith (1987,

137) notes that good music is usually equated with authenticity but that this can be

misleading as 'what we should be examining is not how true a piece o f music is to

something else, but how it sets up the idea o f "truth" in the first place'. Another question

that academics have tried to answer is why, when rock is a form o f music that is so

46
irrevocably intertwined with the workings of capitalism, are authenticity and

commercialisation so diametrically opposed, and what does it say for the understanding of

audiences that this is so? This is very relevant to grunge (but not grunge alone), as the

commercial success of grunge bands threatened their perceived authenticity. Bands such as

Nirvana were criticised for taking actions such as signing to a major label, an act that

makes a statement about wanting to achieve commercial success, rather than remaining at

the more authentic but less profitable independent Sub Pop label.

While some theorists have argued that the relevance of authenticity has declined due to the

fragmentation of music scenes and audiences embracing postmodern irony and deliberate

inauthenticity (for example, see Goertzel, 1991, Hughes, 1992, Grossberg, 2002) others

have noted that it moves to different sites as technologies and audience understandings

change (Goodwin, 1990, Harley, 1993). Ultimately, authenticity is constructed by the

audience (Moore, 2002), but the recognition of the importance of authenticity by the forces

of capital leads increasingly to a situation where record companies try to manufacture

authenticity (Kohl, 1997, Barker and Taylor, 2007) or, as was the case with grunge, to find

a way to make money from music already granted authenticity by audiences.

Authenticity is a recurring theme throughout this thesis, and in popular music literature. In

particular, the myth of Kurt Cobain has been built around his status as a 'real' person, as

will be shown in Chapter Five. However, it became apparent that in order to understand not

only h o w authenticity was constructed but also who has the power to bestow the mantle of

authenticity on some performers and movements but not others, and also to connect these

ideas to wider society, further theoretical depth was required. Given that the notion of

47
authenticity is connected to ideas of what is considered good and bad in popular music, it

became apparent that the construction of authenticity could be further understood by

thinking of these issues as questions of taste. As such, the theories of Pierre Bourdieu will

be used in Chapter Three in an attempt to understand authenticity and also as a way to

theorise the tension between the mainstream and the marginal in popular culture.

What this thesis will contribute to the study of popular music

The study of the audiences of grunge contained in this thesis will add to the current

literature on popular music in a number of ways. First, as discussed above, it will be the

first in-depth account of grunge, and is the only research to date examining the effects of

grunge on the audience of this music. Second, while there have been many examinations of

commercially successful music, rock music has more often been discussed as an

oppositional musical form, and studies have concentrated on subgroups of rock audiences

that are most obviously 'resisting'. While not ignoring the oppositional qualities of grunge,

and assuming the ability of all consumers of popular culture to engage in resistance, this

thesis will conceive of grunge (at the time that it was encountered by most of the

respondents to this study) as a mainstream form of music. This will both add to our

understanding of the mainstream and the effects mainstream music can still have on

audiences and, by conceiving of the mainstream as space that is neither 'good' nor 'bad',

avoid the value judgements made by previous writing on grunge.

Third, and most importantly, as this study is a retrospective account of grunge, it adds a

new perspective to the literature on music, which mostly studies movements as they occur

or presents historical accounts that do not involve the recollections of fans. Recent research
48
has started to focus on aging fans of popular music, as it is becoming increasingly evident
that love of such music does not necessarily end after people reach adulthood. Studies have
emerged that examine fans' continued love of music into middle age (Kotarba, 2002, 2005),
or their continuing identification with scenes more usually associated with youth, such as
punk (for example, see Davis, 2006). However, such studies still concentrate on a more
'here and now' relationship with music. Revisiting grunge ten to fifteen years after its death
allows us to examine what lasting effects it has had on fans and also how and what they
remember. In order to do this effectively, it is necessary to develop an understanding of
how memory works. This chapter will now turn to a discussion of the literature on this
subject, and this combination of popular music studies and memory studies will form the
backbone for the discussion in following chapters.

Rearviewmirrot^: The social nature of memory

The idea of collective memory is central to this thesis. The work of theorists from Maurice
Halbwachs onwards who have examined memory and utilised the concept of collective
memory will be discussed in the following section, along with the different terminologies
that have been used to describe memory that belongs to a group of people, and the
relationships between such groups. It will be argued that the respondents who took part in
this study constitute such a collectivity in terms of their memories.

The process of remembering is a highly social phenomenon that is also intimately tied to
questions of power in society. The sociological study of this field can be traced back to

" Title of a Pearl Jam song from K? (1993), Epic.

49
Halbwachs, a student of Durkheim, who worked in the 1920s and 1930s. However, most of

the work utilising and expanding on his theories has occurred only in the last two decades.

In his groundbreaking work On Collective Memory {\992), originally published in 1924,

Halbwachs breaks away from the psychological accounts of memory which had dominated

until this point. These earlier accounts posited memory as a highly individualistic tool

whereby each person gathers recollections of what has happened to them during their

lifetime and stores them, immutable and inaccessible by others. In contrast, Halbwachs

(1992,38) argues that:

the greatest number of memories come back to us when our parent, our
friends, or other persons recall them to us...it is in society that people
normally acquire their memories. It is also in society that they recall,
recognize and localize their memories.

The way this interaction with others causes the past to be reconstructed is 'collective

memory and a social framework for memory' (Halbwachs, 1992, 38). Such recollections

serve a dual purpose, creating continuity within groups that people belong to and refining

individuals' identity and sense of self (Pleh, 2000, 435, Libby and Eibach, 2007).

Consideration of these recollections and how they bind groups together in everyday life (as

opposed to periods of upheaval or 'effervescence') adds to Durkheimian theories of social

reproduction and control (Coser, 1992). Halbwachs argues that between these periods of

'effervescence', 'collective memory acts to recreate events, for example, imaginatively re-

embodying the past within a whole topography of sanctified places' (Fowler, 2005, 55). It

also enhances individual memories through discourse, and this connects the individual

memories to the collective. Halbwachs makes the point that people rarely remember things

that are entirely individual.

50
Halbwachs (1992, 51) also argues that memory helps maintain order, because people do not

simply see themselves only as part of the group they are currently in, but also still as part of

the groups in which they have previously been. These earlier groups are now complete and

no longer restrict action but help to contribute to a stable sense of identity. The work of

Halbwachs has since been criticised for being too deterministic, in portraying people and

their memories as being constituted by external social forces and not allowing room for

agency and creativity in actors (for example, see Fentress and Wickham, 1992), as well as

for being too 'presentist' in overly privileging the needs of the present over what actually

happened in the past (Coser, 1992). However, his theories remain the starting point from

which much contemporary work on collective memories springs.

From the work of Halbwachs a field of research has arisen that asks how and why we

remember socially. This can be examined from two angles: first, how does the social nature

of memory affect the memory of individuals; and second, how do groups remember

collectively? For individuals, the way they are socialised provides them with clues as to

what is important to remember and what can be forgotten. For example, hearing the stories

of family members will teach a child what is considered a good memory story and the

correct narrative form that it should take, and they will frame their own story-telling around

this model (Skowronski and Walker, 2004). Events that are deemed worthy to become

stories and are relayed to others are more likely to be remembered, as they are revisited

more frequently than events deemed insignificant. This process does not entirely determine

what is remembered (for example, an embarrassing incident may not be repeated to others

by an individual, but will still be remembered by them) but has a strong influence on what

we remember and the form that those memories take. This social construction of individual

51
memory is further demonstrated in studies that show differences between cultures in what

is remembered by individuals about their lives and the forms these recollections take,

depending on the dominant narrative forms of each society (Nelson, 2003).

Memory can also be connected to the lived bodily experiences of individuals and groups

through the concept of habitus. Habitus is a concept Bourdieu used to attempt to bridge the

gap between structuralist and agent-based explanations of the social world. The habitus

'can be understood as the values and dispositions gained from our cultural history that

generally stay with us across contexts' (Webb et al., 2002, 36). Bourdieu conceived of it as

the way in which people's pasts were always carried with them, in that they had been

taught to view the world in a particular way and had learned the 'rules' of social life in a

particular place, a particular time, and in a specific set of social circumstances. This both

produces possibiHties and limits them, in that a person will come to feel certain responses

to situations as 'natural' and therefore may be more likely to behave in certain ways, but at

the same time they are never restricted to rote responses (Bourdieu, 1977, 72). Habitus both

creates and contains our position in society through all aspects of our being, including

physically (bodily hexis) as well as in terms of the way we think, speak, and in particular,

relate to cultural items and judge their relative value (Bourdieu, 1984, 170).

In the same way as people learn acceptable narrative forms from those around them,

through habitus other elements of their social existence 'are carried at the very level of the

body and expressed every day in and through the techniques of the body' (Narvaez, 2006,

53). Bourdieu (1977, 53) argues that through the habitus, although people's actions may

seem to be future directed, they are constituted by the past. However, it is still the place

52
where social order is maintained, and where the inscription of this order into people's

bodies restricts their ability to question power relations because of the way their position in

society is made to feel natural. Navarez (2006) argues that the embodied element of

memory contained in the habitus has been under-theorised in memory studies, where

memory is often still conceived of as a mental process. As will be demonstrated in Chapter

Two, music represents a place where embodied and intellectual memory can meet, and in

Chapter Six 1 will show how encounters with music such as grunge can alter the lived

habitus of individuals. However, I will be arguing in Chapter Eight that habitus and class

position more often come to shape our conscious memories, and help to reinforce the status

quo.

Given the social nature of memory for individuals, the next question to be examined is what

functions memory performs and how it works to create and/or maintain groups and power

relations beyond the maintenance of these relations through habitus. Many theorists have

attempted to map out the relationships that exist between different groups in society and

their ability to control or retain memories. The following section will first give a

description of these relationships, and then discuss some of the difficulties inherent in the

different terms and definitions that have been used in research on memory, before

determining which terms will be used during this study and how they will be used.

Collective Memory and History

In the tradition of Halbwachs, the term most often used to describe memories that are held

by a group is collective memory. This term has been defined by various theorists as a force

53
that holds groups together in their recognition o f a shared past and which continues to

shape their actions into the future:

In a sociological sense, 'collective memory' means that people must have

the feeling that they were somehow part of a communal past, that there was
some connection between what happened in general and how they were
involved as individuals ... people continually sharpen their own
remembered experience and the testimonies o f others against available
public versions, (van Dijck, 2004, 267)

The existence o f collective memory is often associated with the continuation o f the group

that shares them, in that a '"collective memory" ... is best located not in the minds o f

individuals, but in the resources they share' (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994, 4). It requires a

continued emotional relationship with the collective past that itself is sustained by the

group. One o f the controversies associated with this term involves the deterministic nature

o f such collective memories. Fentress and Wickham (1992, ix) introduced the term social

memory in an attempt to avoid the deterministic tendency in the works o f Halbwachs and

others to 'render the individual a sort o f automaton, passively obeying the interiorized

collective will'. However, as Fowler (2005, 57) has pointed out, critics often ignore

'Halbwachs' further emphasis that "everyone does not draw on the same part o f this

common instrument'", giving individuals scope to create their own meanings within the

general guidelines set by collective memories.

Halbwachs also drew out the distinction between history and memory. He theorised a clear

delineation between the two, with memory being linked to lived autobiographical

experience, and history being that which has passed beyond the experiential into the realm

o f dead facts. This does not limit memory to that which we ourselves have experienced, but

requires that there still exists some relationship to the event beyond merely knowing that it

54
happened. To use the event researched by memory scholars more than any other as an

example, while most people will know facts and figures about the Holocaust such as when

it happened and who was involved as a matter of history, young Jews may have a

relationship with this event that can be described more as a memory, due to the level of

emotion and involvement they may feel about it. Familial or community practice might also

create a sense of connectedness to the event that others may not experience. Hence,

according to this perspective, past events that we do not feel such a connection to are

history, that is, 'dead memory, a way of preserving pasts to which we no longer have an

'organic' experiential relationship' (Olick and Robbins, 1998, 110). However, what ends up

being considered history is, to a certain extent, controlled by those groups in society with

the resources to record and maintain their version of events.

This separation between history and memory has been connected by Nora (1989) to the

advent of technologies that store information outside the human mind. This originated with

the development of writing, and then evolved into books and the more complex systems

that make up today's vast databases and libraries, leading to a situation where some

information is inherently experiential, while some is detached and factual. While some

scholars find this a meaningful division, others, such as Olick and Robbins (1998, 110), are

less certain of its usefulness:

If'experience' ... is always embedded in and occurs through narrative

frames, then there is no primal, unmediated experience that can be
recovered. The distinction between history and memory in such accounts is a
matter of disciplinary power rather than of epistemological privilege.

This use of the term history also implies a set of facts that, once established, become

unchangeable. For example, Delich (2004, 70) argues that one of the main differences

between history and memory is that memory can forget, whereas history cannot. Such a
55
claim would be rejected by other writers. For example, the Popular Memory Group (1982)

discuss at length h o w history itself can be rewritten to suit the needs of the present, a

process which would involve retaining certain facts and abandoning less useful ones. The

very concept of 'counter m e m o r y ' discussed below implies that forgetting is inherent in

history as well as memory.

It is also worth noting that this way of using the term memory as an indicator of an

emotional connection to the past is remarkably close to collective memory. This was not

implied in H a l b w a c h s ' original theories as he 'distinguished among autobiographical

memory, historical memory, history and collective memory [where] collective memory is

the active past that forms our identities. Memory inevitably gives way to history as we lose

touch with our pasts' (Olick and Robbins, 1998, 111). However, the history versus memory

debate has opened up the idea of memory being an alternative to history, and more

specifically, a way for those who are denied a voice in official history to keep their

experiences alive. It is this quality that has made (collective) memory of interest to so many

contemporary theorists, as it creates a space for opposition to power maintained through the

control of history. However, the idea that memory can stand in opposition to history is

further complicated by the concept o f ' c o u n t e r memory'.

Counter-memory, Dominant memory and Popular memory

The term counter memory was first coined by Foucault (1977), who used it to describe the

possibility that groups that are marginalised within society can construct the past in a

different way to dominant memory. According to Fowler (2005, 60), '"counter-memory"

evokes symbolic struggles over the meaning of events in which the leadership of the
56
subordinated people actively contest the dominants' coding of historical acts.' Thus, it can

be used to describe contestation and attempts by the marginalised to have their voices

heard. This way of theorising memory is closely connected to postmodern theories that

allow for multiple readings of events and reality. Counter memory is produced by those

w h o do not have control over official sources of memory, and it stands in opposition to

hegemonic discourse, producing the possibility of contestation. However, there is only a

limited amount of resistance that is possible through counter-memory, as the hegemonic

world-view is ultimately more powerful. The most important aspect of counter-memory is

that it reinstates 'various forgotten others...whose voices had been systematically silenced,

misheard or neglected. When such marginalized others confront their atomized condition, it

is only with an impoverished memory of different or earlier voices' (Fowler, 2005, 60).

If memory has often been used in a similar way to collective memory, then the

complementary term for history is 'dominant m e m o r y ' . This term has been used to invoke

the way the accounts of the powerful can and often will be taken on as part of the memories

of subordinate groups, or as a way of explaining events. According to the Popular Memory

Group (1982, 207), the past is produced 'through public representations and through private

m e m o r y ' . The agencies w h o produce the public representations are 'the historical

apparatus', and their products and relations are 'the field of public representations of

history' (Popular Memory Group, 1982, 207). This is dominant memory, although

(according to the P M G ) this does not imply complete control over what is remembered.

The P M G gives examples of dominant memory being reproduced through academic

discourse and institutions impacting on the wider population, such as the military and

monarchy (Popular Memory Group, 1982, 208). This use of memory is an effective method

57
of reproducing hegemonic relationships and is also pivotal in creating a sense of

community, especially on a large scale such as on the national level.

In a similar vein, 'when people's memory is programmed and controlled ... we deal with

"popular memory" which is subordinated in its relations to the dominant ideologies and

which therefore reproduces the established consensual view of the past' (Misztal, 2003,

62). Popular memory therefore can be defined as a situation where the memory of the

masses is in line with dominant accounts and no counter-memory exists. Tara Brabazon

(2005, 67) contrasts popular memory with collective memory in the following way:

Popular memory, by its nature, is a fount of consensus and a building block

o f ' t h e mainstream'. Collective memory, such as that formed by and with
working class communities, women or citizens of colour, can hold a radical
or resistive agenda.

This ties in with the earlier discussion of how the concept of the mainstream can be used as

the 'Other' that such 'radical or resistive agendas' are opposed to, and also to the idea that

authenticity resides in the experiences of the marginalised in society. However, the term is

used in a different, and more nuanced, sense by the Popular Memory Group (1982, 211):

The study o f ' p o p u l a r memory' is concerned with two sets of relations. It is

concerned with the relation between dominant memory and oppositional
forms across the whole public (including academic) field. It is also
concerned with the relation between these public discourses in their
contemporary state of play and the more privatized sense of the past which
is generated within a lived culture.

In this sense, dominant memory impacts on popular memory, but does not completely

define or control it, and the relationship between the memories of dominated and dominator

is more fluid and complex than Brabazon suggests.

58
Looking at the terms and definitions above, it becomes clear that if they are to be usefully

employed to understand the effects of grunge then some conceptual clarity is needed.

Different terms appear to be being used to describe similar aspects of memory. As noted

above, the terms history and memory are sometimes used in the same way as dominant

memory and counter memory. They imply a relationship of contestation defined by the

contrast between the official version of events and versions created by people in their

everyday lives who often do not have the same view as the powerful. The term popular

memory has been used by some theorists discussed above in the same way as counter

memory; but for others it is another concept again, related more to how dominant memory

becomes part of the everyday memories of all groups in society including subjugated

groups. The term collective memory has also been used to mean everyday, lived memory

(as opposed to 'dead' history), oppositional memory and something akin to popular

memory.

This study will use the term collective memory, which will mean memories shared among

groups of people that help to create a common understanding of the world, or particular

aspects of the world. However, such memories require more than a shared knowledge of the

past. They also, in line with Halbwach's theories, contain affective elements, some

emotional relationship with the object of the memories that leads to a sense of connection

with known or unknown others through this shared understanding. It will be demonstrated

in following chapters that respondents in this study share collective memories in regards to

grunge in that they not only have a very similar understanding of what grunge was in terms

of when it happened, who was involved and other such factual elements, but they also

express similar emotional relationships to the music and the time when the music was

59
popular. The type of collective memory they have does not entirely fit in with accounts of

collective memory that theorise it as something that holds a group together and shapes the

actions of members of the group into the future. The people interviewed (mostly) do not

know each other and were never a homogeneous group. In fact, some of them explicitly

deny a relationship with others with the same musical tastes as they have. The respondents

are not held together by location, nationality, religion, ethnicity, gender, class or any of the

other ways which have been the basis for most collectivities studied in regards to memory.

However, their accounts converge too often on the subject of grunge and their experiences

with h for what they are saying to be simply called autobiographical memory.

The group membership of respondents is also shaped by mediating forces such as

television, radio, print media, and, most importantly, the music itself and cultural elements

that accompanied it. These factors have created a group who give remarkably similar

accounts of the time in question and who would identify with accounts provided by other

interviewees. These similarities between the accounts that respondents give of grunge will

be demonstrated in depth in Chapter Four. Given that cultural objects such as music and

media reports are central to how respondents remember grunge, it may also be possible to

describe what they possess as 'cultural memory' (Heller, 2001, Henderson, 2006).

However, given that the theorists discussed above have also often included the central

aspects of cultural memory, cuhural items and place, as part of their discussion of memory

this was deemed to be an unnecessary complication.

Beyond this use of the term collective memory, this thesis will not use the other terms

discussed above. Instead of trying to define accounts of respondents, journalists or others as

60
counter, dominant or popular memory or history, I will discuss them as narratives and try to

identify their relationship to one another. By discussing these accounts as narratives, I hope

to focus the discussion on the malleability and social construction o f memory, which will

be discussed further in Chapter Two. While the respondents may be theorised as a

collectivity, they do not represent a marginalised group as such (although some individuals

in the group may hold marginalised positions). However, the accounts o f journalists will be

theorised as holding a more privileged and ultimately more powerful position than those o f

respondents due to the more permanent and official status of written records, and their

ability to reach many people.

Furthermore, 1 argue that this conceptualisation of 'collective memories' invokes a

combination o f dominant discourses and oppositional practices and memories which do not

correspond with official accounts. The accounts given by respondents show evidence o f

different ways o f remembering grunge compared with those recorded in media accounts,

which will be regarded as official accounts (while still acknowledging the feedback

between audiences and music journalists). However, at the same time there are also areas

where dominant social relations, particularly gender relations, are reflected in respondents'

accounts even though the possibility for opposition exists. In examining respondents'

accounts 1 do not wish, as the P M G did, to further the cause o f socialism, nor to celebrate

the impact o f popular culture as writers such as Brabazon do. My objective is more modest.

1 wish to show the complexity o f the interactions between many different aspects of

remembering—between the social, individual, cultural and structural—in an attempt to

better understand these interactions and their effect on society. Choosing labels such as

counter-memory or dominant memory to give the memories o f the respondents or media

61
accounts ran the risk of presupposing the power relations involved and obscuring the

dynamism of memory, in much the same way that arguing for respondents being part of a

subcuhural group may have presupposed a level of resistance in their interactions with

grunge that may or may not have existed.

The processes of remembering on a group level are complex, and can be hard to document.

Barbara Misztal (2003) has identified three different approaches that have been taken to

collective memory since the work of Halbwachs. First, there is the 'presentist' approach,

where collective memory is seen as being a top-down affair. Examples of this approach can

be found in work on the invention of traditions, particularly Hobsbawm and Ranger. Here,

traditions are invented to serve the interests of those in power, and are imposed on a

powerless public, using censorship to enforce forgetting, and celebration to facilitate

remembering. The second approach identified by Misztal is the bottom-up 'popular

memory' approach. She associates this mainly with the work of Foucault and the PMG.

This looks more at the interactions between dominant and marginal memories, rather than

assuming the imposition of memories on those lower down the social hierarchy by those

higher up.

The third approach Misztal identifies is the 'dynamics of memory' approach. This

approach, exemplified by the works of writers such as Schwartz (1997) and Schudson

(1990), argues that evolving collective memory is not always controlled from above, and

looks at the past as constantly being reinvented in the present. It acknowledges that groups

(whether powerful or not) and individuals are constrained in what they can do with the past.

The past itself is limited in that it cannot be changed, but not all materials regarding it are

62
equally available to all parties. This approach emphasises the uncertain nature of memory,

as it is 'never solely manipulated or durable; instead, the role of agency and the temporal

dimension of memory as well as the historicity of social identities are stressed and

analysed' (Misztal, 2003, 69). It also has a greater interest in non-commemorative memory,

which is more to do with narratives than performativity. This focus on narrative shows

more ways in which memory can be malleable and how it is connected to changing

identities.

Misztal (2003) admits that this third approach still lacks a clear definition or theoretical

outline, and it is not entirely clear that there is justification for separating it out from the

popular memory approach, it could be seen as a continuation of many of these themes. In

particular, the inclusion of the work of the Popular Memory Group in the 'popular memory'

approach and the setting up of this work up in opposition to the 'dynamics of memory'

approach is questionable, as the PMG explicitly deal with the idea of the past being

contained in the present and are interested in examining areas where the past, present,

powerful and marginalised interact with each other (Popular Memory Group, 1982). Their

work is also notable for being slightly apart from the majority of academics who have

written on the subject of collective memory in that nowhere in their major work Making

Histories (Johnson et al., 1982) is Halbwachs referenced. Conversely the work of the PMG

is rarely mentioned by writers who trace their field back to Halbwachs. However, their

conclusions about the social nature of memory are not incompatible with the tradition

which has more recently emerged.

63
This study takes a position more in line with the 'dynamics of memory' approach in that

memory will be theorised as neither a strictly top-down nor bottom-up affair, nor an area

that is endlessly open to interpretation by either the powerful or the marginalised. It

examines elements of grunge that contain commemoration, both official/formal and on an

individual level, and narrative aspects, as both approaches offer some understanding of how

grunge is remembered. Examining attempts to officially commemorate grunge, specifically

through the life and death of Kurt Cobain, will allow us to see where attempts have been

made to impose a top-down version of the past, and how successful this has been. At the

same time, less obvious aspects of collective memory can be emphasised by looking at the

more everyday memories of respondents, particularly when asking what aspects of grunge

might have been forgotten and why. As responses will show, this is of particular interest

when examining the gendered elements of grunge.

What this thesis will contribute to the literature on memory

Examining these people as a group represents a new contribution to the field of memory

studies in that few previous studies have used culture as the focal point for collective

memory or group membership. Theorists have instead concentrated more on 'traditional'

groups such as people bound together by (and often oppressed because of) religion,

ethnicity, class or gender. Given the centrality of mediated culture to identity formation in

modern societies the possibility of groups being formed around aspects of such culture

needs to be examined. Treating the respondents as a collectivity also allows for an

examination of the effects of grunge in terms of how it has been remembered.

64
Conclusion

Popular music studies give us a way of understanding how people think about and

conceptualise popular music. This will be seen in the way grunge has been remembered, in

the way concepts such as authenticity and the mainstream shape the narratives that are told

around the movement by fans and the media, in order to answer the research questions laid

out in the introduction, this thesis has been organised around some of these main themes,

and also around some of the main concerns of sociology. In finding answers to these

questions 1 believe conclusions can be drawn about popular culture in general and its

relationship to power. Using Bourdieu, it can be argued that tastes, culture and power are

inextricably entwined. As such, I argue that although grunge may have presented a

challenge to power relations at the time of its success, these challenges have been defused

through memory. However, throughout the thesis possibilities for 'resistance' and the

creation of marginal spaces and alternative memories and understandings of cultural items

are noted, as well as the places where grunge either reinforced existing social structures or

where the challenge the music and culture presented has since disappeared. The ideas

presented in this literature review are the starting point to which further theoretical depth

will be added in the following chapters.

65
CHAPTER TWO: Methodology

Popular music and its effects can be difficult subjects to study, and there are a number of

different methodological approaches that are used in this field. Music has been researched

as a subject in its own right, in terms of lyrics, the culture surrounding it, through texts,

ethnographic research or observation, and in many other ways. For this project, the choice

of methodology was strongly influenced by the ways in which grunge had been approached

in prior studies. As has been noted in the literature review, little work has been carried out

on grunge. For the most part, that which has been done has been either textual analysis,

sometimes focused on the music as text (Mazullo, 2000, Fish, 1995) or presenting a more

cultural/ historical analysis based on written representations (Shevory, 1995, Santiago-

Lucema, 1998, Martin, 2004, Jones, 1995), or a combination of these (Muto, 1995). What

is missing from these accounts is the voice of the fans. The only grunge-related study that

involved audiences was focused less on audience understandings and more on whether

grunge could be considered a 'generational marker' (Pecora and Mazzarella, 1995).

Although textual analysis is an important element of understanding a cultural movement,

and will indeed be employed in this thesis, it seemed to me, from a sociological

perspective, that it was impossible to gain a complete understanding of this music without

finding out what it meant to its audience. As a result of this, interviews with fans have been

employed as the main source of data for this thesis.

As was also noted in the previous chapter, in popular music studies it can sometimes be

easy for the tastes and perspectives of researchers to become central to their work (either

deliberately or inadvertently). While 1 acknowledge that 1 was a fan of grunge myself

66
during its heyday, I also wish to ensure that I am not privileging my own experience above

that of any other respondent. This involves being highly reflexive and in particular

monitoring myself for any tendencies to reject what my respondents are saying if they do

not correspond to my own opinions. In doing this, 1 am trying to avoid a situation where

'those people who are entitled to full subject status, that is who are, for example, to engage

with the researcher in the process of interpretation and theory generation are "those whose

standpoint the researcher shares" in terms of both political choice and sympathy' (Cain

cited in Luff, 1999, 692), or, in this case, in terms of musical taste and experience. In doing

this 1 am taking into consideration feminist theories relating to 'the importance of self-

retlexivity on the part of the researcher' (Luff, 1999, 688) and the inclusion of biographical

details of myself, in particular those aspects of my life and experiences which have led me

to pursue the research 1 am undertaking. Such details have been included in the

Introduction and Conclusion, and wherever relevant elsewhere in the thesis in order to

ensure my own position on the subject matter remains as transparent as possible (without

being overemphasised) (see also Punch, 1998).

A strictly quantitative approach to studying grunge fans was rejected early on. The main

reason for this was that there was no reliable way to determine how many grunge fans there

are (or were) or who they might be. The closest thing to statistical data on how many fans

may exist is figures on album sales—for example, how many people bought a copy of

Nevermind m 1992—but this neither gives information on who those people might be, nor

does it give an accurate representation of how many people may have listened to and

considered themselves fans of this album. Personal experience suggests many more people

own an album than buy it. I recall the school yard practice of one person buying a CD or

67
cassette and then copying it for as many people as were interested, and this type of music

sharing is also mentioned by a number of respondents. Furthermore, trying to devise a way

of determining who was a grunge fan that was in any sense objective was not considered

viable. Respondents would need to self-identify as fans. Hence, trying to obtain any sort of

representative sample of grunge fans in terms of factors such as class, gender and ethnicity

was considered beyond the scope of this study. A qualitative approach was therefore

considered more suited to the initial aims of the study in gaining an in-depth perspective on

how identity and memory are formed.

Using a non-representative selection method involving self-identification does pose some

risks. In particular, people who were fans of grunge when it was popular but have since

come to dislike the music, or who now feel embarrassed by their previous attachment to it,

were less likely to have responded to a call for participants. This eliminates certain lines of

enquirv' from the study—for instance, what effects can music have on a person to cause

them to stop liking it? Another risk is that people for whom grunge has had a profoundly

negative effect will also not be reached. A respondent interviewed during pilot testing

mentioned a friend who had become addicted to drugs such as heroin. In the respondent's

opinion, this was a result of the friend identifying too closely with and trying to emulate

key figures in the grunge scene. Whether the friend would have agreed with this is

debatable; however this story did highlight for me the fact that I was unlikely to be able to

interview anyone in a similar situation, meaning that any possible extremely negative

effects of the music were unlikely to be established through this method of researching.

68
Having identified the gaps in the Hterature, and decided upon a qualitative approach to

gathering information, the issue became how to approach the topic and ensure I could

gather the best data possible in the light of the research aims, which were themselves

shifting over the course of the research. While I would have been happy to supplement

interviews with ethnographic field work, this was not really possible as the musical

movement I was studying effectively ended in the mid-1990s. The possibility of using

focus groups was also rejected as the initial intention was to obtain a narrative for each

respondent, and this would have proved difficult in a group situation (Flick, 2002). The

memory theme only became fully apparent after fieldwork had concluded, which was

unfortunate as focus groups probably would have been useful in understanding collective

memories of grunge in more depth.

The issue of the lack of audience voices in the literature on grunge made me conscious

from the outset of the importance of not expecting or leading respondents towards

particular answers, especially in relation to my own preconceived ideas of grunge. In this, 1

chose to take a path of hypothesis building rather than hypothesis testing (Lewins, 1992);

that is, 1 tried to keep to a minimum any theorising of expected outcomes before my entry

into the field. While my questions were based around certain areas that 1 was most

interested in exploring, for example emotional connection to the music and identity

formation, I wished to avoid imposing outcomes on my material that may not have really

existed, or overemphasising themes that were weaker than others. As a result, 1 started

interviewing after having read widely in the area of popular music studies but without

having specific frameworks or theories in mind in which to situate my results. Themes were

suggested almost immediately by the first round of interviews and the pilot testing, and 1

69
have worked on these since to develop my thesis. This approach has been particularly

successful in regards to the development of the memory theories contained in this thesis.

These were not contained in my initial research agenda but developed from both the

information given in interviews and the need to find a way to deal with the retrospective

nature of the study. However, the downside of this approach was that as the theme of

m e m o r y only fully emerged after interviews were concluded this theme was not covered in

interviews as fully as it might have been.

Interviewing is often used in the social sciences to gain in-depth, qualitative data (Gaskell,

2000). The method 1 chose to use for my research has similarities with the method

described by Flick (2002) as 'Problem Based Interviewing'. This form of semi-structured

interviewing is based on focusing the interviewee's knowledge of a certain area, as 'by

using an interview guide incorporating questions and narrative stimuli it is possible to

collect biographical data with regard to a certain problem' (Flick, 2002, 86). In this case, it

focused on how people responded to grunge and its importance to them. This method

suggests the use of interview questions as a guide only, or as a fallback when the discussion

has stagnated or the respondent is straying too far from the main concerns of the interview.

At the outset of interviewing, 1 considered recollection to be one of the main potential

problems with the approach 1 had chosen. The events in question took place ten or more

years ago, and as a result respondents either simply might not remember some of the events

in question (although this is unlikely, given that their participation is based on this music

being an important memory to them), or may have distorted or unclear memories (Lewins,

1992).

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One approach which 1 have found which has both helped me deal with this issue (in regards

to the validity o f my findings) and has fed into the focus on memory which has become

central to this study is the idea o f the Active Interview (Holstein and Gubrium, 2001). One

o f the dangers in regard to interviewing is to see the respondent as a 'passive vessel o f

answers', who simply relays experiences and facts to the interviewer: 'the vessel-of-

answers view cautions interviewers to be wary o f how they ask questions, lest their manner

o f inquiry bias what lies within the subject, which otherwise is available for truthful and

accurate communication' (Holstein and Gubrium, 2001, 56). However, conventional

notions o f validity and reliability become less relevant when the subject is seen as actively

taking part in knowledge production—there are no longer correct answers as such, but

changing situations and contexts in which experiences are always reported differently but

(hopefully) not less accurately or honestly. The active interview focuses on the way reality

is constantly being constructed, but not from nothing. Rather, the realities of the everyday

world in which the interview is conducted are the framework and the basis for answers

given. As in any other interaction between people, the interviewer and respondent use these

resources as they see fit for the situation:

... so that meaning is neither predetermined nor absolutely unique ... Our
active conception o f the interview, however, invests the subject with a
substantial repertoire o f interpretive methods and stock o f experiential
materials ... This is not to say that active interviewers merely coax their
respondents into preferred responses to their questions. Rather, they
converse with respondents in such a way that alternate considerations are
brought into play. (Holstein and Gubrium, 2001, 63).

As a result, interviews are not any less real than other conversations or interactions, just

somewhat different, with their own rules and conventions that participants understand, and

71
do not necessarily need to have exactly set questions and phrasing in order to be

comparable.

An awareness of the Active Interview approach initially helped me to understand that the

answers 1 would be obtaining were not necessarily distorted or made wrong by the lapse of

time since the events 1 was asking about, but that the narratives that were being offered to

me were unique accounts specifically crafted for the time the questions were being asked

and the way they were being asked. However, as mentioned above, the time factor and

influence of other accounts (such as the media) gained particular relevance for my study in

regards to how knowledge is produced. This creation of knowledge in the interview

situation will be discussed in more depth below, particularly with respect to how the social

nature of memory suggests specific forms for the way memories are shared.

Overall, the hypothesis-building approach coupled with the use of Active Interviews has

resulted in a rich data set from which 1 have been able to extract a number of themes that

form the basis of the remainder of this thesis. In particular, as mentioned above, the concept

of memory has become central to the thesis, and the interest 1 initially had in exploring

aspects of identity formation has crystallised around specific sociological themes such as

class, gender and age.

Recruitment
While the sample for this study was not designed to be strictly representative of all grunge

fans (as discussed above), 1 still wished to ensure that 1 recruited respondents from as wide

a range of backgrounds and locations as possible in order to obtain a variety of viewpoints.

72
 Figure 2. 1: Method of recruitment

12 T

10

Q.
o
I I 1*1
0)
m 4.
<1> >jt>
E

•m '•H

Interest in Study Snowball Recruited by Advertising Websites Persons known

friends/family prior to study
Method of recruitnnent

Respondents were recruited in a number of ways, including: through websites; advertising

in street press and on fliers; directly by myself or through friends and family; and through
'snowballing' (see Figure 2. 1). I had been a part of the music scene in Canberra for a
number of years, there were people whose interest in grunge I was already aware of, and
with whom I discussed my study in social situations to determine whether they might wish
to participate. This yielded ten interviews, some with people I would consider friends,
others with more casual acquaintances or people with whom I had only had passing contact
at gigs or in a music store in which 1 had worked. Three respondents were research students
who approached me when they heard about my study. All but one of the respondents from
Perth were recruited (directly or indirectly) through message boards on music related
websites, specifically perthbands.com and westernfront.com. Seven interviews were
obtained through advertising the project in various ways, such as notices in street press and

73
fliers left in record stores and handed out at events such as a special screening of the movie

'Hype'.

Overall, however, the most successful methods of recruitment for my project were word of

mouth and 'snowballing'. All respondents were asked at the end of the interview if they

knew of other people who might be interested in talking to me, and this yielded seven more

interviewees. A further seven interviews came about through more casual means, for

instance, through family members or friends speaking to people about my thesis and

unexpectedly finding enthusiastic subjects—for example, my mother mentioned my project

while chatting with her hairdresser, which led to two employees of the salon contacting me

and being interviewed. Some implications of the methods of recruitment, especially in

relation to gender, will be discussed below.

74
 Figure 2. 2: Current location of respondents

Canberra Sydney Perth Ottier

Location

As Figure 2. 2 shows, the majority of respondents were Hving in Canberra at the time the

interviews were conducted. This was a greater proportion than I had initially hoped, and

came about due to three factors. First, given that I had lived in the city for a long time,

finding people in Canberra was relatively easy, both because of the ties I have with people

in the city and the ease with which 1 could follow up new possibilities suggested by

respondents. Second, I expected Sydney to be a major location for respondents, due to its

close proximity to Canberra and its vast population, but it proved extremely difficult to find

grunge fans in Sydney or, once found, to actually interview them. Pamphletting (including

handing pamphlets out at grunge-related events), notices on websites and half a dozen trips

to Sydney yielded only one interview. The other four Sydney respondents were previously

known to me or were recommended through friends, it is interesting to contrast this to the

response from Perth fans, where notices on two websites and a week in the city yielded

eight interviews. Third, there were enough interviewees from Canberra who had come to
75
the city since the end of the grunge era to give me a more representative spread of people in

terms of location than it at first seems from Figure 2. 3.

Figure 2. 3: Location of respondents during grunge era

20

18

16

« 14
"c
0)
Q.

in
£ 10
0
1 8
E

Z 6
4

'2>
r.-v.-"
2

0 Overseas
Canberra Perth Sydney Melbourne Other rural

Location

As Figure 2. 3 shows, people residing in Canberra in the early 1990s constituted less than

half of the sample, and people living in Australian metropolitan areas account for 32 out of

the 43 interviewees, it should be noted here that some respondents moved during the time

in question, in which case they were included in the category where they indicated they

spent the most time, or the place which, from their accounts, was most closely associated

with grunge for them.

76
The Respondents

Figure 2. 4: Age of respondents

16

14

12

10

4
iI'
2

0
20 or below 21-25 26-30 31-35 36-40 Above 40

Age

Figure 2. 4 shows that the majority of respondents were aged between 26 and 35. The ages

of interviewees ranged from 21 to 45. This was an expected outcome, as this group would

have been in their teens and early 20s when grunge was at its peak. The upper and lower

limits of age in this study were wider than I originally anticipated. My initial inclination to

exclude people under 25 (as I believed they would have been too young in the early 1990s

to have been fans of this music) was challenged as soon as 1 spoke to my younger

respondents and found their accounts of grunge to be very similar to those given by older

interviewees. These respondents all gave reasons why they became grunge fans either at a

younger age than most or encountered grunge later; for instance, they claimed to have

become active music fans earlier than others in their peer group, or, in one case, lived in a

rural area where slowed communications meant the grunge era effectively happened later

77
there than in other places. In the event, it was their own identification of themselves as

grunge fans during the period I was examining that made them legitimate participants.

The possibility also arose during my fieldwork of speaking to still younger people who

were discovering grunge for the first time, an increasing phenomenon as grunge appears to

be undergoing somewhat of a resurgence. As interesting as this line of enquiry sounded, 1

believed it would veer too far away from the main focus of my work and would essentially

change the overall nature of the project too much. I was a little surprised that there were not

more respondents aged over 35. This could have been an artefact of the recruitment

methods used (see Figure 2. 1), but the different narratives of the older interviewees suggest

this is not the only reason, and that as people move through their 20s the way they engage

with music changes. For a full discussion of this, see Chapter Seven, where the significance

that youth has for engagement with music will be discussed.

Figure 2. 5: Sex of respondents

78
Around one third of the interviewees for this study were female, and two-thirds were male

(see Figure 2. 5). As will be discussed in Chapter Six, grunge was a less masculine form of

rock than many others and as such 1 anticipated a balanced gender distribution among

respondents. 1 believe the disparity of the end result is due to recruitment methods more

than a greater proportion of males necessarily being fans of grunge. During the first phase

of my fieldwork, where I was concentrating on interviews in my local area gained through

links 1 had in the community, the ratio of males to females consistently remained at around

50:50. Only when 1 started to cast a wider net, using less personal recruitment methods, did

the proportion of female respondents start to decrease. Only one of the female respondents

contacted me as the result of advertising (see Figure 2. 6), and none via the various

websites through which I recruited. Overall, females were recruited through methods

involving conversations and contact with others, and not through methods that required

them to take the first step in contacting someone who was a complete stranger to them. This

was particularly apparent during the round of interviews conducted in Perth, where the only

recruitment method available to me before I arrived in the city was bulletin boards on the

internet. Only one female was interviewed in Perth, and she did not reply to me personally

but was told about the study (and was indeed initially volunteered) by her boyfriend.

79
 Figure 2. 6: Recruitment methods by gender

12

10

<2 8

O Overall
2 6 - • Female respondents
• Male respondents

JE

isiJ
Interest In Snow/ball Recruited by Advertising Websites Persons know/n
Study friends/family prior to study

Method of Recruitment

My initial decision to try 'snowballing' to find respondents was partly based around a

concern that using street press, record stores and music related websites would only give

me respondents to whom music was (still) a very central part in their lives, whereas to gain

a better understanding of the importance of grunge I would also need to speak to less

music-oriented people—people to whom music had become less important over time. To

determine the role music played in the lives of the respondents 1 asked a series of questions,

the results of which are represented in Figure 2. 7, Figure 2. 8 and Figure 2. 9. Firstly,

Figure 2. 7 shows whether respondents are currently actively involved in the music scene.

Over half the respondents (25 out of 43) have no current involvement. Nine respondents

play in bands, four are promoters, and five do 'other' activities such as work as sound

engineers, write music reviews or do radio shows. Four of the respondents who are

currently involved consider this involvement to be their main occupation.

80
 Figure 2. 7: Current musical involvement

30 1 -

25

U)
c 20 +
<u
•O I

15
tr

I 10

Is^SisSl
fit

tiiUii;
None In band/s Promoter Other
Involvement

With regards to how often they attended live performances at the time of the interview,

respondents were spread evenly across a variety of answers (see Figure 2. 8). Twenty

respondents attended gigs more than once a month, and only two said they never went. The

three respondents in the 'Unknown' category were not asked or did not answer this

question. One issue that arose with this question was that respondents may have only

included gigs they had intentionally gone to, not, for instance, if they had gone to meet

friends for a drink at a bar where a band then started to play. This issue was noted with

three or four respondents, who confirmed they did not consider these extra gigs part of their

initial estimation of their attendance at live music events. While this does not affect the

overall validity of results regarding gig attendance, it is worth noting that the figures here

represent intentional attendance at specific live performances; actual attendance at any live

performance is likely to be higher. These figures show that live music is still an important
leisure activity for grunge fans into their 30s and beyond, possibly in contrast with other

studies of Australian leisure activities which show attendance at rock concerts declining

with age (Bennett et al., 1999, 97).

Figure 2. 8: Attendance at live performances

T
vTsI

6 -

as

''ik'
c
p. * ^'Si. -J

Si'

.V. _ fc
1 h)!! m
More than Once a week Once a Once a Every 2-3 1-2 per year Rarely Never Unknown
once a week fortnight month months
Frequency of Attendance

Figure 2. 9 shows the current music buying habits of respondents. As with gig attendance,

the majority of interviewees are quite active in buying music, with over half (24) buying

music more than once a month. An important caveat with this chart is that what is indicated

is music purchased. A majority of respondents indicated during interviews that they acquire

a lot of music through other means, such as downloading from the internet or borrowing

and burning friends' CDs. This indicates that they acquire more music than they actually

purchase.

82
 Figure 2. 9: Current music purchasing

10

7
0)
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c 6
o
Q.
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0) 5

<U 4 a
E
3

2 SP

1
•i"
Once a week Once a Once a month Every 2-3 Rarely Never Unknown
fortnight months
Frequency of purchase

Taken together, the above three charts show that while the majority of the respondents are

frequently involved in music through purchasing CDs and attending gigs, most are not

actively involved in the music scene itself, and there are enough less- or not-involved

interviewees to offer comparisons between respondents who are involved with music to

greater or lesser degrees. This suggests that while initial methods of recruiting may have

been skewed towards including only people who are still highly involved in music, the fmal

sample contains enough variations in musical involvement to make it more representative

of the wider population.

The Interview Guide

The interview guide consisted of twenty-two open-ended questions, and was divided into

two sections (see Appendix A). The respondents were also given three written questions to
83
answer dealing with demographics (their age, occupation and occupations of their parents)

on the back of the consent form they were asked to sign. The first part of the interview

consisted of eight questions that dealt with the current musical involvement of the person,

the results of which are displayed in the previous charts. These questions were designed to

orient the respondent to thinking about music and how they relate to it, and also to gather

data about their current habits which could be used to understand if and how their tastes had

changed over time. These questions were deliberately asked at the beginning, before

specific questions about grunge, in the hope that the respondent would be less influenced

by memories of this particular type of music (grunge), which may have lead to an over-

representation of its current importance. This effect could not be entirely avoided, however,

as the respondents knew the interview was based around grunge and would therefore

probably have been thinking about it beforehand. This part of the interview gathered

information on what the respondents were currently listening to, how involved they were

with music through buying habits, listening habits and attendance at gigs, and why music

was important to them. Although asking 'why' questions can be problematic in interviews

because it can be seen as confrontational (see Grbich, 1999 Chapter Four), 1 reasoned that

the answers to this question would provide interesting insights as to what music means to

people and how it is used in their lives.

The interview then began to focus on grunge and the respondents' experiences with it.

Respondents were first asked what they immediately thought of when they heard the word

'grunge' and if there were any particular memories they associated with it. The respondents

were then played part of a song—Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana—and asked what

84
came into their head when they heard it.^ As has been shown in previous studies (DeNora,

2000), music is strongly associated with memory, and can serve to re-orient subjects in

place and time, as well as within their own bodies, physically and emotionally, to wherever

they were and what they were feeling at other times when the same music was heard. By

playing this song, I was hoping to mentally and physically remind the respondent of the

time we would be discussing, and in a way to place them in that time.

This particular song was chosen for a number of reasons. First, it seemed highly unlikely

that any of the participants in the study would challenge its status as a grunge song, an

assumption which was confirmed during interviews. Second, 1 was confident that anyone

agreeing to participate in a study as a grunge fan would already be familiar with the song,

and would have first heard it around the time it was released, which is the time I was

concentrating on with my questions. Third, their reactions to the song and any anecdotes

associated with it would help me to understand their relationship with the music—for

example, for a number of respondents this song represented their first encounter with this

style of music; for others, it was a continuation of their experiences. In pilot interviews and

the first nine main interviews this song was played before any other questions on grunge

had been asked. However, in subsequent interviews the question on the memories of grunge

was inserted before the song was played in order to prevent this song and band from

becoming more central to respondents' account of grunge than may have otherwise been

the case (see below).

' This was played 'out loud' on whatever system was available if the interview was being held in a private
area, but a personal stereo and headphones were provided for interviews in public places.
85
The interview then turned to the meanings that grunge had for respondents. First they were

asked how they would define grunge. In answering this, respondents were prompted to

include information on what bands they would defme as being included under the label, and

whether they thought there was more to grunge than just the music, if such information was

not volunteered. These questions served a number of purposes. They allow for a

comparison of what grunge 'is' across respondents, to discover if there are common

understandings about grunge but also to explore where differences in definition arise. This

will be discussed in more depth in Chapter Four, where it will be shown that respondents

gave highly consistent definitions of grunge. In asking respondents to discuss what grunge

might mean beyond the music itself, 1 was opening the interview to discussions of style,

attitude or politics. Through this 1 could widen the understanding of possible elements

associated with grunge, including those elements defined by writers discussed in the

literature review (that is, style, authenticity, commercialisation and so on), to see if the

academic view of grunge matched with that of the audience.

The interview then moved to a discussion of when and how respondents encountered

grunge, and why it appealed to them. Through these questions I was hoping to understand

the social position of the respondent at the time, and to explore connections between that

social position and their appreciation of grunge. Respondents were also asked about

whether or how their relationships with others were affected by grunge. This part of the

interview was influenced by literature on the social aspects of popular music, for example,

the work on subcultures. 1 wished to explore the assumption that music is a bond for young

people, and also to examine the ongoing effects of such a bond—does it last beyond the

time in question?

86
Respondents were also asked about their feelings concerning the success achieved by
grunge. This question was designed to allow for discussion of questions of
commercialisation and authenticity, as examined in the literature review. The final two
questions on the schedule re-focused on the present, asking the respondents to look
retrospectively at the effects of grunge and to trace their changing tastes up to the present.
This provided an opportunity for respondents to discuss what ongoing effects they felt
grunge had, either on themselves, society or the music industry. The interview was
concluded by asking if the respondent had any questions or comments about the interview.
This served to both formally bring the interview to a close, and give the interviewee a
chance to talk about anything they may have felt was missed or not given enough emphasis
by the questions 1 was asking (Minicheillo et al., 1995).

Analysis of Interviews
Gribch (1999) identifies four methods of analysing data: the enumerative mode, the
investigative mode, the iterative mode and the subjective mode. Of these, the iterative mode
is closest to my methods. This involves collecting data, reflecting on it, and using it to
guide the next group of data collected. Grbich identifies three stages in this process. First,
there is ongoing preliminary analysis, which involves transcribing data and notes early and
reflecting on emerging themes as this is done. Second, there is thematic analysis, which
involves revisiting the data later and rereading it critically to ask what might be missing or
important, then drawing out ideas. The third stage of data analysis is coding. This involves
using preliminary data to draw out themes to be used as codes then categorising the
complete data set according to these codes, while always revisiting their usefulness and
87
validity (Grbich, 1999, 234). Grbich also notes that negative cases should not be ignored—

in this thesis these cases will not be people who were not fans of grunge, as these are by

definition excluded from the sample, but those who found it had little impact on their lives

or listening habits, or those who disagree on major points of agreement across the majority

of respondents (for example, the question discussed above of Nirvana's status as a grunge

band). It was important for me to consider what such differences could add to my overall

analysis, and what differences there might be between respondents that could account for

such discrepancies.

The iterative method of data analysis was followed from the time 1 first started

interviewing. An initial pilot test was done with six people, and a starting interview guide

was determined. This was then used with nine subjects, with transcriptions being done soon

after the interviews and a field diary also being updated after each session. These first nine

interviews were then printed out, and rough coding done, which was then refined (for

example, where the same concept was being expressed with two codes they were collapsed

into one, or sub-categories for certain codes were developed). At this point, the interview

guide was re-examined to determine how well it was working, and a number of changes

were made. For example, an extra question was added ('When 1 say 'grunge', what do you

immediately think of? Are there any particular memories or images that come into your

mind?'). This question had been asked and seemed successful in the last interviews

conducted, and was asked before the respondent was played Smells Like Teen Spirit to

avoid an immediate association of grunge with Nirvana. This meant there was a chance for

respondents to communicate that their experience of grunge was not necessarily connected

to Nirvana before having this connection (possibly) imposed by my choice of song. As it

turned out, agreement that this song and band were representative of grunge was very high

among respondents (see Figure 4.1), and there did not seem to be any reticence among

participants to disagree with ideas about grunge put forward by myself or others.

A further question that was added during the second half of the interview at this point was

designed to enquire into the respondents' emotional reaction to grunge and to draw a more

comprehensive picture of any feelings of community or connection with others they may

have felt. On the schedule, the question is worded as '1 remember when 1 first got into

grunge feeling a sense of connection with other grunge fans—not necessarily people 1

l^^new—because I felt there were suddenly a lot of people around who were like me, who

felt the same sorts of things 1 did, because 1 saw myself in the music. Was your experience

anything like this?'. However, it was (as with most of the other questions) paraphrased or

changed according to the situation. This was particularly necessary with this question, as it

was designed to make the respondent feel more at ease about expressing possibly

embarrassing feelings to do with identification. I hoped that by sharing my own

experience which 1 did feel was hard to say and somewhat embarrassing—1 could draw

out more honest or in-depth responses. Fundamentally, it seemed that if 1 was not prepared

to put myself on the line in some way, then it was unreasonable to ask my respondents to

do so. Because of the personal nature of this question I wanted it to sound as natural and

spontaneous as possible when asked, but possibly due to my own reticence to open up too

much and due to wanting ultimately to keep the focus of the interview on the interviewee,

the effectiveness of this is questionable. A risk with a question like this is that it may be

leading. However, the amount of negative responses 1 encountered in regards to this

question suggest that respondents did not feel in anyway pressured to answer in a particular

89
way. After looking in-depth at the data collected, I n o w feel this was probably the least

successful question in the interview in obtaining useful data.

During the remainder of the interviewing process, data was transcribed and coded using the

N V i v o program. Codes were revisited and updated regularly. The fmal list of 24 codes is

included in Appendix B, and reflects the complexity of the information gathered during

interviews and the evolving nature of the analytical work carried out. Interviews ceased at

the point that it became difficult to access new respondents, and responses that were being

obtained in interviews began to reach saturation point, that is, very little new information

was being obtained.

Subjectivity and Narratives in memory

Once memory became a central theme in this thesis, one of the most interesting aspects of

analysing interviews was understanding the relationship between memory and what

respondents said. In regard to individual processes of remembering, it is almost universally

agreed in the literature on memory (whether from a social, individual or psychological

perspective) that memory is never an immutable, crystallised object that is a direct copy of

what 'really' happened (see Misztal, 2003). As the theories discussed in the literature

review suggest, memory is, instead, highly subjective, and is constantly undergoing

revision according to the present needs of an individual or group (while still being

constrained by certain factual elements of the past). Memory is forged and re-forged by

social requirements, and it is necessary to take this into account when analysing interviews.

Halbwachs (Halbwachs, 1992, 47) states that:

90
 We preserve memories of each epoch in our Hves, and these are continually
reproduced; through them, as by a continual relationship, a sense of our
identity is perpetuated. But precisely because these memories are repetitions,
because they are successively engaged in very different systems of notions,
at different periods of our lives, they have lost the form and the appearance
they once had.

As Anderson (2004) and Fentress and Wickham (1992) have noted, memory exists at

different levels of an individual's awareness. First, there is unconscious memory, that is,

the embodied day-to-day type memory through which individuals know how to do things

automatically. This is a less immediately obvious form of memory as there is no conscious

reflection on the past, and in this way it can be connected to the idea of habitus. It

demonstrates how the past is always in the present through the way it enables the basic

functioning of day-to-day life and shapes how we act. This type of remembering is less

relevant to this study, as it has more to do with actions and reactions, which are not well

suited to being captured in interview-based research.

The second type of memory discussed by Anderson (in relation to music in particular) is

'involuntary remembering', where there is an unexpected memory association which is

vivid and brings the past into the present. A well-known example is Proust's (1913-27)

madeleine, which upon being tasted evoked intense recollections of childhood. Rather than

being a constant repetition of the same experiences through memory, 'a focus on

"involuntary remembering" enables memory to be linked to an account of repetition as

difference, and thus divergence, by focusing on the "hesitancy, unfolding, uncertainty" of

the past as it emerges' (Anderson, 2004, 9). Hence, new experiences can be made out of old

memories as they reappear in different circumstances.

91
Examples of such 'involuntary remembering' can be found in my interviews, particularly

when the song Smells Like Teen Spirit was played for respondents. What was said at this

point often showed a lack of narrative structure as a number of different memories were

evoked for the respondents:

Oh, it reminds me of my boyfriend, or my not-quite-ex-boyfriend, or not-

quite-boyfriend. He's in the States, he's married and has a baby, 1 mean this
is like a long time ago. Reminds me of taking a belly dance class, and of
working in the lab where 1 used to work, 'cos 1 used to play this all the time.
Did you do belly dancing to it? Yeah (laughs). And it reminds me of
getting tattooed, 'cos we were listening to this a lot during, when I was
getting a really large piece on my back done, and I had to go for maybe 5
sessions to get it finished, so during that whole time, this had just come out,
it was like, in fact I think I got it within a day or so of moving into a new
apartment, my first apartment actually. (Louisa)

The emergent quality of these memories is quite striking. It is almost as though Louisa has

so many memories evoked by this piece of music that she is struggling to articulate them

all, and there is little order imposed on them by the account she gives. This is complicated

further by Louisa's need to include the present in this account of the past (thus reinforcing

its distance) through her qualifications on the current status of the boyfriend being

discussed.

However, Lousia tries to share her memories, and this sharing can help to fix the memory

for the teller, although never entirely. Lousia's account seems to balance between

articulable and inarticulable memory—her experiences can be spoken, but (in the context of

the interview, that is, being played this song at this time) almost as a 'stream of

consciousness', with no further order imposed on them. Other respondents gave responses

with even less structure:

I've got goosebumps! (Laughs) Get fucked! (Pause) I'm just going to sit
here and listen to it (laughs) ... Have you heard it recently? No, I haven't,
not for a long time, (pause) 1 was 21 when this came out 1 think, yeah
92
 (pause) 1 can't describe it Catherine, I'm sorry, it's just, it's unbelievable. It
was, and I mean it sounds a bit wanky, but it was all about feeling stupid and
contagious, like no-one had any idea what to do with you or who you were
or ... had no sort of aspirations for you—I don't think that's the right—like
no one ever sort seem to look at you and think you would have any
aspirations, or ... and I don't know ... obviously that's a projection, but ...
God ... I don't know. 1 remember when that came out, it was so exciting.
It's just that ... they were hitting the nail on the head. It's just describing
exactly how, I don't know, everyone seemed to be feeling. (Sonia)
Shortly after this point Sonia describes having experienced the same 'goosebumps' feeling

the first time she heard the song.

Arthur also makes an attempt to describe a feeling associated with the song, rather than a

specific memory of a particular place or time:

Can you just tell me what comes into your head when you hear this?
(listens for a while) Well, drinking beer (laughs), just moving fast and, not a
care really. Bashing into things, or, aggressive, aggression, really, but not
necessarily a horrible aggression but, you know, enthusiasm sort of thing,
yeah. (Arthur)

Arthur's comments attempt to describe a mood rather than to relate a story with an

identifiable narrative structure. These examples show respondents attempting to share the

'vague, un-systematic, attitude or mood' (Anderson, 2004, 12) that hearing Smells Like

Teen Spirit has evoked for them, which is not immediately associated with a memory that

can be shared in a more conventional manner.

Unlike Sonia and Arthur, most interviewees did not have such difficulties articulating their

memories, or did not attempt to articulate that which was not easy to say. However, most

accounts implied a qualitatively different experience to simply remembering an objective

'fact'. They often involved an element of being re-embodied in the past, or experiencing the

feelings and emotions from a different time. This was evident when respondents listened to

Smells Like Teen Spirit during the interview, as responses to this often included very
93
specific, concrete memories of a particular time and place. The articulated descriptions of

these memories usually contained an emotional, and at times also a physical, element:

I remember dancing at a dance and Nirvana came on, and it was in 1991 and
1 was at this disco, it was called the Black Pearl disco up in the Red Sea in
Egypt, and a few people had been listening to tapes at the time but it hadn't
really sunk into popular culture at the time, the song would come on and me
and whoever else would rush onto the dance floor, and we'd run against
each other and bash against each other and stuff, and some people thought,
oh no, these guys are getting really angry, and it was like, no, we're not,
we're just being really physical, you know, we're just getting into it, you
know. (Martin)

There are similarities between what Martin is saying here and the comments made by

Arthur above in terms of the association both make between this music and a certain type of

aggressive physical reaction to it. The difference lies in the way this is communicated.

Martin has given a clear context (a certain place, a definite time and particular people) for

what he is trying to describe. Arthur, on the other hand, gives no context for the feeling he

is trying to articulate. It is possible that the relationship these two accounts have with the

present is therefore different. These accounts again show the different possibilities for

involuntary remembering as memories are located on a spectrum between the unsayable

and those that have been given a concrete (sometimes unchanging) form.

While there are facts that can be objectively established regarding what happened in the

past, in memory the context of these is constantly shifting, and meaning is given

precedence over fact. As Delich (2004, 67) states: 'objectivity tries, and sometimes

manages, to separate facts from their meaning. In the memory meaning is given

prominence over facts because they are constructed on the basis of their meaning'.

94
While factual accuracy was not a focus of my study—and as most of my interviews

concerned personal memories of respondents there was no practical means to determine

how accurate their memories were—there were occasions where statements were made that

were demonstrably false. For example, when remembering the death of Kurt Cobain, Bill

said:

1 remember hearing about h on Triple J and the day he died was, just so
happened to be that Weird A1 Yankovic's take-off of Smells Like Teen Spirit
was released in Australia that day, and that was just coincidence, it wasn't
planned or anything like that, but just after the news story on Triple J, then
they played it and there was complaints everywhere. A lot of people were
complaining that it was disrespectful.

Factually, this statement is incorrect—the Weird A1 Yankovic song was released in 1992,

two years prior to Cobain's death. How Bill came to remember events in this way is open

to interpretation. Maybe this was the first time he had heard the song and so assumed it was

only just released, or perhaps the memory of when the song was released has been

intertwined with his memory of the day of Kurt Cobain's death. However, it seems likely

that the song was played at some stage, and that there were complaints from listeners, and it

is this that seems to have become meaningful enough for Bill to associate with his first

memory about Cobain's death.

Furthermore, with a cultural form like grunge, there exist many embedded myths and

untruths that have become accepted as truths. For example, there is the question of whether

Cobain committed suicide or was murdered, and his claims to have narcolepsy that were

(apparently) false but have been faithfully repeated so many times since that they have

gained the status of truth. At times participants in the grunge scene deliberately gave

misleading information to the media. For example, in the early days of grunge an ex-

employee of Sub Pop provided English magazine Sky with a fake list of slang terms from
95
Seattle (Frank, 1997b). In situations such as this where audiences are almost always getting

facts second hand at best, meaning begins to take precedence. To understand Bill's relation

to grunge, the factual error made in the above statement becomes far less important than the

meanings attached to this memory.

Wliile the knowledge of objective facts is generally considered superior to other types of

knowing in m o d e m society, memories are often more related to subjective memory of the

things that pertain only to an individual and contain sensations, emotions and other less

tangible elements. A focus on memory which only focuses on its accuracy will miss this

more subjective aspect of remembering. A memory that is factually inaccurate still holds

meanings for an individual or group—and the inaccuracy itself might be related to the

meanings contained within it, or itself serve a specific purpose (Bluck, 2003, Kuhn, 2000).

The malleability of memory serves an important social function:

Society f r o m time to time obligates people not just to reproduce in thought

previous events of their lives, but also to touch them up, to shorten them, or
to complete them so that, however convinced we are that our memories are
exact, we give them a prestige that reality did not possess. (Halbwachs,
1992,'51)

We are given an ability to reshape and revisit our memories in a way that means it is less

likely that the past will be incongruent with our current identity and circumstances (Libby

and Eibach, 2007). On occasions during interviews, comments were made by respondents

that made this process more explicit. For example, Bertha initially stated that she cannot

remember the circumstances under which she heard about Kurt Cobain's death, but then

goes on to give a fairly detailed account, before ending by indicating her continuing

uncertainty:

96
 Do you remember where you were when you heard that he'd died? 1
don't, actually, no I don't. 1 think 1 was at school when it actually happened,
and my mum 1 think told me when 1 got home from school—'oh, you know
that guy you like? He's dead, they found him dead', and I'm like oh my god!
So yeah, and then all the newspaper clippings started coming out and 1 read
about it, but I'm pretty sure 1 was at school when it sort of happened, and I
think my mum actually told me.

Bertha's actual memory of this event appears to be incomplete, yet she still attempts to

provide a 'story' for the interview, a story with the features that might be expected in

relaying these events.

Anderson (2004, 12) notes that it is important to understand the processes by which vague,

unformed memories (as discussed above) are translated into words and given an account or

reflected upon. Most of the information presented in interviews was in the form of clearly

articulated narratives based on factual knowledge. Clear, socially-determined narrative

forms provide a method for people to shift memory from the experiential and sensory to the

propositional, or from a process of naming to that which is named, in order for it to be more

easily shared with others.

Bertha's response shows the way we use narrative frames to shape what we say to others

about our memories. As Halbwachs and others (for example, Jedlowski, 2001, Connerton,

1989) have theorised, the narrative forms that we give to our memories reflect the

conventional and authorised ways of telling stories that we are taught from childhood.

Stories such as these need a beginning, a middle, and an end, and are focused on events

deemed to be socially important or disruptive to the 'normal' order of life (Olson, 1990).

The Popular Memory Group (1982) discuss how particular incidents are given precedence

in the stories people tell. In their example, a respondent's 'first j o b ' became a focal point in

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a study on class relations, and they discovered that this story was almost always told by
respondents, and that certain elements reoccurred in most people's telling of this story, thus
creating a narrative of'the first job'. For my study the two main narratives were 'the first
time [important music] was heard' and 'the death of Kurt Cobain'. For instance. Bertha's
response above could be read as an attempt to construct a narrative around the death even
though one did not really exist for her. The context in which these stories were told—a
formal interview—is likely to have encouraged such structured narrative forms (Jedlowski,
2001,32).

Narratives involving the first listen almost always contained the following elements—
where the respondent was, when they heard the music, who they were with and their initial
feelings and reactions:

First time 1 heard the album was, this friend had come back to [town] and
there was a couple of us, and we were driving around in my car and he said
'here, put this on', and, yeah, listened to it driving around. (Claud)

I heard it in the car on the way back from the beach. One of my friends had a
tape, and we were just like 'wow, what's this?', so yeah... (Ginny)

1 still remember the moment, as people probably often tell you stories about,
1 still remember the moment 1 heard Smells Like Teen Spirit. I was riding in
the back of a car—I was actually trying to look like Vanilla Ice back in those
days—but 1 was riding back in the car with some other young people that I
knew from TAFE, we were all going to the shittiest—well, [town] only had
shitty nightclubs—and listening to the shittiest music, and it was all really
sad, you know. (...) So 1 heard that song, just heard this wild man
screaming through this AM radio, this shitty little tinny speakers in this little
car as we were heading off to some, off to the beach or somewhere, the
usual stuff, and everyone - it just struck me that everyone 1 was hanging out
with, and there were some people who had some pretty narrow experiences
and formed some fairly narrow opinions with me. In the country there's
often less choice so less experience for you to broaden your horizons as far
as perspective on any given, opinions and things. So these guys, 1 noticed
everyone liked it, and they wouldn't normally, you know, 1 mean normally
98
 they would hate this sort of stuff, so why did they lilce this song? It just hit
me, just the power in Kurt's voice and just hearing it you go 'yeah!', it
pushes your yeah button, you know, and you go 'wow!' (Gordon)

This last quote from Gordon is particularly telling, as he adopts the standard narrative form

that includes where he was, who he was with and the significance of the event. He also

acknowledges the importance of accounts such as this in his expectation that 'people

probably often tell you stories about' their first encounter with Smells Like Teen Spirit.

These quotes also contain other points of similarity. For example, other people are central

to these accounts, as is the context in which the song is heard—in all of these cases, on a

stereo in a car. The centrality of the media through which music is encountered is discussed

in Chapter Four. Some respondents, such as Kaye, also demonstrate an awareness of

memory's status as memory, and this will be discussed further in Chapter Eight.

This discussion of how memory 'played out' in interviews furthers the discussion of the

social nature of memory begun in the literature review, and highlights some of the main

concerns that need to be taken into consideration when memory is a focus of research.

Memory is malleable, is not always easily articulated, and when spoken often takes

narrative forms that are considered more acceptable by society which may limit what is said

about an experience. By focusing on memory itself, these issues can become sources of

data rather than methodological problems. The use of the Active Interview and its notions

of the interview as a site of knowledge production was, in the end, very well suited to an

exploration of memory as the interview is the site of the articulation of memories and their

shifting and shaping into certain forms.

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Content Analysis
In addition to in-deptli interviews, media reports o f grunge have also been utilised in this

study. As it became apparent that memory would be an important theme in the thesis, it

became necessary to fmd accounts o f grunge from the time that would allow for some

measurement o f how memories o f grunge differ from how it was perceived at the time.

While this study was designed to look more at the audience responses to grunge, the role of

the media in helping to create music scenes and successes and in shaping the perceptions of

audiences cannot be ignored, it is also important for the aspects o f this study that deal with

memory to have an understanding o f how grunge was perceived in the past in order to see

how this might have changed. Using media reports for this purpose is hardly ideal, as there

cannot be said to be any direct or reliable correlation between media reports and audiences

responses. As Sarah Thornton notes:

... if aesthetic/political radicalism and particular kinds o f sustained media

attention determine inclusion in histories, then the cultural experiences o f
large parts of the population—not in tune with the tastes o f music critics or
not already represented in the music press—will be lost. (1990, 89)

The media reports used here must be treated at best as a partial representation of grunge.

However, as it is not possible to access the actual feelings or reactions o f the respondents at

the time—except as mediated through memory—media reports will be used to at least

indicate what was reported as happening. None o f my respondents were directly involved

with the grunge scene during its formation in Seattle. Therefore, it was necessary for

knowledge about it to be transmitted, and the most likely source would have been the

music-related media such as television, radio and press. All three o f these media were

mentioned by respondents as important sources of information.

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I conducted an in-depth analysis of the New Musical Express {NME), a weekly UK

magazine published in a newspaper-style format. This magazine was readily available in

Australia during the grunge period. The NME appeals to a younger audience and is

ostensibly more 'cutting edge' and oriented more towards change (Toynbee, 1993) than

publications such as Rolling Stone, which is seen as a more conservative magazine that

gives coverage to and supports the status quo in music (Sanjek, 1999). Its association with

indie scenes and tendency towards 'serious' rock journalism (as opposed to publications

more focused on style or teenage audiences) (Shuker, 2001b) made it ideal for

understanding the tension between authenticity and commercialisation. This publication

was chosen partly because back issues were easily accessible, but also because it is a large-

scale publication with a circulation over 100,000 copies in the early 1990s (Shuker, 1994,

80), and as such will give an indication of how grunge was considered (and constructed) at

the time. The fact that it is a weekly publication also means it has a more immediate

response to events, and there is more material overall to draw from than would be the case

with a less frequently published magazine. It is also the publication mentioned by name by

more respondents than any other.

All issues of the NME from 1990 to the end of 1994 were studied. Note was taken of every

mention of the word grunge and appearances by bands, musicians and other people (such as

the owners of Sub Pop) who had been identified as being associated with grunge by

respondents. While conventional content analysis would have required these instances to be

formally quantified and codified (for example, see Holsiti, 1969, Krippendorff, 1980,

Shuker, 2001a), the results of this search have been used in a more qualitative manner. The

instances of grunge and grunge musicians appearing in the NME have been used to create a

101
narrative description of how grunge was constructed in the magazine as it first appeared,

became successful and eventually died o f f The results of this study are discussed in depth

in Chapter Three.

In addition to the NME, analysis was also made of commemorative publications dealing

with the tenth anniversary of the death of Kurt Cobain. In the first half of 2004, many

music magazines (including the NME) released special editions focusing either exclusively

on Cobain and his death or more broadly on grunge as a movement. Nine of these

commemorative publications {Rolling Stone, Uncut, Mojo, Q, Record Collector, Spin,

Guitar One, Revolver and NME) have been studied and analysed for this thesis.

In terms of content analysis, the articles in these anniversary editions were coded according

to the main focus of the article, and four main categories were discerned. These were

reprints of older articles, historical articles, articles consisting of direct quotes from various

people, and articles discussing Cobain's character. This final category of articles was

further analysed in terms of how Cobain was described. These publications were useful in

that they provided a point of contrast to older media reports and allowed examination of

how the media's construction of grunge has changed as well as how grunge is portrayed in

contemporary media. These publications also provided a point of contrast to the accounts of

respondents, in order to determine if the way respondents remember grunge is different to

or aligns with media reports. These comparisons are mainly discussed in Chapters Five and

Six.

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Other sources of information about grunge have also been utiMsed in this thesis. Aside from

the commemorative editions, there has been much pubhshed in music magazines on grunge

in the past 15 years and some of these publications are referred to. Furthermore, there have

been movies (for example. Singles, Reality Bites and Last Days) and documentaries (such

as Hype! and Kurt and Courtney) also focussing on grunge, and these have been referred to

where appropriate in the thesis. However, no in-depth analysis (for example, semiotic

analysis or formal content analysis) has been made of these media sources. These materials

are used more to contextualise the responses given by interviewees and to understand the

information they have been exposed in regard to grunge that has helped to shape their

memories. It is necessary to take such sources into account, even though they are not the

main focus of this study.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the methodology chosen to undertake this research has been both a strength and

a weakness. The theory building approach taken allowed me to draw out themes and ideas

from my data that were not initially central to my research framework. However, this also

meant that the data were not always collected in the manner that may have been most

appropriate to those themes. For example, as noted above, focus groups may have added

more to the understanding of collective memory, and, as will be shown in Chapter Eight, a

more Bourdieuian methodological framework incorporating elements of quantitative as

well as qualitative data would have strengthened the observations on class, and probably

the observations on power made throughout the thesis.

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However, given the main research objective of understanding grunge and its connections to

societal structures through the eyes of the audience of this music, the interviewing and

analysis techniques employed have provided sufficient data to draw many useful

conclusions and make further suggestions for future research. They have allowed for the

exploration of the themes of authenticity and commercialisation identified early on as major

elements in the understanding of grunge (as discussed in the literature review) and

suggested the focus on memory that has become central to this work. The addition of media

analysis allows for comparisons to be made between the respondents and the media as a

centre of power in relation to memory, and also between past and present

conceptualisations of grunge. This theme will be elaborated on more fully in Chapter Four,

following the discussion of media accounts of grunge in Chapter Three.

104
CHAPTER THREE: Defining grunge in the media

This chapter will examine the accounts that the media gave of grunge at the time it was

occurring and attempt to connect grunge and its rise and fall to wider societal structures by

conceiving of it as a ' f i e l d ' . The chapter represents somewhat of a deviation from the

discussion of memory started in the previous chapters, as it is not dealing with memories as

such, but accounts from the time. However, this is a necessary diversion that will perform a

number of functions based around the content analysis process. First, it will provide a

baseline of events against which the memories of respondents can be compared, to allow a

greater understanding of h o w grunge was constructed in the media at the time and the

extent to which media accounts have shaped those of respondents. Second, it will enable an

examination of h o w the accounts of the media have changed when more recent reports are

considered in later chapters. Providing an analysis of the media's construction of grunge at

the time will also allow for a greater understanding of the position that it held in the field of

popular music, and how and why certain elements of the music and cultural trappings of

grunge were emphasised. Despite the mythical narratives that describe grunge appearing

'out of nowhere' or its success being completely unexpected, using field theory it can be

demonstrated that its success was connected to its perceived opposition to what had been

occurring in the musical field and in wider society. Its disappearance or destruction can be

explained in the same manner, and in this manner grunge can also be connected to wider

power relations in society.

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Field theory
The problems with the literature on grunge, and the problems with popular music studies as

a discipline, as discussed in Chapter One, arise partly from the role that subjectivity plays

in deciding to research popular music. Writing in the discipline suffers from the hazard o f

being a reflection o f a writer's own tastes more than anything else, especially when claims

are made that some types o f music are 'better' or 'worse' than others. While I am not

making a claim for complete objectivity, there are theoretical approaches that could be

adapted to try to minimise the effect o f the writer's personal tastes on the claims made for

popular music and its effects. To that end, 1 will be relying on the ideas o f Pierre Bourdieu

in this thesis. Bourdieu's discussions o f tastes and artistic fields allow for a study of

cultural objects and their reception to be linked to wider societal structures, and therefore

for judgements about whether music is good or bad to be (hopefully) left to one side.

For example, the discussion on the commercialisation of grunge may be enhanced by an

analysis o f grunge as a Bourdieuian field. Although Bourdieu mainly referred to the

production o f literature, his description o f the workings of fields of cultural production can

be usefully applied to grunge and to music more generally. Bourdieu (1993a, 78) defines a

field o f production as:

the system o f objective relations between ... agents or institutions and as the
site o f the struggles for the monopoly o f the power to consecrate, in which
the value o f works o f art and belief in that value are continuously generated.

As will be demonstrated in this chapter, grunge had its own rules, conventions and

hierarchies, it was contained within a number o f other fields. First, it was contained within

the (hard) rock field, which was contained within the larger field of popular music. These

were all contained within the wider field o f power, which consists of the class relations and
106
structures that constitute society as a whole. Grunge arose in the field o f hard rock in

response to movements that had come before it, sometimes as a continuation (as with thrash

metal and punk) but at other times in opposition (as with hair metal).

One o f the most in-depth applications o f Bourdieu's work to popular music to date is by

Hibbett (2005), who applies Bourdieu's conceptual framework to the notion of'indie rock',

explaining how this particular field emerged partly as a response to the increasing

popularity o f previously obscure musical types around the time that grunge was successful.

Hibbett (2005, 57) points out that the same internal logic applies to indie rock as high art.

For example, it has a smaller audience and less economic capital than the larger field of

popular music, it finds its identity in its opposition to the mass, and as 'an elite sect within a

larger field, indie rock requires its own codes, i.e. cultural capital, and therefore can be used

to generate and sustain myths o f social or intellectual superiority'. Similar conditions were

in place when grunge first appeared in Seattle, and it is this that caused difficulties when

grunge began to gain greater success in terms o f economic capital. Kruse (2003) similarly

uses fields as a way o f connecting practices in independent music scenes with wider

societal and economic forces. While Bourdieu believed that cultural fields are created

through the input o f both producers and audiences, he himself concentrated more on the

production side, as do Hibbett and Kruse (although Kruse's account does take audiences

into consideration). The concentration on the audience and media perspectives in this thesis

will provide another dimension to test these theories.

Along with literature, Bourdieu also examines theatre, newspapers, art and movies in

relation to people's tastes. However, he gives almost no consideration to the position of

107
popular music, or popular culture in general, although he does claim that music is the most

definitive indicator o f distinction and class position (see also Bourdieu, 1993b). His failure

to consider popular and mass-mediated culture more generally is considered to be

somewhat o f a shortcoming in his work because o f the wide impact these forms have had

upon modern societies (for example, see Bennett et al., 1999). Bourdieuian concepts such

as 'cultural capital' have been often utilised in popular music studies, and this will be

discussed further in Chapter Eight. However, fields have been used less often (but see, for

example, Regev [1994], and see Hesmondhalgh [2006] for a discussion o f the difficulties in

applying field theory to large-scale production). Bourdieu's theories on fields provide a

means o f understanding how hierarchies are created within popular music and how change

occurs in the field over time, without needing to rely on notions o f authenticity (despite the

importance this notion still holds for audiences). They also provide a way o f connecting the

field o f popular music to power relations in wider society.

In Bourdieu's (1984, 1993a) work on fields of cultural producfion he shows how cultural

fields operate under their own logic, but a logic which is influenced by and inescapably

bound up in larger societal structures. Fields are Bourdieu's organising schema for society.

They are places where action takes place in the world and where structure and agency come

together to create order and predictability—but not unalterable rules—in the world

(Seidman, 1998). They are sites where there is constant struggle taking place for the

acquisition of different types of capital, whether it be economic, cultural or symbolic

capital. The type o f capital that is most important differs from field to field—in some,

economic capital will be most important, and therefore those with most economic capital

108
will be the most powerful, but in others economic capital may be less important than

symbolic capital (Jenkins, 2002).

Bourdieu clearly states that the reception of a piece of work will never be exactly as its

producer intended, as there are always meanings which the producer takes for granted

which will not necessarily be seen in the same light by others. Understanding the place of

grunge therefore involves looking beyond central figures and artists such as Nirvana or the

owners o f Sub Pop, and the idea that such movements occur as a result o f the genius (or

machinations) o f individuals. It involves examining how social forces work on both

producers and consumers to contribute to the formation o f movements and particularly their

success at a given time. Although this study does not attempt to analyse individual pieces

o f work, or to understand the meanings intended by grunge musicians, these are still

relevant to an understanding o f the position of the grunge movement as a whole.

Understanding the position that grunge held becomes doubly difficult, as we are looking at

it retrospectively. As Bourdieu notes:

One o f the major difficulties o f the social history of philosophy, art or

literature is that it has to reconstruct these spaces o f original possibles
which, because they were part o f the self-evident givens o f the situation,
remained unremarked and are therefore unlikely to be mentioned in
contemporary accounts, chronicles or memoirs. (1993a, 31)

Thus, the effect o f time and memory will always need to be considered in an undertaking

such as this thesis, and it needs to be remembered that even the original works and reports

from the time will be incomplete.

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Bourdieu states that there is a constant struggle taking place within the artistic field

between what he calls the 'heteronomous principle' and the 'autonomous principle'. The

heteronomous principle is bound up with the economy and signs of success favoured by the

powerful, mainly financial and political gain. The autonomous principle is where success is

associated with being able to demonstrate independence from the types of success favoured

under the heteronomous principle. The classic image here is of the starving artist or

musician, barely able to support themselves but making great art without any influence

from commerce and disdainful of commercial success. In marginal artistic fields, the

autonomous principle is more important, and commercial success can decrease a producer's

standing within that field. However, this comes about only because this field is positioned

within the larger field of power, in this case the larger field of popular music, where the

opposite is true, and both fields are situated within a class-based society where money and

power are desired and dominant. The overall struggle in this situation is for control 'over

the imposition of the legitimate mode of cultural production' (Bourdieu, 1993a, 41) and

ultimately the dominant position within society. If the ruling class can continue to produce

what is seen as legitimate culture, then its power will be easier to retain.

Grunge can be described as a field of cultural production similar to that of literature, and

can be mapped out in a comparable fashion to the description of such a field in The Field of

Cultural Production and to Hibbett's description of indie rock. The difference between

grunge and indie rock is that while by Hibbett's account the latter has maintained its

position as an autonomous field, grunge began as an autonomous field but became part of

the mainstream (as discussed in Chapter One). Through its commercial success it changed

positions to become part of the heteronomous field, and, in fact, ended up in a position

110
whereby it could (partially) define success in the popular music field. However, because the

values of grunge that gave it authenticity were still those of an autonomous field, and also

because of the constant shifting of cultural fields whereby the old established order is

constantly being challenged by newer movements, grunge did not survive long in this

position of success.

This thesis will adopt the above schema to help understand the phenomenon of grunge.

Grunge was positioned within the greater rock/popular music apparatus, where commercial

success is the overall aim. As a smaller field, commercial success was frowned upon and

sincerity/authenticity was gained through initially being independent of the overriding

popular music structure (for example, major labels) and its conventions. The autonomous

principle is very similar to the concept of authenticity discussed earlier, and using

Bourdieu's ideas in relation to authenticity can help us to understand why authenticity is

seen as so important by connecting it to overarching social structures and power relations

within society.

Using Bourdieu, it could then be argued that one of the defining features of grunge was the

evolving tension as the smaller field began to be overrun by the values of the larger

surrounding field. Grunge began to become commercially successful, and was 'colonised'

by the larger field as record companies, marketers and other profiteers such as fashion

designers—not to mention the musicians themselves—saw the money-making potential of

the movement. As grunge had its values firmly placed within the autonomous principle, this

threatened the end of the movement. This colonisation by the larger field vividly

demonstrates the reinscription of ruling class hegemonic values and the manner in which

111
the autonomous principle came to be used as a source of profit. This change is perceived as
selHng out, the victory of commerciaHsation and the destruction of authenticity.

Hibbert (2005) describes the formation of the indie rock scene as being a response to this
cooption of grunge and ahemative by big business interests, in that the indie scene cannot
be described as a music style but more as a rejection and avoidance of whatever might be
commercially successful. This is a redefining of the autonomous principle within popular
music as being less 'art for art's sake' and perhaps more 'art for the rejection of commercial
success'. However, it should be noted that according to Bourdieu, such colonisations and
rejections are part of the ongoing cycles of artistic production.

Symbolic capital
What was most at stake for artists such as Nirvana and Soundgarden as they became
successful was their 'symbolic capital', something that can give its possessor an advantage
over those who do not possess it. Symbolic capital is 'any type of capital (for example,
economic or cultural) that happens to be legitimated or prestigious in a particular field"
(Couldry, 2003, 667). In the discussion of the construction of grunge in the media in this
chapter, and by respondents in Chapter Four, it will be shown that in a field such as this,
where symbolic capital was gained through opposition to corporate and commercial success
(an adherence to the autonomous principle), artists are in danger of losing their symbolic
capital if they start becoming successful, a problem also noted by Hibbert.

For some grunge artists, earning financial/commercial success was negated to some degree
by the protestations of the artists involved that they did not really desire this aspect of
112
success, and by being seen to be continuing to oppose the conventions of the popular music

field. Contained within this wider field, a field such as grunge is always constrained by

(initially) having values in opposition to those of the dominant field, and the way in which

this can work to the advantage of the dominant field. This is the basis for much of the

debate on the ideas of cooptation and commercialisation. As with avant garde art, where

attempts to critique the way art is defined by outside forces are themselves simply

repackaged as art (Bourdieu, 1993a, 80), this attempt by bands like Nirvana to subvert the

field in the end only served to reinforce it.

A good example of this is the public feud between Nirvana and their record company while

the band members were recording their third album, In Utero. During this time, the band

chose a producer, Steve Albini, known for producing harsh sounding records, and reports

abounded of the band clashing with record company executives when the latter tried to

interfere with the recording or decision-making processes around the album (DeRogatis,

2003, 17). Cobain was quoted as saying he was actively trying to lose audience members

and sell fewer copies of this album than their previous one (True, 2001, 4 7 ^ 9 ) . A situation

like this suggests a struggle between commercial and symbolic success in this field. Band

members announcing that they are trying to lose their audience under these circumstances

will possibly increase their symbolic capital but are unlikely to decrease their commercial

success in a field that trades on images of rebellion. However, it is in a record company's

interest to publicise such statements, as this gives them the ability to exploit the conflict

between the commercial and symbolic in order to increase profits.

13
Actors within a field who possess greater symbohc capital also have greater power to

define the limits o f the field. In discussing the field of literature, Bourdieu claims that a

central ongoing struggle is over the definition of a writer. This is an ongoing process.

'Generations' turn over quickly, and as each new generation o f artists brings new ways o f

creating art and new ideas o f how the art in question should or could be defined, these new

ideas—where they gain either symbolic or commercial success—are taken up by wider

society. In the most successful cases, they become the standard the next generation takes a

stance against (Bourdieu, 1993a). However, as Hibbett (2005, 64) notes, 'cultural capital

can cease to have value as it becomes increasingly accessible'. Thus music, especially

music that has any artistic pretensions, and its audience can never remain stagnant.

Furthermore, a band or artist has to change in just the right way to retain their audience.

They can easily be branded a sell-out, either by changing in a way that is perceived as

deliberately chasing commercial success, or by resting on the laurels o f previous successes

through not changing enough.

Central to this tension are the brokers between the artists themselves and those who might

pay for the artist's work (Regev, 1994). In the case o f grunge, this position would have

initially belonged to the owners o f the record label Sub Pop. They played an important role

in determining who would be granted admission to this new category o f music by deciding

who would be signed to the label and given money, without which careers would probably

have been quite limited. They also instigated other elements, such as a coherent aesthetic

for album covers and advertising, which helped define the grunge scene, and ensured media

coverage. Sub Pop owners Poneman and Pavitt were in a position to perform this role as

114
they were connected to both the artists and other constituents of the field such as critics

and, through them, the pubHc.

Bourdieu (1993a, 79) described how a field could sometimes experience a 'moment of

crisis', where briefly the relationships between the artists and dealers—in this case the

record companies—are made transparent, showing the links between art and commerce.

Although the situation with grunge and the poor relationships between bands and major

labels they later signed to could be described as such an occasion, this moment did not

happen with relation to Sub Pop. Sub Pop itself retained its symbolic capital through the

grunge period (although not its economic capital), because the major successes of grunge

came after bands had moved on from Sub Pop to larger corporate labels. As a result. Sub

Pop itself did not change its relation to the values of the larger field as it would have done if

it had been the means by which these bands had found success. In an interesting display of

how complex these relationships can be, the owners of Sub Pop often claimed in interviews

that they were actively seeking commercial success (for example, see Wells, 1992). The

fact that they never gained this meant they could make such claims without losing symbolic

capital. The 'moment of crisis' never extended to include all dealers, and thus left an area

where their authenticity was still left unchallenged.

By using Bourdieu, the debates around conflict between money and artistry/authenticity can

be understood in a more sociological manner. Bourdieu's fields present a useful way of

understanding how grunge is connected to wider society. Most importantly, using Bourdieu

allows for an explanation of grunge's evolution and destruction, and the relationship that

audiences have with it, in a more value-free way. Grunge is not assumed to be better or

115
worse than other forms of music, but to display a specific trajectory in the constantly
changing musical field. Audience reactions to grunge are not right or wrong, but are built
upon their own position within society, as will be demonstrated throughout this thesis. This
story is, of course, not unique to grunge, but is an ongoing process in popular music.
Similar trajectories could be traced out for many other musical forms, and Hibbert
demonstrates the tactics that are used within the indie rock scene to avoid this conflict
between success and symbolic capital. However, the critique of the commercialisation of
music contained in grunge made this conflict more apparent than usual, and rather than
leading to a further examination of the meanings of success, this has instead led to criticism
of grunge in having failed in what it apparently set out to do.

I will now turn to a consideration of the way grunge was presented in the New Musical
Express {NME) in order to show these processes at work, and to build a fuller picture of
how grunge was understood at the time of its popularity.

Media accounts of grunge

As discussed in the previous chapter, this thesis uses media accounts of grunge, particularly
from the NME during the early 1990s, to understand how grunge was constructed and
situated at the time that it was most popular. As I am attempting to describe grunge as a
field in a Bourdieuian sense, it is necessary to briefly discuss the unusual position of the
media in relation to fields of production. The media also comprise a field, with its own
internal rules. However, the media also has the ability to greatly influence and is
mcreasir
singly influenced by what occurs in other fields (Benson, 1998, Couldry, 2003). It
holds a position that is necessarily interactive with its audience and subject, and analysing it
116
using field theory 'challenges the dichotomy of "passive" and "active" audiences, insisting
on the pre-established harmony of circuits of production and reception' (Benson, 1998,
463).

The media are sites where new movements are defined and sometimes consecrated, or
named as 'worthy of wider consideration' (Benson, 1998, 469). The media coverage of a
movement like grunge also demonstrates the conflict between the heteronomous principle
(that which is to do with conventional success such as financial gain, or the mainstream)
and autonomous principle (where success is found through, for instance, being independent
of commerce) principles, especially as a cultural form gains popularity and commercial
success. Within grunge, the autonomous principle can be almost directly equated with the
idea of authenticity. However, this is not always the case within popular music. As will be
discussed below, a movement such as hair metal gains authenticity through an (excessive)
embrace of commercial success and its trappings. In a movement such as grunge where
authenticity and autonomy are closely aligned, gaining commercial success causes
problems, and the tensions and contradictions that commercial success brought for the
movement signalled the beginnings of its demise. I will now outline how grunge was first
consecrated, then 'killed off by the NME.

The construction of grunge in the NME

In his article 'Policing Bohemia, Pinning up Grunge' (1993), Jason Toynbee discusses the
changing roles different sections of the UK music press play, with a detailed analysis of the
'inkies', including the NME. He describes how emergent musical scenes (which could also
be thought of as fields) are dealt with in these publications:
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 Because it is premised on the need to supply change, the music press takes
on a periodising role which involves, on the one hand, nurturing the new
and, on the other, killing off the old. ...First, generic order is established,
particular artists are set up as exempla, and aesthetic and axiological criteria
are defined. The period (scene) receives a name. Then, at a point which
often depends on imperatives appearing elsewhere in the industry-audience
circuit, the order is perceived as unstable. (297)

This can clearly be seen occurring in the NME with relation to grunge, and the following

shows how this genre was created for the journalists of the NME (and hence for readers of

the publication). In this case, the NME was not the only or first major publication to enter

into this process in regard to grunge. To some extent a similar process, involving audiences

as both receivers and originators of information, was occurring elsewhere. Gunn (1999)

discusses how genres are, to some extent, necessary, as they enable people to discuss music

and make comparisons and distinctions without needing to hear the music to do so. While

Gunn (1999, 46) mainly deals with the maintenance, rather than creation, of genres, he

suggests that 'it could be argued ... that when new and unanticipated musical forms are

initially experienced, initially heard, there is at least an antigeneric moment.' This is a

moment when a new genre has been identified as being somehow different from what has

come before, but has not yet been defined or named. This antigeneric moment could be

inserted usefully into the beginning of the schema set out by Toynbee, and it is here that

this discussion of the account of the NME begins.

In the NME in the late 1980s, there was a minor amount of attention focused on the Sub

Pop label and Seattle as a music scene. At this stage, accounts focused on the record label

and the physical location of Seattle for the definition of the scene, along with some basic

musical attributes such as guitar-based sound and a back-to-rock-basics instrumentation and

feel. There was also an aesthetic element that helped to give the scene a sense of cohesion
for those covering it. For example, Sub Pop deliberately made its releases visually

recognisable through the use of certain photographers and styles on CD and single covers

(Wells, 1990a), and bands had the casual/unkempt appearance that would later become

known as the grunge look. Interest in this scene initially peaked in about 1990 then began

to wane. However, it did not go through the destructive journalistic phase described by

Toynbee, probably because even at the height of its popularity it had not been very well

known in the UK, and had not had any mainstream success as such.

During 1990, Seattle bands—mainly Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Nirvana—appeared in

the NME regularly, although at this point the genre they belonged to was still in its

formative stages. Reviewers of albums and live performances seemed uncomfortable

placing these bands in any already existing genre, and struggled with descriptions of the

music. For example, Soundgarden were described as 'either the slowest speed metal band

in the world or the very first exponents of slothcore' (Collins, 1990), 'Thrash Metal Sub

Hardcore Pop Noise' (Ellen, 1990), and 'punky metalheads' (Wells, 1990c), a description

that covers the commonly accepted roots of grunge. Mudhoney were at one stage called

'post-rap' (Wells, 1990b), and Nirvana were 'thrash' (Corrigan, 1990) or 'hardcore'

(Lamacq, 1991). The points of reference most often used were metal, hardcore and punk,

but never in an unproblematic way. At this point, the music and associated cultural artefacts

were differentiated from surrounding styles, but consensus had not yet been reached on

exactly how or why. The word grunge does appear in a September article on the new wave

of'all-girl white-trash hardcore' from the USA. In particular, Courtney Love described her

band Hole as 'grungey' (Dalton, 1990), but at this stage the word seemed to be more of a

119
simple description of the musical sound without further implications, a usage which

continued into the first half of 1991.

However, a change started to occur from June 1991. The term grunge started to be used

more frequently, and in a more definite generic sense. For example, in an interview with

Babes In Toyland the band were described as 'hot-blooded all-girl "foxcore" grunge-

rockers', and the article mentioned how having their LP produced by Jack Endino meant

they were 'almost automatically enshrined in the Grunge Hall of Fame' (Cameron, 1991b).

That there is suddenly a capital-G Grunge Hall of Fame when such a thing has not been

hinted at previously gives some clue that there may have been developments in this area

that the NME had not been reporting. At this stage Nirvana had not been described as

grunge in the NME, and was more often than not referred to as a punk band. During this

time of the 'establishment of the generic order', while struggle was still taking place over

the location of grunge in the wider field of popular music and definitions were not clear,

other factors were brought into play. Interviews focused on the anti-corporate stance of

bands and their claims to authenticity through working class origins and tales of deprivation

and struggle were emphasised (for example, see Dalton, 1991, Cameron, 1991a). In this

way, an appeal was being made to the power of the autonomous principle in this field, and

symbolic capital was being bestowed upon these bands. The fragility of such capital was

already apparent, however, as these bands were at this point on the brink of success (which

the NME was encouraging) that would immediately cause difficulties for their claims to this

capital. This difficulty was even noted by journalists; for example, in a live review in

late 1991 the reviewer noted the contradictions between Nirvana's 'punk attitude' and their

status as 'next big thing' (Williams, 1991, see also Mundy, 1992).

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In September 1991, Nirvana's Nevermind album was released. Both it and Hole's Pretty on

the Inside were included in that month's top ten albums (as chosen by journalists) in the

NME, and in November Smells Like Teen Spirit was made Single of the Week with a

review that described the band as 'former Sub Pop grungemeisters' (Fadele, 1991). At this

point, as Nevermind began to become successful, journalists started to make comparisons

between these bands and the previous/waning big act in guitar-based music, Guns'n'Roses.

Guns'n'Roses and their ilk (often described as hair metal, as discussed in the Introduction)

provided an exemplary point of comparison to show the newness of the recently-crowned

grunge scene, even as they were in the process of being 'killed o f f by the press. Although

still within the hard rock genre, Guns'n'Roses were musically and stylistically 'slicker' and

more glamorous than any grunge band, revelling in the traditional rock lifestyle of sex,

drugs and misogyny which was being openly decried by the Seattle bands (or at least the

misogyny). In one interview, Courtney Love explicitly set herself up in opposition to Axl

Rose and heavy metal in general (Walsh. 1991), while in an article on Nirvana titled 'The

Guns'n'Roses it's OK to like', Mary Ann Hobbs (1991, 28) gave the following account:

Here's my theory: The Nevermind LP is a meeting point for all manner of

rock enthusiasts; those who like the power ideal of Metallica but can't
stomach their lack of melody; Pixies fans still searching for Doolittle 11 who
feel that Black Francis is beginning to fudge it; the grown-up Ned's [Atomic
Dustbin] appreciation society; even neurotic adolescents with shattered
illusions of Guns'n'Roses—Most Dangerous Rock ' n ' Roll Band in the
World (ha!).

This shows the processes through which grunge was being constructed. It was being

defined both within the hard rock genre/field and against other (older) bands who were part

of the same general musical style (see also Cameron, 1992a). Bourdieu specifically

121
discusses the way that new generations appearing in a field must define themselves (or be

defined) in opposition to what has come before them, and the uses that such oppositional

definitions serve will be discussed in more detail below.

Then, in the January 4, 1992 issue, came the genre-defining article in the form of a two-part

piece by Steven Wells and Keith Cameron called 'Grunge Hell'. The first part of this piece

was in article form and explicitly dealt with what grunge was, while the second part

consisted of a list of bands that were considered to fall under the definition. The article

positioned grunge as oppositional to the 'niceness' of British pop, and gave the following

definition:

Grunge—a staggering, swaggering bourbon-drenched, raw-throated genre

that owes something to Hardcore, to Scum Rock and to Metal sans the
poodles and the hairdressers. A jerking rock-dog that lustily celebrates the
seedy, the spastic and the degenerate. (Wells and Cameron, 1992, 16)

This article is interesting in its uncoupling of grunge from Seattle and Sub Pop. The article

half of the piece, while acknowledging that 'Grunge is primarily an American

phenomenon', goes to great lengths to explain how it was relevant and important to British

(and other) audiences. This was mainly done through contrasting grunge to the more recent

trends in British music, in particular 'shoegazing', light-hearted pop-rock represented by

bands like Lush, Revolver and Slowdive. The article firmly identified these shoegazing

bands as middle class, and denigrated their sound as 'music your mum would like'. By

contrast grunge is thus constructed as working class and anti-establishment. The article also

examined broader trends in British society to explain the appeal of grunge, equating the

shoegazing scene with the politics of John Major and grunge with those who had suffered

under or opposed conservatism. The list of bands—the exemplary artists of the newly

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defined genre—included most of the noteworthy Sub Pop bands (Nirvana, Melvins, Tad,

Mudhoney) and the female bands championed by the magazine previously (Babes in

Toyland, Hole, L7), as well as other less (retrospectively) predictable and non-Sub Pop

bands such as Helmet, Jesus Lizard and Pavement (later to be re-classified as 'lo-fi'). Some

UK bands were also included, such as Fudge Tunnel ('grungier than most Americans'),

Therapy? and Membranes.

This article was appropriate at this time for a number of reasons. First, the invention of a

genre (or the utilisation of a genre label) to encapsulate the current musical trends was

necessary as the bands involved could no longer be simply referred to as Sub Pop or Seattle

bands. The type of music being described was no longer unique to Seattle (if indeed it ever

was), and Sub Pop was no longer the home to many of the acts named, particularly

Nirvana, who had released Nevermind X\woug\\ a major record label, Geffen. The surprise

success of Nevermind also meant this music and associated culture had become visible to

many more people than before. NME, in its role as 'arbiter of cool', needed to present an

authoritative position on this. The journalists here were also trying to create a homology

between the position of audiences and the music through appeal to class positions and age.

They were in effect claiming that grunge was better than shoegazing because it said

something about the concerns of real people, or of people who were marginalised in

middle-class Britain (such claims about class will be analysed further in Chapter Eight).

After this point, the usage of grunge became far more matter-of-fact, although hardly

uncontested, as no genre is ever neatly contained without blurred boundaries (see

Kirschner, 1994).

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The question of what was authentic in relation to grunge started to arise at this point, with

bands who visually and aurally would seem to be firmly contained within the grunge genre

being denied this label and its attendant benefits because journalists perceived them as

either contrived or commercial, or both. The journalists attempted to maintain the

boundaries of the genre by denying entry to those who might be attempting to 'cash in' on

its success. The band that was condemned most in the process was Pearl Jam:

Firstly, let's blow out the Nirvana comparison. Nirvana's rise was a
beautiful, unpremeditated explosion. Geffen expected 'Nevermind' to shift a
few thousand units, and it shifts a few million. But Pearl Jam's meteoric
triumph was tightly sewn up before the album even hit British shops.
...What you get is solid AOR, circa 1974—nothing new. (Lewis, 1992)

They were relentlessly denigrated by the magazine for the next 18 months or so (with their

supposed feud with Nirvana playing a central role), along with bands such as Alice In

Chains and Stone Temple Pilots, whose late appearance on the scene allowed the NME to

question their authenticity (see also Cameron, 1992b, Frost, 1993, Moody, 1994). This

attempt to deny use of the label grunge to people perceived as being inauthentic indicates

the beginning of the 'instability' phase discussed by Toynbee (1993), insofar as a scene will

struggle to maintain itself over time if newcomers are not admitted by journalists and initial

participants move on.

Over this period, from 1992 to early 1994, the usage of grunge reverted somewhat to its

initial association with Seattle, with a number of articles and reviews making comments

that suggested an automatic equation o f ' S u b Pop = grunge' (Lewis, 1993b). For instance,

an article on the Afghan Whigs described the band as: 'well hard, they formed in prison,

they brawl and break up, they're the Sub Pop band who don't come from Seattle. But the

124
Afghan Whigs are not just another grunge band' (Cameron, 1993, 9; see also Williams,

1993b). This comment also indicated a certain sense of tiredness with the genre. New

releases from Sub Pop were discussed as though the label was synonymous with grunge,

with surprise being expressed when the label released albums that were not in line with the

ideals of the genre. For example, a review of the 'Sub Pop Flannel Fest', a gig showcasing

Sub Pop's more recent signings held in February 1993, focused on the 'change in tangent'

from grunge (Williams, 1993a). This may have been an attempt to set boundaries around

what could and could not be considered authentic in the now commercially-successful and

well-known genre by looking back to the roots of grunge. The continuing independent

status of the Sub Pop label was important at this point, as independent labels are often

associated with authenticity in the music world (see Kruse, 2003). The bands described

above as having been denied the grunge label first emerged on major labels, and this was

part of their perceived inauthenticity.

The year 1993 also saw the first articles using the term 'Riot Grrrl', which went through a

similar period of genre-defining as grunge, and the beginning of the vilification of Courtney

Love (both of which will be discussed in depth in Chapter Six). In general, the dramatic

events surrounding grunge bands, particularly Nirvana, as a result of their sudden success

and fame, were given much coverage, and served to frame a wider ranging discussion on

the apparent contradictions between commercial and artistic success. For example, a

Mudhoney live review from late 1992 states:

In 1992, hardcore means 'grunge', means being apolitical, growing your hair
long, sometimes behaving like beasts, being disillusioned, being chased
around by A&R people with large chequebooks, remembering the best
things about blighted '70s rock that punk was supposed to kill off, having
your capital in Seattle but sprouting up everywhere in the so-called west,
ingesting all the crazy substances you can afford, especially alcohol, means
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 trying to sound like Mudhoney. Have we lost something along the way?
(Fadele, 1992)

This description neatly encapsulates many of the geographical, cultural and musical

elements of grunge, while also touching on the conflict between success and authenticity.

Quite possibly the unexpected success of Nirvana also threatened the authoritative positions

of the journalists and the publication in general as something from a smaller artistic field

became accepted on a mass scale. As the NME positions itself on the cutting edge of music,

continuing to support grunge when it had become accepted by a wider mainstream audience

could have threatened this position. Overall, the articles produced during this time reflect

the difficulties journalists, audiences and bands experienced as the success of grunge

threatened the field's claims to authenticity and autonomy.

The year 1993 also saw more suggestions of instability in the field. As early as January an

article on 7 Year Bitch discussed the 'alleged decline' of the Seattle scene (Harris, 1993),

and a review of Nirvana's third album, In Utero, contained the following:

It's not a grunge record, since the definition of grunge has moved on from
meaning no-hoper gonzoid punks to embrace any metal band who wear
dresses instead of leather kecks and are a little bit subversive for MTV—
hello, Stone Temple Pilots (Mulvey, 1993).

This suggests the demise of the original meanings of grunge. Reviews of grunge bands

such as Nirvana and Babes in Toyland started to become more critical, in particular

accusing the bands of'predictability' (Dick, 1993, Lewis, 1993a). Paradoxically, it is at this

time that reviews and articles on Pearl Jam started to become more favourable.

One revealing article at this time took a critical view of the most successful grunge artists,

namely Cobain, Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam and Billy Corgan from the Smashing
126
Pumpkins. Their 'honesty', previously praised, had become 'whining'; their newest albums

were 'diaries' and therefore were 'not art'; their authenticity was questioned, and they were

condemned for not being able to find a solution to the problem of being anti-commercial

and yet commercially successful (Sutherland, 1993a). This reading foreshadows future

academic criticism of grunge. All the indications at the end of 1993 were that grunge had

become unstable, and was entering the first stages of being killed o f f The scene had

become so successful that most people knew about it and imitators had begun to enter the

field, which precluded it from continuing to be 'cool', and journalists started to turn on

those bands who previously gained the highest praise.

However, in early 1994 a number of sensational events took place. In March, Kurt Cobain

was admitted to hospital in Rome after taking an overdose of sleeping pills, and in April he

was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The journalists at the NME appeared

shocked and saddened by this event, while being wary of condoning or glorifying suicide

(see Sutherland, 1994, Mulvey, 1994). At the same time, Cobain's death served to help

bring about the end of the grunge phenomenon in the publication. A week after Cobain's

death was reported, a Soundgarden live review contained the following:

Before the initial shockwaves [from Cobain's death] abated, pundits were
blandly debating whether the death also symbolised a funeral wreath for the
Seattle scene in general. (Lewis, 1994)

While reports elsewhere have placed the end of grunge as late as the break-up of

Soundgarden in 1997 (Stout, 1998, Shuker, 2005), for the NME the time of grunge as an

ongoing genre was mostly passed at this point. Many bands that were defined as grunge

bands during the period discussed above continued to receive coverage in the NME, but

127
they were usually described in more general terms as rock. It seems appropriate that the

tenn needed by the NME to help explain the newly successful Nirvana should die with

Cobain.

A further cultural change brought about by grunge, and one which was not covered

extensively in "serious" music-based publications such as the NME (although see Anderson,

1990. Williams, 1993a), w as in the realm of fashion, which will be discussed only briefly

here. St> le is almost alw ays a central aspect of youth culture and, as will be seen in the

following chapter, this was a major theme in respondents' definitions of grunge. One of the

most notable features of the grunge era was the way the styles associated with it were

commercialised by large-scale, mainstream fashion houses and labels, and the speed with

which this happened (although this is certainly not a story peculiar only to grunge style).

From late 1992 onwards, articles appeared in various newspapers and magazines discussing

the grunge trend in fashion, describing the look as consisting of the ubiquitous flannelette

shirts and torn jeans, big boots and second hand clothes (for example, see Howard, 1993,

Jeannin. 1992). Almost simultaneously other articles appeared, asking, for example, how

likely it is that selling newly made designer versions of the fashions people were originally

finding in op-shops would be successful, given that the appeal of such clothes is thus

removed or fundamentally altered (for example, see Kobel, 1993). However, the style

became hugely successful, as a glance at any youth-oriented television show or movie from

the time will attest. For example, old episodes oiBeverly Hills 90210 show all the main

characters in their fiannel-and-jeans uniforms, and references to grunge in films such as The

Brady Bunch and Singles attest to the predominance of the style at this time. This

128
commercial co-optation of the grunge style connects again to the conflict mentioned earlier

between the anti-commercial grunge ethos and the success it achieved.

The above has discussed how grunge was presented in the press from its anti-generic time

(1989 to 1991) through its formative phase to its apparent death at around the same time as

Cobain. Musically, it was a guitar-based form of rock at the heavier end of the sound

spectrum but with a relatively simple structure. Women and men were fairly equally

represented. Stylistically, fashions were casual to the point of being unkempt for both

sexes, with long hair, flannelette shirts and torn jeans common. Attitudinally, there was a

rejection of corporate and commercial success, which became problematic when bands

started to become very successful; a rejection of materialism that was in keeping with the

visual aspects of the scene in that inexpensive, tattered and second-hand clothing was

valued; and an interest in exploring some of the darker sides of humanity, whether

behaviourally or emotionally. Suggestions were also made of a certain amount of

hedonism, through the consumption of drugs (mainly heroin and marijuana) and alcohol.

Geographically, the term was initially applied to bands from Seattle, and more specifically

those signed to the Sub Pop label. While this association weakened over time it never

completely disappeared.

The definition of grunge given in the NME is typical of the way grunge was defined in

other publications of the era (for example, see the selection of articles in DeRogatis, 2003),

and is also the definition that has been accepted since that time. This is unsurprising

because although the NME has been used as the only in-depth case study here, it was not

creating the idea of grunge in a vacuum, but was itself affected by other media

129
representations of the movement. References were made in articles on grunge bands to

television appearances they made, radio interviews, and articles written in other

publications. All of these different media representations—and representations of fans and

the bands themselves—fed off each other intertextually in creating a definition of grunge.

Although it has been demonstrated above that initially the meaning of, and even the very

term, grunge was unstable, eventually a consensus appears to have been reached whereby

the use of the term now consistently means the same things to different people.

Conclusion

This chapter has traced the development of the term 'grunge', placing it in the context of

the time. Without knowledge of this context grunge cannot be properly understood, nor can

changes in how it has been perceived since this time be understood. It has also

demonstrated how, as grunge emerged within the field of popular music, conflict arose

between the autonomous principle (authenticity) and the heteronomous principle associated

with commercial mainstream success. As grunge's authenticity was associated with

rejection of success as defined within the wider field of power, as soon as grunge started to

obtain such success it began to undermine the basis on which that success was (partly)

built. This conflict can be seen being played out in the reports of journalists at the NME,

and also in accounts of grunge fashions. However, from these reports we gain an

understanding of how grunge was initially constructed in the media. The following chapter

will now turn to descriptions of grunge given by respondents, in order to compare and

contrast them to media reports.

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CHAPTER FOUR: Defining grunge in memory

Having presented an account o f how grunge was constructed in the media during the early

1990s, in this chapter 1 will discuss the centrality o f the media to the creation o f collective

memories in contemporary societies. Returning to the theme o f memory, 1 will provide

evidence that respondents to this study can be considered such a collectivity through

examining their understanding o f what grunge was. Despite some minor variations, the

respondents show high levels o f agreement on geographical, cultural, temporal and musical

elements o f grunge. Their shared understanding o f grunge also includes emotional and

embodied elements that take their recollections o f grunge beyond knowledge of'facts'

about the past. Respondents also identify a number o f areas where grunge presented a

challenge to existing power relations.

The main difference between the media and respondents' definitions o f grunge is that while

it was possible to go back to old copies of music magazines to see how grunge was defined

at the time, the definitions provided by respondents are their current definitions, or how

they would define grunge looking back on it. Given the centrality of the idea of memory to

this thesis, it is important to note that these definitions will almost certainly have changed

over time. It is not possible to determine exactly how this may have occurred or what

changes may have taken place. However, it is important to compare and contrast the

definitions o f respondents with those given in the media to discover whether they are

similar or whether there are areas o f difference, rather than assuming media and

respondents are talking about the same phenomenon.

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This chapter will illuminate the areas of agreement (of which there are many) between and
within the accounts of the media and respondents to give a more detailed idea of what
grunge is and further our understanding of where it is located within the cultural field of
which it is a part. Between the previous chapter and this one, 1 aim to demonstrate that
'grunge' is not open to endless interpretation but has a definite centre or core of meaning
consistent across different groups and has remained relatively stable over time. 1 will
continue to develop the argument that grunge holds a particular position within the field of
popular music, and that this position can only be understood with reference to other musical
forms and the time at which it occurred. The chapter will begin with an account of the
respondents' definitions of grunge, which will be followed by a discussion of the
relationship between media and memory. This will help to theorise the connections
between the definitions of grunge given by respondents and in the NME, and lead into the
further discussion of these relationships in the following chapter.

Respondents' definitions of grunge

Respondents' definitions of grunge and the meanings they associate with it are highly
consistent across the group. Their definitions are also closely aligned with the media reports
on grunge from the time (and over time, as media accounts have since remained consistent
on certain major points, which will be discussed below). As will be demonstrated through
comparisons with data from the previous chapter, respondents relied on the media to
construct grunge for them, although they related it to their own lives and experiences in
different ways.

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O n e of the questions asked of respondents was: 'If you had to, how would you define

g r u n g e ? ' Their responses can be broadly categorised as containing four elements: musical,

geographical, temporal and cultural. In combination with an understanding of which

specific bands were described as grunge by respondents, these produce an overall picture

from which there is no significant disagreement from any individual respondent. This

suggests that the basic definition of 'what grunge is' is highly consistent among the group

interviewed. These definitions also correspond very closely to the media accounts discussed

in the previous chapter. However, they are less closely aligned with, but not entirely

different to, the academic views discussed in Chapter One, and in particular do not reflect

the negative view academics take of grunge. The parallels between the media definitions

and those of respondents are hardly surprising, as music media and music fans interact

closely and are influenced heavily by each other (Thornton, 1995). This definition can be

extracted out of the collective responses of the subjects. However, few respondents

discussed all four of the features that were central to the definition. For example, some

described only what the music sounded like, while others did not try to describe the music

at all, but instead described other associated cultural objects such as clothes or the drugs

they thought were connected to grunge.

Geographical and temporal elements

Like the media, respondents associated grunge with a specific geographical location-

Seattle (or the American North-west)—and a particular time, the 'early 90s'.^

^ Such a temporal definition was not found in the media reports from the NME, because at the time it was not
necessary. More recent media reports do use a similar temporal definition. ^ ^^
 1 suppose it's, it's sort of guitar music that came out of Seattle in that period
[around 1992], 1 suppose is the strict definition of it. (Joyce)

1 guess it originated in Seattle, that sort of workers' sound or something,

from the background of industrial Seattle. (Kaye)

It's obviously West Coast America, early 90s. (Ginny)

VvTiile no respondents attempted to put exact dates on the beginning and end of grunge,

there was general agreement that it was no longer an ongoing musical form (partly because

the cultural elements such as the fashion associated with grunge were so acutely associated

with this particular point in time). In the words of Missy, 'it's a period of time that's pretty

much been and gone'. The only exceptions to this were Louisa, who located grunge in an

earlier time frame than anyone else (describing bands such as Nirvana as 'post-grunge')

and Lily, who was the only respondent to explicitly describe grunge as an ongoing musical

forni. In terms of the location of grunge. Figure 4. 1 below shows that all but one of the

bands respondents identify as grunge are North American, and are almost all from the

Seattle region. The sole exception is Silverchair, an Australian band mentioned only by

Seth.

Hence, the collective memory of respondents concerning where and when grunge occurred

was almost completely consistent across the group, and showed considerable agreement

with the way grunge was constructed by the NME.

Musical elements

The musical elements discussed by respondents were at times very specific. For example,

Percy (himself a musician) said:

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 Ok. so grunge in a definition would be 4 chords, a DS distortion pedal, a
loud raucous guitar amp and a couple of guys who have only been playing
for 6 months (laughs).

Guitars—loud, distorted guitars—are the key feature in how the music is described:

They just had good pop tunes with heavy distorted guitars 1 guess, and
louder stuff. 1 don't think there was any one particular style 1 guess, that
you could say 'oh, that's grunge'. 1 guess maybe just the loud distorted
guitars and the shouting maybe. (Michelle)

However, rather than actually trying to describe the exact sound of grunge, most

respondents tried to describe it by reference to other types of music or musical genres.

Some respondents made unexpected comparisons. For example, Arthur compared it to

blues music and Julie described it as a 'fusion of metal and folk'. However, the

comparisons made most often are to punk and/or heavy metal:

[Grunge is] downtuned, kind of like punk but slower, or metal but slower
(Gordon)

The fact that grunge drew heavily on elements of earlier musical styles, particularly punk,

did not change its status as 'new', as this type of return to or reliance on the past is a

common feature of cultural fields. According to Bourdieu (1993a, 109), such returns:

are always apparent returns, since they are separated from what they
rediscover by a negative reference to something which was itself the
negation ... of what they rediscover (when, that is, the intention is not
simply of pastiche, a parody which presupposes all the intervening history).

These returns are more than a simple rediscovery or replaying of something that has gone

before. In the same way that a full understanding of an artist's meanings is impossible,

these rediscoveries are being played out in different circumstances to those of the original,

and thus even a direct copy will have different meanings to those producing and consuming

it due to the temporal and spatial shifts in symbolic meaning of the components of the art.
135
So while punk was the most common point of comparison by respondents, such

comparisons were always tempered with a discussion of what made grunge different to

punk. Lousia called it an 'offshoot of the punk movement' and Martin (unusually)

described it as 'kind of like happy punk':

1 think h ' s all about the underlying thing in punk rock, it's a form of
expression but at the same time it's heavy, it's dark, basically heavy and
dark is how 1 would describe it with an underlying punk rock influence of
self-expression, that's how 1 look at grunge. (Dudley)

So if you had to, how would you define grunge? I guess it had...l guess
when 1 first heard what ended up being called grunge, 1 sort of would have
described it as... kids that were into the ethics of punk rock and the lack of
professionalism, but also having a wider musical background to draw from,
because 1 sort of found that it was loud and at times fast or obnoxious or
whatever, and had things that punk certainly had, but it also could go into
acoustic and things like heavy metal influences. So 1 guess its sort of a punk
approach to a wider expanse of rock music. (James)

Furthermore, where elements of punk were incorporated into grunge, this was done with

the knowledge (at least for the producers) that the original punk movement was itself

eventually commercialised and coopted. It has been argued that this consciousness of the

eventual commercialisation of'authentic' music contributed to the ironic element in grunge

(Weinstein, 1995). This is not, however, a view found among respondents, who discuss

punk in positive terms and position grunge as a rediscovery or continuation of the

rebelliousness found in punk:

1 see punk as being purely a reaction to the corporatisation of rock, where

we ended up at a stage in the late 70s of very much manufactured music, and
what 1 call 'McDonald's Music', it sounded like it came off a production
line. And punk came along to prove that anyone could pick up an
instrument and bash away. 1 saw grunge as being the same, a similar kind of
movement. (Patrick)

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However, respondents' discussion o f punk, for most, suggests a more remote form o f music

that they do not describe in the same emotional or connected terms as grunge. Their

understanding o f punk is more based in 'facts' or 'history' than memory; grunge is what

they imagine punk might have been like if they had been around to experience it:

1 mean it was like you've got the punk revolution of the 70s, where it was
like 'fuck you, we're gonna do what we want' and to me 1 guess it was like
the 90s version o f that. (Percy)

1 guess it was an attitude, and the music got all dirty and came out of the
polished 80s, hair bands and metal bands and it was all just so, it got
ridiculous, those guys just looked like 50 year old women, and 1 really liked
that grunge came along and, I guess like punk did in the 70s, when
everything was bloated and disco and all that. (Barney)

This both demonstrates a collective understanding of what punk is that conceives of it in

'classic' terms as the 1970s movement (in the same way that it is often understood in

academia), and provides an area o f connection between field theory and theories of

collective memory. Change in fields is premised upon a common understanding o f what

came earlier in the field—in this case their composition o f in terms o f (in this case) sound

and so on—that allows for a comparison over time and for new meanings to be bestowed

on emerging cultural forms. Participants in the field experience these changes on an

emotional, embodied level and it is this interaction of memory and habitus that makes such

change meaningful (as will be discussed further below).

In terms o f providing a more specific definition o f what was included in grunge,

respondents gave names o f bands they considered to be grunge (and where this information

was not volunteered, as it was in most cases, it was probed for).

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 Figure 4. 1: Bands labelled as 'grunge' bands by respondents

45

40

35

^ 30
e
o
^ 25

•S 20

15

10

5 *
n n n n rn 1-1 r-i i~i n

V
Band name

As can be seen in Figure 4. 1, only 22 bands were mentioned, with nine of these being

mentioned by fewer than five respondents. Nirvana is mentioned by almost every

respondent, with Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains being mentioned

between fifteen and twenty-eight times each, suggesting there is significant agreement on

the inclusion of these five bands in the label 'grunge'. This again demonstrates a very high

degree of agreement among respondents as to who are considered to be grunge bands and

indicates the existence of collective memories of the movement. Although respondents

were not asked who they did not consider to be grunge (as this would have been an

absurdly open-ended question to ask), a number did name bands they thought were not

grunge (Figure 4. 2).

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 Figure 4. 2: Bands excluded from 'grunge' by respondents

These bands labelled by respondents as 'not grunge' are particularly interesting, as they

assist in determining where the limits of the genre might lie. Presumably these bands were

mentioned because there is the possibility that they might be considered to be grunge. No

respondent mentioned The Beatles or Mariah Carey because there is no prospect of anyone

attempting to include them under the grunge label. However, the bands in this list that are

not included in both lists—Pixies, Primus and Red Hot Chili Peppers—enjoyed success

during the same time period as the grunge bands, and play a similar style of music based in

hard rock. All of these bands (including the bands definitely labelled as 'grunge') could

possibly be subsumed under the label 'alternative' (see Kruse, 2003).

139
Many of the bands mentioned in the list of non-grunge bands are also those who had been,

at least initially, denied the grunge label by journalists in the NME on the grounds that they

were just marketed as grunge and were chasing easy commercial success—most notably,

Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots. The tendency for more respondents to

exclude Pearl Jam than any other band shows agreement with the exclusion of Pearl Jam

from grunge in the media, although for these respondents the shift that occurred within the

media from being more negative and excluding Pearl Jam to being more positive and

inclusive of them has not occurred for all respondents. As with respondents' continued

adherence to the perception they had of Kurt Cobain during his lifetime that will be

discussed in Chapter Five, a less malleable relationship with grunge than exists in the

media is demonstrated, suggesting that the influence which the media might have on

people's perceptions and definitions of a genre like grunge may be limited to the early

(formative) stages of the genre and that it is this period that is most important in shaping

memories. However, it is also true in this case that criticism can often be as effective in

bringing something into a field as praise (Bourdieu, 1993a, 42), and from the accounts of

respondents it can be argued that this may have been the case for these bands, who are also

some of those most often included as grunge bands.

As noted above in the section on the media construction of grunge, an important aspect of

defining grunge is to understand what it is not. Bourdieu argued that as there is constant

change within artistic fields, a new movement that is arising needs to have something that

makes it unique and interesting. Each new movement makes the transition from a marginal,

contested position to one that is accepted and provides the definition (or part thereof) of the

broader field. As a new artistic field arises it will define itself in opposition to that which

140
has immediately preceded it, but also by referencing earlier movements (as demonstrated in

the discussion of punk above). This is particularly necessary as that which has recently

become accepted becomes more and more widely known, producing a requirement for

more privileged knowledge that will allow audiences to maintain the distance between

themselves and others. For grunge, the movement that held this position was hair metal, as

discussed earlier with regards to media comparisons of grunge bands to bands such as

Guns'n'Roses and other exemplars of the hair metal style including Poison and Motley

Crue.

As discussed previously, hair metal, which acted as the main 'other' to grunge, had been

oppositional to broader social values in encouraging hedonism. While hair metal took

consumption to the extreme, grunge (explicitly) rejected commerce. Hair metal style

centred on being extremely well made-up and dressed, while grunge emphasised dressing

down (although in no less a stylised manner). The subject matter in hair metal songs dealt

with women, parties and living the good life (Sioat. 1998), while grunge lyrics were more

introspective, 'dark' and more often dealt with social issues (see Mohan and Malone,

1994). The musical style of hair metal valorised virtuosity in performance, with songs

containing extended guitar solos and elaborate vocal performances. Grunge, by contrast,

had a much simpler music style (although some bands like Soundgarden had more in

common with metal bands in this regard).

Respondents also commented on this oppositional quality of grunge in regards to 'hair

metal':

Can you say why grunge appealed to you? 1 enjoyed the fact that it wasn't
that 80s hair band, like the make up and, it was ridiculous. It wasn't saying
141
 anything that 1 could relate to 1 guess ... It certainly brought, revived rock
and roll and guitar music 1 think, which is a ... again, those big hair bands,
and shreds, shred was, I think it had become gymnastics as opposed to music
a bit, a lot o f guitar music which was prior to grunge was like metal and it
was getting a bit silly, the music was just becoming maths and gymnastics,
who could play the fastest and all that sort o f stuff, so 1 think grunge brought
back songwriting and soul and vibe a bit to music. (Barney)

1 think it was a response, a lot o f it, was just to the over sort of imaged and
structured and produced music that was coming out at the time, people got
sick o f it. It seems pretty obvious, maybe, when you think about it now, but
you go from fucking, what was it, bloody tight-arsed spandex and coked up
rock bitches to shoe gazers with really self-destructive tendencies and drug
habits, which, you know, is similar to some extent, but they were coming
from different ends of the spectrum. It just seemed the whole grunge thing
was more D I Y , sort o f thing, where Motley Crue and all that, they were all
just guys, they would have started off playing in their basements just like
any other rock band, but I think they really really really really always
wanted to be famous, they wanted to be knee deep in bitches, so to speak,
but Cobain and all his cohorts, at the start seemed to me that they were, they
would be happy playing to the same old stoner friends just in some shack
somewhere, but. as they kept saying, every kid started listening. (Drew)

1 reckon it was a reaction to the music that was around at the time, you
know, the end o f bands like Motley Crue and Metallica were absolutely
gigantic, but. you know, the hair, hair metal had died really, by that, was
really on the way out and people were looking for something new that was
heavy and you could get into and wasn't, 1 guess, dance or anything. People
who wanted guitar based music were looking for something new at the time,
and it really catered well, because Nirvana's really so simple and so, so sort
o f lowest common denominator sort of pop stuff, it's really really really
basic and it really appealed to lots o f people—it appealed to me too, you
know, still like it. (Dylan)

In these quotes, the respondents indicate (retrospectively) that they were aware at the time

o f one 'cycle' o f music coming to an end. They said, for instance, that people were 'sick o f

it' or were looking for something else, showing an awareness o f the constant change within

these fields. They also locate grunge firmly within a particular tradition o f music, that

which is guitar based, 'heavy' sounding, and not, as Dylan points out, 'dance or anything

like that". Such responses again reflect what was said in the media about the position o f

142
grunge in relation to preceding musical forms. Respondents can also be seen to be creating

or relating memory narratives in these quotes, where they are describing a logical

progression of music from one 'end of the spectrum' to the other. This narrative may

originate in the media, but it gives form to the changes in tastes respondents experienced or

observed.

Other respondents, however, who had not previously had much experience with heavier

musical styles, contrasted grunge to commercial popular music more generally:

1 think there was a reaction to very over-produced record company kind of

music, like the 80s seems really dominated by pop music, which is all about
people throwing lots of money and producing pop stars, and grunge was
much more of a 'we like playing music, we like listening to certain bands,
we just want to play music and we'll have a gig somewhere and if people
come that's great, and if they don't who cares', and that whole attitude kind
of made it much more ... there was quite a bit more integrity in it because it
wasn't about being a pop star, being Kylie, selling millions of records, it just
happened to kind of capture a mood that people were interested in at the
time. (Ginny)

1 think the other thing 1 enjoyed about it was that when 1 looked at the film
clip to Smells Like Teen Spirit it was so different to everything else that was
on. This is going to sound kind of funny ... it's like a good and an evil ...
this is going to be really amusing ... everybody jokes about it, the I like big
butts song, it got banned at the time or near enough to that time and it was
kind of funny that the record companies were selling so much sex in that
way, and then there was the cheerleaders in the Nirvana film clip and it was
dingy cheerleaders, it was, the way it was, the film clip was really brown
and really dirty, and the thing about it was it was meant to be dirty, it was
made to be that way, and everything else around the time, things like MC
Hammer were so disturbing 1 guess when you look back on it because they
were so pristine and crystal clean and there was nothing dirty about it at all
and 1 suppose in some ways it was kind of violating because it was clean.
(Adrian)

This suggests that the oppositional qualities of grunge were seen by some as being related

to what had come temporally before it and was now in the process of being replaced (hair

143
metal). For others the opposition w a s to the more constant field of popular music which

surrounded g r u n g e and to which it w a s oppositional throughout its existence. The

connections b e t w e e n authenticity and autonomy can be seen in these quotes, with the idea

that grunge m u s i c i a n s w e r e really 'only playing for themselves' being associated with

'integrity'.

Thus, respondents give very similar accounts of the musical elements of grunge, which are

built more around the relationship that grunge held with other musical genres. This in some

cases referred to genres that grunge w a s seen as being similar to but not identical with, such

as punk, or those that grunge was seen as being oppositional to, such as hair metal and

commercial music more generally. Although respondents used different f r a m e s of reference

for grunge, a consistent picture emerges from their accounts of grunge as a field. However,

grunge w a s not only described in terms of its musical elements; cultural elements were at

least equally important.

Cultural Elements

Respondents identified a number of cultural elements they considered to be of particular

importance, including particular values and attitudes, and drug use. The most discussed

cultural element w a s the visual aspect of grunge, and the clothing associated with it, most

specifically the d r e s s e d - d o w n look of flannelette shirts and (torn) jeans:

1 d o n ' t k n o w , you think of Seattle, a bunch of messy haired guys not

w e a r i n g any shoes, and with tatty j e a n s or a cardigan on, something weird
like that, it's like daggy for the sake of being daggy, yeah. (Seth)

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Eighteen respondents also thought drugs were central to a 'grunge lifestyle', in particular,

respondents mentioned heroin, marijuana and alcohol as being the particular drugs

associated with the grunge scene:

What you did was you went to pubs a lot, drank a lot of beer, took a lot of
drugs, that was very heavy in the pot scene. (Arthur)

1 would probably say that people who listen to grunge probably smoke pot.
Ok, yeah—^was that something you did? Yeah. And 1 think that it had a
lot to do with it, because you would, you'd sit at home, y o u ' d smoke your
joints and whatever and then you would relax and listen to your music, and 1
think that you associate grunge with pot smoking. (Clara)

However, all these elements were brought together by respondents trying to express a feel

for an overall grunge lifestyle:

1 d o n ' t think you'd get someone who was in love with grunge out on a
Saturday night chewing down ecstasy pills and stuff like that, 1 just think
that that ... I ' m sure there are people that do, but it's not really the lifestyle,
it's more hanging out with your friends, having a drink, smoking pot,
whatever, it's more natural and organic, almost, the music's more organic
because it's f r o m real instruments and stuff (Rita)

I'd say it's stoner music, and I'd say it's, um, it's, just the images that come
to mind are Nirvana, and people smoking bongs and ripped jeans with
flannies tied around your waist, like it's just a, 1 think it's a very, a much
more casual and laid back style of music, or even, like, approach to life than
a lot of others. 1 don't think it's as clean and neat and defined as a lot of
things, 1 think it's a period of time that's pretty much been and gone.
(Missy)

The most c o m m o n themes in respondents' descriptions of cultural elements of grunge

(aside f r o m the music) were therefore fashion elements such as flannel and a casual/

unkempt look, the taking of depressant drugs and alcohol, and the idea of a laid back

lifestyle unconcerned with the pursuit of success in the way it is defined by mainstream

society (the field of power). While drugs and, more often, alcohol were mentioned in the

145
NME, they were not a major focus of what was written. This is unsurprising, as there is

doubtless a need for circumscription when discussing such matters in the press, especially

in relation to illegal substances. Respondents' discussions of drugs were more about their

own drug-taking than that of musicians. In fact, all cultural elements were discussed as they

related to the respondents' own lives, in that these were the clothes they were wearing, the

drugs some were taking, and the values they were adhering to.

So while these accounts do not differ significantly from the media accounts, they are more

to do with lived, bodily experience (that is, drug consumption, clothes and a sedentary

pose) than the discussion of who grunge bands were and where they came from. This

demonstrates that despite the media influence in the construction of grunge, respondents'

understanding of it went beyond 'factual' knowledge to impact on their daily lives. This

supports the idea that we are dealing with 'collective memories', in the sense that

Halbwachs set out. whereby those involved are emotionally connected to the object of

memory.

In addition to the above discussion of grunge being seen as oppositional to that which

immediately preceded it in the field of hard rock and the overall field of commercialised

popular music, the final level on which respondents saw grunge as being oppositional was

to society on the whole (that is, the field of power):

Maybe it was slightly a bit rebellious, to the lifestyle I'd come from with my
family and their sort of values and my school, that was very anti—well, to
me it seemed very anti that sort of way of life. (Shelly)

1 know it's a contradiction, but it was for people that didn't want to be
considered norm-like, your normal everyday kind of growing up goody-two-
shoes kind of kid, or they didn't want to be the opposite of that, like... 1
remember the rap thing got really big around that time too, and everyone
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 was walking around with big baggy jeans, and it was either, you were in that
rap group or you were in this other, kind o f really goody-two-shoes, and
grunge was like an identity for everyone else in the middle that didn't want
to be labeled as one little thing, and it was like you'd be your own person,
and you wouldn't care what people were saying, telling you to listen to, like
the radio was saying you've got to listen to the Spice Girls, and you'd be
like, urr, can't be bothered, you know? (Jeremy)

For example, the word 'anti-establishment' was used by eight separate people, and

comments were made such as:

It was anti-society, anti-establishment, and I guess anti-life in some

instances (Arthur)

Just trying maybe to push yourself, to do good ... to see how far you can go
in whatever direction you're interested in but not necessarily in the ...
what's commonly thought to be success. (Donald)

This last quote by Donald raises the point that grunge was not simply a rejection of broader

societal values, nor a rebellion for the sake o f rebelling, as youth cultures can sometimes be

portrayed, but an active struggle for control over the definition of important things. For

example, here Donald highlights what for him seemed to be a contest over the very

meaning of'success', which in grunge terms was dislocated from material wealth and was

more associated with 'pushing yourself to do well at what>'ow see as important. According

to the schema set out by Bourdieu (1993a, 41), this is redefinition occurs within any field o f

cultural production:

The struggle in the field of cultural production over the imposifion o f the
legitimate mode o f cultural production is inseparable from the struggle
within the dominant class (with the opposition between 'artists' and
'bourgeois') to impose the dominant principle o f domination (that is to
say—ultimately—the definition o f human accomplishment).

Although Bourdieu felt that, given the strength o f the field o f power, outside the smaller

field such attempts at redefinition are at best only partially successful, elements of this

147
struggle can be seen in many of the comments respondents made about the 'values' and

'attitudes' of grunge and the oppositional position it originally held or was perceived to

hold even as it became part of the mainstream, in this way we can see that although

respondents rarely mention any explicitly political agenda of grunge or grunge bands, they

see the values it espouses as standing in opposition to wider society. This demonstrates

further the way academic accounts of grunge have sidelined the political potential of the

movement. As will be shown in following chapters, an interest in or adherence to such

values has impacted on respondents' lives in various ways, even though for the most part

this struggle is seen as lost.

Respondents also showed an awareness of how the existence of grunge caused change

within the encompassing field(s) despite their apparent opposition:

1 don't know, it's a kind of simple form of music in a way, and that's kind of
good, and I think it also allowed really daggy people to succeed in the music
industry, whereas before in the 80s it was all about kind of poppy awful
fashion and things like that, but now normal people ... it probably paved the
way for a whole heap of new music to come through and be accepted
readily, even though it was dirtier and more raw and stuff, 1 guess. (Janie)

The effects of the success of grunge are further reflected in discussions of the

commercialisation/authenticity duality as seen in the media reports. This was given a

different meaning by respondents than is found in the critical reading published by the

NME. One of the most agreed-upon points across respondents was that the success of

grunge was ultimately a 'good thing', and they were not as critical as the media (or

academics) of the commercial processes that allowed this success. This opinion comes from

a very pragmatic place: the respondents repeatedly expressed an awareness of the fact that,

as Donald says, 'if it hadn't been successful 1 would never have heard it':

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 I don't live in Seattle and I wasn't connected to that underground scene, so 1
wouldn't have heard of any of this at all, and you know, if it hadn't have
been successful then a lot of the stuff that's come later (inaudible), if
Nevermind had bombed then a lot of other people wouldn't have followed,
so you wouldn't have got a lot of the other stuff that we've had and that I
think is very good. And also 1 think its really cool and I think it kind of has
a ... kind of had the right type of bands at the right ... if grunge hadn't been
successful then...who's the guy who won Australian Idol? Guy Sebastian?
Rather than him being successful, or people like Guns'n'Roses being
successful—like, their message is 'how many girls can we shag on this
tour?', which is kind o f . . . or 'how much money can we make', that kind of
thing, so I think its good that it was successful and popular that way. But,
on the other side it seemed like, and a lot of them in interviews said this,
they weren't expecting that or weren't interested in that or weren't asking
for that kind of level of success, weren't able to handle it and so a lot of kind
of bad things happened to them personally. (Donald)

1 think, like 1 said a while ago, it just really helped kind of breach this gap
between what counts as mainstream and what counts as alternative and no
body's ever heard it. 1 think it was really good, it gave a lot of people an
opportunity to hear stuff they wouldn't have heard before and it gave bands
an opportunity to reach an audience they wouldn't have reached before.
(Ginny)

1 think it's a bit elitist to say that it's a bad thing and it shouldn't have been
popular, it's such a shame that it got corrupted, because I think that's a silly
thing to say often. Maybe it would have been better if it hadn't got so big,
but 1 think that the bands would probably have other things to say about that.
(Kaye)

These quotes offer a different take on the effects of grunge than those offered by academics

(as discussed in Chapter One). Rather than emphasising the negative way in which grunge

was commercialised, they concentrate more on the changes that grunge caused as it became

part of the mainstream (which most respondents acknowledge grunge eventually became a

part of). The increased choice of music available to them as a result of the success of

grunge is characterised universally by respondents as positive. While this does not

invalidate the concerns of academics over the increasing commercialisation of areas of life

previously less concerned with money, it is also worth noting that, as respondents point out,

grunge was a coloniser as well as colonised. Its movement into the mainstream (the wider
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field of popular music) caused changes within that field that ultimately were beneficial to

respondents. They were presented with greater musical choice, and the values and ideals

contained in grunge also reached a wider audience than would otherwise have been

possible.

Rather than the commercialisation of grunge being a dire harbinger of the end of

'underground' music, it can instead be seen as part of the ongoing cycles of art.

In his article on indie rock, Hibbett (2005, 58) continues to trace the line of succession of

rock movements, firstly positing that the emergence of indie rock was a reaction to the

commercialisation of grunge (which he conflates with 'alternative'). He says:

By the late eighties, the term 'alternative' was well in use, becoming a
platitude of mainstream culture with the explosion of Seattle bands, most
notably Pearl Jam and Nirvana, in the early nineties. It is out of this Oedipal
tradition, and in rebellion against the all-too-efficient metamorphosis of
what was "alternative" into something formulaic, that an indie consciousness
emerged.

He then sets up the emergence of what is currently known as 'post-rock' as a response to

'indie', continuing the cycle of oppositional movements replacing each other. He

demonstrates that artists still gain cultural capital through adherence to the autonomous

principle (rejection of commercial success), and these artists have continued to find ways to

reject or avoid becoming part of the mainstream.

In regard to memory, comments made by respondents concerning the nature of grunge

showed high levels of agreement within the group, suggesting the existence of collective

memories among them. Respondents' definitions were also very closely aligned with what

was said in the NME at the time of grunge, both in how it was defined and in the way it was

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positioned in terms of wider social norms and other types of music. However, some shifting

has occurred. Many more bands were defined as grunge by the NME than are named by

respondents, and respondents name some bands that the NME denied the label. Of course,

the NME was only an example of the way the movement was covered, and the respondents

were influenced by a wider range of media sources. I will turn now to a closer discussion of

the relationship between memory and media in order to provide a better understanding of

how respondents have defined grunge and also to complete the foundation for the

discussion of grunge and memory in the next four chapters.

Memory and media

As noted earlier, the respondents in this study have gained most of their knowledge of

grunge not from the first-hand experience of being a direct participant in the grunge scene,

but through reports in the mass media. Furthermore, music is today most often encountered

in a mediated form, through recordings and technology, rather than in 'live', unmediated

situations. It is therefore necessary for this thesis to examine how memories are created

through the use of mediated object, and to ask how collective memories are shaped by

media reports.

Beyond memories based in lived experience 'lies a much larger territory of mediated past,

the territory we have in focus when looking at collective memory' (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994,

19). However, Halbwachs believed that collective memory would disappear in advanced

societies. He saw capitalism as being responsible for this decline, which would occur firstly

through the simplification of collective memory due to the specialisation within society that

makes fewer memories relevant to many people. It would also decline through the
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'destruction o f a social framework that ensured the transmission o f collective memories

from one generation to the next' (Misztal, 2003, 46), that is, the decline of'traditional'

groups based in shared identities, such as class, and the increased disconnection of

individuals from one another.

However, while Halbwachs and others have suggested that collective forms of

remembering might begin to decline in a globalised media-driven society, other theorists

have suggested ways in which new ways of remembering are developing around these very

forces. Concerns such as those raised by Halbwachs have been echoed by writers such as

Andreas Huyssen (1995). However, Huyssen argues that as modern society continues to

change and global communication increasingly erases our ties to the space and

communities around us, the past is not necessarily obliterated but can be a way to hold on

to identities while everything else is changing. The past, after all, seems safe from change

and upheaval. For Huyssen, the media encourages amnesia as a part of the cycle of

consumption, constantly offering up new and exciting stimuli and encouraging the

abandonment of the old, or else re-appropriating the old as the new. This tends, however, to

disconnect the old from the signs and referents it possessed before and make it appear to be

free o f history. According to writers like Huyssen, our continued interest in memory is at

least partly due to the increased pace with which life is moving, away from the past and

into an uncertain future (see also Radstone, 2000). Although there may be places where our

relationship with memory is changing as society 'speeds up', in relation to culture

Huyssen's ideas o f amnesia are perhaps less appropriate. If Bourdieu's explanations of the

way cultural fields always return to what has come before (as discussed above) are taken

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into consideration then this is less a disconnection from history than a continuation of an

ongoing cycle where the past is drawn into the present in new forms.

Other theorists have suggested that rather than memory being deployed as a force destroyed

by or resisting consumerism, memory and consumerism can become tied together in new

ways. As George Lipsitz (1990, 5) has argued:

Time, history, and memory become qualitatively different concepts in a

world where electronic mass communication is possible. Instead of relating
to the past through a shared sense of place or ancestry, consumers of
electronic mass media can experience a common heritage with people they
have never seen; they can acquire memories of a past to which they have no
geographic or biological connection. This capacity of electronic mass
communication to transcend time and space creates instability by
disconnecting people from past traditions, but it also liberates people by
making the past less determinate of experiences in the present.

This idea of experiencing a 'common heritage with people never seen' is directly relevant

to the respondents in this study, who share a common understanding of grunge without

having come into contact with each other.

Lipsitz argues that culture is often misrepresented as a conservative force, as agency is

obscured by the creation of reified structures, or by 'presenting culture as a way for

societies to stabilize themselves as total systems' (Lipsitz, 1990, 102), which ignores the

fact that different elements of culture speak to the dominant and the disaffected in different

ways. Culture and the media are not simply vehicles for dominant memory as is sometimes

portrayed, especially given that popular culture can be given radically different

interpretations by different audience members (see also Frith, 1987). A further argument for

why the respondents to this study can be considered a collectivity rather than a group of

individuals is that their positioning at the time of grunge was such that they received similar

153
meanings from the same objects, and this similarity has been maintained over time. As van

Dijck (2006, 367) notes:

Memories attached to songs are hardly individual responses per se; recorded
music gets perceived and evaluated through collective frameworks for
listening and appreciation. Individual memories almost invariably arise in
the context of social practices, [which] appear almost inseparable from the
memory of actual songs; as a sign of their time, popular songs create a
context for reminiscence.

Further, in his discussion of how ordinary artefacts can be powerful sites of memory van

Dijck (2004, 261) points out that 'both memory and media constitute intermediaries

between individual and society, and between past and present'. He shows how people use

the media to construct their sense of self, and how it makes commonality no longer

something necessarily connected to locality. Van Dijck argues that people both 'produce

their own memory documents and ... are active collectors of mediated culture' (2004, 273)

that can 'fuse' with lived memory, or alter as the person changes.

An example from the interviews for this thesis shows how this process can happen. Roger

provided an account that conflated his own initial reaction, memories of listening to radio

reports happening at the time, his reaction when re-listening to those same reports ten years

later and his continued emotional response in a way that shows the complicated relationship

between these:

Do you remember when Kurt Cobain died? Yeah. How did you react to
that? I was listening yesterday or the day before, [radio station] Triple J are
playing a thing, 30 years in 30 days or something like that [...] and they said
they were playing a clip from however many years ago, and it's actually
been 10 years since Kurt committed suicide in 2004, and they replayed the
first news story, they played the first announcement on, they played the
same opening theme to their news and, you know, Kurt Cobain was found
dead by an electrician, and that was, that grabbed me, 1 listened to the whole
story, and they had interviews. When Kurt Cobain ... I never really
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 experienced death in the family, and, and 1 still haven't. To me, Kurt Cobain
dying was probably the closest thing I'll ever get to it, so far. It was ... 1 felt
like crying, and 1 still feel like it now, but it's weird. It's someone that 1
didn't know, 1 just liked his music, I never saw him live, and 1 think, shit,
he's gone. And 1 had a feeling of being lost, like I didn't know, 1 didn't
know what was going to happen next—what do 1 do was one of the thought
that came to my mind quickly, what do 1 do, you know, what's going to
happen now? [...] So, even now, I think about it, like, you asked me—I
don't know if you could pick it up on the microphone or not, but 1 got a bit
teary there, when I just ... just sitting in the car, it was even...

The mediated culture here is not a 'collected' item as van Dijck discussed, but something

Roger was exposed to unexpectedly. However, this account still shows these processes of

the 'fusing' of personal experience in the past with the present and with cultural objects.

The images and sounds that form the basis of the interviews conducted for this study come

from the same places and therefore provide a common ground for the memories of

respondents. Respondents' encounters with grunge were also enabled through similar

technological means, which provides another aspect to shared meanings. As van Dijck

(2006, 358) notes: 'people become aware of their emotional and affective memories by

means of technologies, and surprisingly often, the enabling apparatus becomes part of the

recollecting experience'. The experiences of some respondents who heard Smells Like Teen

Spirit for the first time on car stereos when driving with friends (quoted in Chapter Two) is

an example of how technology becomes part of memories. As technology changes, shared

memories of older forms of technology can become part of collective memories. For

example, when respondents mention hearing Nirvana on a tape this helps to position them

in a certain time frame, a time when tape players were easily accessible (as they may not

have been in earlier times) and before tapes were superseded by CDs and MP3 players.

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One of the notable aspects of interviews was how mediated cultural items (such as Smells

Like Teen Spirit) were not only used to invoke memories, but were also central to memories

discussed by respondents. For example, the video clip to Smells Like Teen Spirit was one of

the first memories mentioned in relation to the song by eight respondents. Indeed, in some

cases it was fundamental to the 'first time 1 heard the song' narrative:

1 know that that was my experience, when 1 first saw it, was just that all of a
sudden this whole world opened up to me about things that 1 hadn't seen.
Do you remember when that was? 1 remember seeing it. It was o n . . .
crap, what show was it? Video Hits 1 think. 1 used to watch Rage of an
evening, it could have possibly been on Rage late one night, or it could have
been on Video Hits first thing on a Saturday morning, and all 1 just
remember is that it literally blew me away. (Adrian)

1 saw the video, the first time 1 heard it 1 saw the video as well, and just
seeing him on stage where he's growling and the hair hanging down and the
pom poms and everything, and it was like, this is fucking cool. I can't
remember the exact date, but 1 just remember loving it straight away. (Isaac)

Michelle goes beyond the video to bring in other cultural elements such as radio and record

stores:

First of all I think of the video, I think of JJJ playing it heaps, I think of
going into <record store> and getting Nevermind as an import and there
being heaps of people in the shop that were just going 'Yeah, that song, that
song...', how massive it was, being in the States and turning on the telly and
it was on all the time. (Michelle)

This suggests that respondents' memories of grunge are comprised of input from many

different cultural and social sources, not all of which were able to be incorporated into this

thesis to the same degree. Wliile these individuals have had their own unique encounters

with these sources and have constructed them differently, they are still essentially working

from the same 'palette' of materials containing limited possibilities for interpretation.

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Finally, media reports o f grunge in magazines, on television and on radio gave respondents

most o f their basic knowledge o f what grunge was, where it came from and who it

involved. This will be discussed in more depth in the following three chapters, where it will

be demonstrated that although media reports shape respondents' knowledge they do not

dictate meaning and can be contested.

Conclusion

This chapter argued that the respondents in this study can be considered to hold collective

memories o f grunge in the sense that their accounts are similar in many important respects.

They are demonstrating that despite the variable nature o f meanings surrounding popular

culture they have obtained similar meanings from their encounters with grunge. This raises

the possibility that, rather than bringing about the decline o f collective memory, mass

media images and sounds can create new ways to remember collectively. Collective

memory itself both reproduces social relations and power structures and provides

possibilities for change, as will be demonstrated further in the following chapters.

This chapter and the previous chapter have also attempted to use the theories o f Pierre

Bourdieu to explain how grunge has been positioned by fans and media, both at the time o f

its popularity and retrospectively. As Bourdieu's theories did not often deal with popular

cultural forms, this application o f his theories can also be seen as a development o f them. It

has been demonstrated that although grunge cannot be given an unequivocal definition,

there are certain cultural, musical, temporal and geographic elements associated with the

movement—as well as certain bands and people—that serve as a basis for understanding

what grunge is. It has also been shown that grunge found the success that it did at a specific
157
point in time when it represented new, oppositional ideas to those prevalent in music during

the time immediately preceding its rise. Grunge cannot be fully understood without

understanding the social and cultural climate in which it became successful.

It has also been demonstrated that one of the central forces for change within grunge was

the tension between the autonomous principle associated with artistic fields—the idea of

'authenticity' and the rejection of commercial success—and the heteronomous principle

associated with the surrounding field of popular music and wider capitalist society. Both

journalists and respondents identified grunge as an anti-commercial movement. While the

rejection of capitalist values gained grunge bands symbolic capital with journalists and

audiences w h o related to this attempt to redefine success, the more these audiences grew

and the more positive press they received the greater the tension became between rejecting

commercial values and being commercially successful.

The following chapters will explore the concept of collective memory further, specifically

by examining the relationships between respondents' accounts and 'official' accounts of

grunge, and also by examining how these memories are positioned in relation to social

power in regards to age, class and the gender order.

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CHAPTER FIVE: The Memory of Kurt Cobain

This chapter will deal with some of the specific accounts and memories of respondents that

relate to Kurt Cobain. The centrality of Cobain to respondents' accounts highlights the

important position he holds in terms of the definition of grunge. Nirvana was the only band

almost all respondents agreed could be called 'grunge', and some went so far as to suggest

that Nirvana was the only band that should be categorised as such. However, discussion of

the other members of the band was limited. Cobain's face and music have come to

epitomise the grunge era, and, in fact, 'The 90s' more generally. For example, conservative

music channel Music Max uses a montage of 90s stars with Cobain at the forefront to

advertise its 'Loving the 90s' segment.

This chapter will examine how respondents' memories conflict with current media accounts

of Cobain and asks how this might be significant to the potential for resistance in collective

memory. Although the previous chapter demonstrated that respondents' memories of

grunge as a whole are very cohesive, and correspond closely to the way grunge was and is

described in the print media, when it comes to Cobain respondents' recollections have not

remained aligned with the media in the same way. It will be suggested that the requirements

the media and respondents have in the present for their memories of Cobain differ, and this

promotes the construction of different accounts. Finally, it will examine how Cobain is

commemorated by respondents and other groups, including community groups in his

hometown of Aberdeen, and asks what significance these different forms of

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commemoration have for how he is remembered, who can 'control' his memory, and what

his memory means for the identity of those involved.

This chapter will demonstrate that the relationship between what people remember and

how they are told to remember is hardly straightforward. Dominant and marginal accounts

play off each other and those involved retain or discard what they need in order to

maintain their own sense of continuity and identity. Furthermore, the idea of setting up

media and 'fans' accounts in opposition to each other in terms of'official' versus

'collective' memory is shown to be problematic when the media are themselves fans and

fans' memories originate in the media.

Olick and Robbins (1998, 130) discuss how the study of reputations is also related to work

on memories, as 'it concentrates in an unprecedented way on how individuals are

remembered rather than how they lived'. One of the most important questions to be asked

with respect to reputations is: who has a stake in wanting a person remembered in a

particular way? Examining painters and classical musicians, Olick and Robbins conclude

that how artists are remembered does not necessarily have anything to do with talent, and

that greatness (and evil) tends to be exaggerated in retrospect. They draw on the work of

Lang and Lang (1990) to explore how the symbolic usefulness of an artist (in Cobain's

case, as the 'voice of a generation') can be more important than their talent in whether and

how they are remembered. Lang and Lang also examine the importance of death,

concluding that dying at the 'right time' (that is, when your work is still considered

important and enough people remember it, and preferably unexpectedly at a young age) is

vital for the survival of artistic reputation. The circumstances of Cobain's death (by his

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own hand, at a young age and at a time when he was famous and still producing music)
were such that he was guaranteed to be remembered. However, as will be shown, the way
in which he is remembered differs depending on the needs of those doing the
remembering.

Commemoration
An important aspect in the building and maintenance of collective memories is whether the
subject of the memories is commemorated, and if so, how. The question of what is worthy
of official commemoration on the level of the state is a highly political subject, and the
space (places of commemoration, symbolic items such as statues) and time (official days of
remembrance or holidays) components of commemoration are often highly contested
(Carrier, 2000, Nora, 1989). However, commemoration goes beyond official events to
encompass 'the action of speaking or writing about memories, as well as the formal re-
enaction of the past that we usually mean when we use the word' (Fentress and Wickham,
1992, x). The question to be asked here is what place a figure of popular culture once
associated with a certain form of commercialised rebellion and anti-social actions such as
drug-taking and suicide holds in people's minds, and what is happening in terms of how he
is commemorated that might affect how he is perceived in the future?

The concept of commemoration in its official form can be connected to the debate around
the perceived division between 'memory' as a living, experiential thing and 'history' as a
complete object disassociated from the subjectivity of the present as discussed in Chapter
One (Olick and Robbins, 1998, also see Nora, 1989). Depending on the type of
commemoration and its object, official commemoration can serve the function of
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crystallising representation in a form acceptable to certain vested interest groups, such as

the government of a nation, religious groups or the military.

However, commemoration can also be one of the most powerful ways of building and

maintaining communities of feeling—even to the level of the nation—by involving many

people in a simultaneous celebration of some aspect of their shared identity. An example of

this would be holidays such as Australia Day or Anzac Day, where the public as a whole is

called upon to reflect upon what the nation, or the concept of being 'Australian', means.

Barry Schwartz (1997, 471), however, suggests that the relationship between history,

memory and commemoration is hardly straightforward, arguing that 'collective memory ...

is a representation of the past embodied in both commemorative symbolism and historical

evidence'. Schwartz attempts 'to move beyond an analysis of how commemoration differs

from history, showing instead what commemoration adds to history'.

Schwartz, in his in-depth examination of Abraham Lincoln and how his image has changed

over the years to reflect public tastes and concerns, looked at the transformation of a man

from one who was openly opposed to the establishment of equality between African and

white Americans into a symbol of racial tolerance. Schwartz (1997, 471) begins with the

premise that commemoration never happens in isolation, but is 'a system of interlocking

symbols to which people turn to comprehend the world ... commemorative symbols make

sense of the world's structures and activities by "keying" them to selected events of the

past.'

Figures in popular culture rarely become the object o f ' o f f i c i a l ' commemoration in the

same way Lincoln is (except in limited ways, as the discussion of Cobain's hometown
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below shows). They are not generally useful figures for nation or community building as

their association with either rebelliousness (as in the case of Cobain) or commercial

interests make it harder for them to symbolise communal values in the same way that

politicians, military figures or royalty may do. Popular culture is usually considered not

'serious' enough to warrant official commemoration. However the commemoration that is

undertaken by fans and in the media plays a part in maintaining the memories of those who

were a part o f popular movements such as grunge and constructing a sense of what

happened for those who were not involved.

Anniversary journalism
In the absence of state-sponsored commemoration of figures such as Cobain, the most

prominent form of commemoration is found in the media. In understanding how the media

have come to remember Kurt Cobain, 1 will concentrate on the commemorative journalism

that appeared around the time of the tenth anniversary of his death in 1994. The memory of

popular cultural figures such as Cobain is revisited and reinforced in the media through the

marking o f anniversaries of important events in that person's life. Such anniversary

journalism serves 'to remind us—journalists and audiences alike—that we are part of

something ... greater than ourselves' and thus reinforces feelings of collectivity, while at

the same time allowing journalists to 'position themselves as public historians' (Kitch,

2002, 4 8 ^ 9 ) . The events most often singled out are the occasions of the person's birth or

death. The commemorative anniversary journalism dealing with Cobain's death took four

basic forms, all of which can be seen to be fulfilling some role in the creation and/or

maintenance o f the myths and memories surrounding Cobain. These were reprints,

historical articles, articles consisting of direct quotes from various people, and articles
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discussing Cobain's character. While the following discussion mainly concentrates on the

last of these, the first three will also be described briefly.

First, there were articles which consisted of reprints of interviews, articles and photos from

the time, republished in relatively untouched form without much additional commentary.

Articles such as these serve a documentary function, and act as a way of connecting the

reader to the time while reinforcing the version of events put forward by the media by

appealing to the 'facts' contained in these articles. Such documents 'are themselves

archives on which editors and writers can draw, republishing previous photographs or texts

and explaining them in terms of their lasting significance. In doing so, they reshape as well

as merely "revisif the past' (Kitch, 2002, 48). These articles inhabit an interesting space, in

that while they are simply reprints, the context in which they are presented—a magazine

commemorating the death of the main figure in most of the articles—guarantees they will

be read with these circumstances in mind.

One such article that appears more than once is a reprint of Cobain's 'Last Interview',

which appears in the 2004 commemorative edition of Rolling Stone with the following

introduction:

In what ended up being his last interview, Kurt Cobain spoke of being
happier than he'd ever been. He was clean, healthy and claimed to be
dealing with the psychological effects of fame—something that had crippled
him only a year before. He was in love with his daughter Frances and wife
Courtney, but most eerie of all, Cobain spoke of a future. (Fricke, 2004, 82)

Throughout the article, certain quotes from Cobain are chosen to be printed in extra large

font ('pull quotes'), immediately drawing the reader's eye. These quotes, such as 'I'm

really thankful, and every month 1 come to more optimistic conclusions' (88) and 'I'm
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thought of as this pissy, complaining, freaked-out schizophrenic who wants to kill himself

all the time' (86), serve to emphasise the same frame for the article—as ironic and

(apparently) 'eerie', given the contradictions between statements like these and his later

actions. However, even without this introduction and presentation, it is likely that this

interview would be read with his subsequent death very much in the reader's mind, and

possibly in the spirit of trying to find 'reasons' for what he did.

Second, there were historical articles, relatively straightforward accounts of what happened

and when. These articles were often presented in the form of timelines, giving a

chronological listing of the events in Cobain's life deemed to be important. Uncut Legends,

for instance, gives us a 'Day by Day' account of Cobain's life in three parts- 'The Early

Years: 1986—1990' (Anonymous, 2004a, 27-29), 'The Glory Years—1991-92'

(Anonymous, 2004c, 52-58) and 'The Final Years—1993-94' (Anonymous, 2004b, 94-97).

This neatly compartmentalises Nirvana's career in distinct 'periods' and provides an

apparently comprehensive narrative of what happened when. These are the only articles in

the magazine that do not have an author's name attached to them, perhaps to suggest they

weren't 'authored' but are an objective account of what happened.

Most other publications do not have as much space to devote to such exhaustive lists, and

give abbreviated timelines, with some concentrating solely on Cobain, and others (such as

Spin (Beaujon, 2004)) broadening their scope to cover 'grunge' in general. However, all of

these timelines have points in common. The date of Cobain's death is, unsurprisingly, a

major point in all of them, and all mention certain other events that are deemed to be

important. For example, the marriage of Cobain and Love, the birth of their daughter and

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Cobain's near-fatal overdose in Rome are universally included. With these few exceptions

(which are themselves a marker of how memory narratives are socially constructed), the

timelines are markedly different. The Rolling Stone (Anonymous, 2004d) example takes

less than an entire page, and concentrates almost exclusively on events in Cobain's life that

show how unhappy or suicidal he was. This is done by listing dates such as when his uncles

committed suicide in the 1970s and early 1980s and noting every possible suicidal action

by Cobain over his lifetime. The effect of this is to make his suicide seem inevitable. This

stands in contrast to the Uncut Legends timeline, which, while including most of the events

mentioned in the Rolling Stone timeline, does so in a much broader context which includes

more positive life events and day-to-day information. When presented in this manner, the

ending seems less 'obvious' or apparently foreseeable. Chronologies such as these can be

interpreted as an attempt to shape memory and knowledge in a certain way (although they

would probably not be seen as such by their authors), creating narratives that are familiar

and predictable to readers.

Third, there were articles which consisted of quotes from non-journalists, either 'people

who were there' or people such as current musicians saying how their lives have been

affected by Cobain. These articles serve the purpose of granting certain people authoritative

voices and privileging their memories over others, either due to their position at the time or

their current status. Many of the 'people who were there' are indeed insiders from the

grunge scene (for example, the owners of Sub Pop, or close friends of the band).

If cultural capital is bestowed by being temporally and physically close to a scene such as

this, then these interviewees possess the ultimate in grunge capital, bettered only by the

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band members themselves. This certainly appears to be a factor in their inclusion, as well as

their apparent ability to give us the 'facts' we would otherwise be unaware of Others who

are quoted are often people who are currently active and well-known figures in the music

scene who were fans of Nirvana at the time. Sometimes included are straw polls of

'ordinary' fans who discuss the effect that Cobain's death had on them. This can be

interpreted as an attempt to legitimise the press' approach by adding outside voices to those

of the journalists, making the memories being discussed seem more collective and less 'top-

down'.

Having current musicians discuss the influence Cobain had on them also helps to bolster

his 'mythical' status (discussed below) by positioning him as a creative source for others

who may not have taken the path they did had Cobain not existed. For instance, Daniel

Sanders from the Australian band Gyroscope told Rolling Stone that 'Kurt was honestly the

only reason 1 picked up a guitar in the first place' (Anonymous, 2004e, 81). Uncut Legends

(Anonymous, 2004f) includes a twelve-page article consisting solely of quotes from music

industry figures such as Butch Vig, Evan Dando, Josh Homme, Jack Endino and Lars

Ulrich, commenting on certain Nirvana tracks and answering questions such as 'What made

Kurt special?'. This format allows for many comments on how Nirvana influenced these

people, and also gives an impression of'authorlessness' similar to the historical articles. In

addition, these collections of quotes serve the function of bringing the past into the present.

The reprints and historical articles are almost museum-like in that they fix the past and then

present it in a 'dead' form. The articles of quotes, however, evoke a connection to the past

through those who were affected by the events that occurred.

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Finally, there were articles discussing the character of Cobain. The remainder of this

chapter will concentrate on these, for while all four types of article perform important

commemorative functions, these give the most explicit representations of how the media

portrays Cobain. The magazines commemorating the tenth anniversary of Cobain's death

will be particularly useful to this discussion, as they were published within a year of any of

my interviews taking place, making the perspectives of the media and the respondents more

comparable. It is these articles that will provide the clearest point of contrast with the

accounts of respondents.

'It's hard to headbang to a saint': The media characterisation of Cobain

The anniversary articles on the whole portray Cobain as an exceptional, extraordinary

human being. In some cases, he is portrayed as having a status beyond that of human,

becoming a supernatural or godlike figure. In the most extreme example of this is a Spin

magazine article entitled 'The Ghost of Saint Kurt'. After describing Cobain as 'a ghost'

and drawing analogies between "Nirvana and various religions such as Shintoism, Buddhism

and Christianity, the author, Chris Norris (2004), discusses how people listening to the

music today supposedly react:

Nirvana may sound somewhat like today's modem-rock playlist, but their
music feels very strange. The songs elicit perplexing emotions. For one
thing, it's hard to headbang to a saint. And this guy's image pushes some
hard-wired buttons. I mean, look at him. The striking clear-blue eyes. The
sharp, nobly set features. The thousand-yard smirk coming out of the photos
and videos. The unkemptness almost makes him more dusty-prophet
biblical. And listen to the oblique, electrifying lyrics and airy vocal lines, the
way they waft surprising harmonies over a neo-heavy-metal roar, leaving
melodic vapour trails. In a way, the cynicism you feel you shouldhaMQ about
all the grunge mythologizing smacks of a naysayer's denial. (56)

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This quote makes a direct correlation between Cobain and religious figures such as saints,

and also calls upon the reader to bear his apparent sanctification in mind whenever they

listen to his music. 'Headbanging', or reacting to the music in an unrestrained, physical

manner, is deemed inappropriate or difficult. In a way, this hearkens back again to Adomo

and his criticisms of bodily responses that do not allow for a 'proper' appreciation of music.

Cobain (and indeed grunge itself) is constructed as a serious subject worthy of serious

consideration.

Furthermore, Record Collector's, commemorative edition, which otherwise deals mainly

with the price of rare Nirvana memorabilia, states that 'Nirvana have become an industry

which, ten years to the month after the suicide of their frontman, still seems to be gaining

the sort of momentum from which religions start' (Kennedy, 2004, 82). Uncut magazine

devoted an entire edition of its 'Legends: The Definitive Guide to Rock's Ultimate Icons'

series to Cobain, leaving no doubt as to their position on his status. In this publication,

examples of a different construction of Cobain's exceptional status can be found. Instead of

simple assertion, examples are found from his lifetime that illustrate how special he was.

One article traces his life, seemingly to work out how he became so 'abnormal', concluding

that it 'all pointed to a bad end—his family history, his initial high and free spirit

suppressed by Ritalin, leaving him a profoundly disaffected, morbidly weird anti-boy'

(Stubbs, 2004, 25)—that is, not one of us. He is portrayed as a moody 'artist', who could

not be comprehended by even those close to him, and it is claimed that 'you could be sitting

next to him, but he still seemed a million miles away' (Lamacq, 2004). Similarly, in

Revolver it is claimed that 'even to those who knew him best, Cobain was almost spectral'

(Cross, 1997,52).

169
The impression given in these articles is of someone beyond comprehension by normal

people, inevitably destined for greatness and eventual tragedy, on a trajectory unavailable

to mere mortals. The 'reluctant icon/generational spokesperson' tag surfaces often, with the

idea of his reluctance never negating the veracity of his apparent iconicity. In fact, his

reluctance usually enhances his status through giving the impression of humility, an

important element of the grunge working class, anti-commercial authenticity, and, for that

matter, a trait o f most religious figures.

There are a number of reasons why it became important for journalists to frame Cobain in

such a manner. Schudson (1990) shows how journalists can portray their own world-view

as being universal, especially when embedded in a culture that reinforces this view. Once

certain views are put into print as 'fact' these then become a point of reference for other

writers. For example, Schudson demonstrates how Ronald Reagan was constructed as being

exceptionally popular during the first part of his term by journalists who were using their

own impressions of him rather than relying on any empirical data, such as polls which

showed his unpopularity. Similarly, journalists writing on Cobain could construct his image

through references to other journalists and the accepted ways of writing about dead rock

stars, especially as this portrayal of Cobain as super-human fits in with a well-established

narrative in rock journalism, that of the 'tragic artist who dies young'. However, Jones

(1995), in his paper 'Covering Cobain: Narrative Patterns in Journalism and Rock

Criticism', notes that Cobain's death initially represented a challenge to this normalising

narrative due to his death being somewhat unusual in its (explicitly) self-inflicted nature.

Despite this, Jones argues Cobain's death was eventually subsumed into a stereotype of

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'youth gone wrong' and moral decay which were used to explain so many other rock

deaths. Jones (1995, 115), following Frith, notes that:

the music press and music critics (and, 1 would add, the mainstream press
when it reports on popular music) have a 'general image of the world' and a
'general interpretation o f rock' ... that provides space only for particular
narratives. When circumstances fall outside the parameter of those
narratives, reporters and critics make sense of them in ways that essentially
recapitulate the dominance of those narratives.

This process is described by Zerubavel (2003, 14) as 'emplotment', that is, creating a

logically structured story/narrative with 'essentially conventional structures' out of past

events. 1 would argue that an important part of such narratives is the mythologising that

creates gods and saints, as demonstrated in the articles quoted earlier. Jones has perhaps

understated a particular narrative associated with the suicide o f artists, one that can be

traced historically back to nineteenth century romantic traditions of the artist as tragic

other-worldly figure who never fits in. This can be found in accounts of other musicians

who committed suicide, such as Ian Curtis, Nick Drake or Elliott Smith (Stubbs, 2000, 41),

and artists such as Van Gogh. It is also worth considering that such accounts play into

effective marketing strategies, as 'tragic rock god genius who forever changed the world' is

more attention grabbing than 'ordinary bloke who's really just like you'.

Anniversary journalism provides an important way of reinforcing collective memories

through allowing audiences to revisit the events of the past through the images and words

from that time. However, the way the past is presented conforms to certain journalistic

conventions and uses narrative structures that are repeated for all 'dead rock stars' (Jones,

1995), resulting in the possibility that some of the specific meanings that Kurt Cobain may

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have had for his audience could be lost. 1 will now turn to the accounts of respondents to

ask whether they have remembered Cobain in the same way as the media.

'There goes my hero—he's ordinary'^: The account of respondents

In contrast to the media accounts, the respondents in this study portray Cobain as

profoundly w^/exceptional. The respondents for the most part feel very positively towards

him. As demonstrated in Chapter Four, Nirvana is the band respondents associated with

grunge more than any other, and Cobain is by far the individual most often mentioned by

interviewees, to the point that a minority see grunge as being mainly about Cobain and

Nirvana. One of the questions asked of respondents was about their reaction to his death,

and more than half reported experiencing strong feelings when they found out he had died.

Fourteen of these respondents recounted what could be characterised as 'flashbulb

memories', that is, memories of particularly dramatic or traumatic events that are associated

with strong emotions and are recalled with an unusual amount of detail (Finkenauer et al.,

1997, Talarico and Rubin, 2003). Only one quarter of respondents had no or only a vague

memory of the time of his death.

However, despite acknowledging his importance and the influence he had on them in

various ways, respondents rejected attempts to construct Cobain as anything other than

human, and a flawed human at that:

1 just remember feeling really shocked, and just feeling a bit empty, not
because he was a big hero of mine, 1 thought he was cute and a good

' Lyric from Foo Fighters, My Hero, from The Colour and the Shape (1997), Capitol Records.

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 musician, and all that stuff, but, basically I just thought the circumstances
were sad you know. (Uma)

1 just felt this sadness, it wasn't like, oh my god the grunge hero is dead kind
o f thing, it was just sad. (Lily)

Many people related their sorrow at his passing not to the loss of a 'great' individual, but

directly to the loss of future musical releases:

It was a shock to think that, oh, he's not going to put out any more music
than he's actually dead ... it's more that he's not going to write any more
songs. (Claud)

I was just so depressed that he was gone, and 1 knew that that was the end o f
Nirvana, you know, without Kurt there is no Nirvana, it doesn't matter how
much they release o f the greatest hits or what they release after, it's, he's
gone, that's it, it's over. And I think that the fact that 1 knew that there was
no more music coming from them just saddened me, really, it was just so
sad, and 1 was thinking, you know, 1 do like all these other bands and they
have got the grungey thing going but no one's Kurt, you know, he's him and
that's that. (Bertha)

I remember feeling an incredible sense of loss because there wasn't going to

be any more music, and 1 don't know whether that sounds selfish or not but
that was the thing that got to me the most, the fact that this wonderful ... this
guy was not around anymore, like that's it, you weren't going to hear
anything new from him, and that made me very very sad. (Drew)

In a similar manner to the media accounts, respondents also commented on the nature o f

fame and the role this played in Cobain's death:

1 don't think that he wanted [fame], and 1 don't think that he expected
anything from it, and I think it really did freak him out, 1 think that he was a
very quiet man, and was very, sort of, personal, and wasn't interested in that
huge number o f people loving him and calling to him and all that kind of
thing, so 1 think the only bad side of the popularity would have only been his
personal problem with it. (Bertha)

There's footage o f him at a family barbecue just sitting by the river just
looking out, he's just so depressed the whole time, he couldn't handle ... he
just wanted to play music and I don't think he was prepared for everything
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 that came with that, you know, he's such a personal person, and then he had
that blown open, everyone knowing everything you were doing, 1 think it
just fucked him up. (Isaac)

According to Kitch (2000) this is a familiar narrative in journalists' account of the death of

famous individuals. An explanation is required for what happened, and often this takes the

form of a 'villain' that caused the death in some way. For example, the manner of John

Lennon's death provided an obvious villain in Mark Chapman. However, in deaths with a

less clear causal agent, such as Princess Diana or John F. Kennedy Jr, the pressures of

'fame' are often cited as a factor. Although the respondents also use fame as a type of

'villain' (and also at times grant the same role to Courtney Love), they also use Cobain's

negative response to his status as another way of reinforcing his normality and authenticity.

Equally important is his ability to express his normality:

1 thought that people like Kurt Cobain and that had good things to say
because they weren't... they were in these loud rock and roll bands, but they
weren't necessarily the aggressive, belligerent rock and roller or something,
they were people that, certainly, when they were singing songs, or they'd
write songs about themselves and they were quite candid often about their
experiences in life or things like that, so 1 guess it's bound to speak to you,
to some degree. (James)

Quotes such as this show Cobain is being granted authenticity because of both his

perceived normality and his ability to express emotions or write about experience that

respondents could relate to. This adds extra weight to his ordinariness, in that respondents

felt that if they could relate to what he was expressing then he could not be too different to

them.

However, unlike in the media accounts, this conceptualisation of Cobain as unexceptional

and authentic and his rejection of fame leads respondents to explicitly reject the 'Cobain as

religious figure' concept:

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 But 1 didn't become disillusioned or anything, 1 didn't shed tears over him
or anything, have a little shrine set up in the back yard or anything like that.
(Dean)

"Nirvana wasn't the religious experience for me, they were just a band 1
thought was good ... 1 heard about people who were just, took it as, it's just
like the death of Jesus or something. (Trevor)

1 didn't kind of go out and build a shrine or take a pilgrimage anywhere, but,
yeah, it was really sad. (Janie)

There was all this stuff about him being this new sort of super-duper dude
and the saviour of everything and it's just like 'yeah, bah!' He's a skinny
little guy from a place that rains a lot and he's written some bloody great
rock, but he's, you know, (laughs) he's not the messiah, he's just a naughty
boy! (Dylan)

This rejection of the construction of Cobain as a religious figure stems from the way

identification was central to the accounts of respondents. Of great importance to their

positive feelings towards Cobain was an impression that, as Gordon said:

He was on our level, he was really no different to us except 50 million times

more talented possibly, but he was one of us and he died. I'd just have to say
my reaction was definitely like losing a close friend. (...) Because he was -
by not wanting to be a spokesman he was, you know, by just being honest
and saying don't believe all this shit about me, I'm not any better than any
of you guys, it's probably the most empowering thing someone in that
position can say to you.

That is, he was someone who could be related to in his anger and suffering and humanity.

Respondents also often gave examples of the places where Cobain's biography fitted in

with their own, reinforcing the idea that they strongly identified with him:

[Hometownj's very similar to Seattle, from what I've read (...) 1 was one of
these guys that wore op shop clothes and hand-me-downs all my life, and
when it became cool it was like, yeah, well, ok, 1 used to get teased for this,
but 1 really was walking around with the hole out of the arse of my jeans
because 1 couldn't afford other ones. So although 1 was going, I've had my
fair share of going through phases, but grunge 1 really did relate to.
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 genuinely, because I didn't have to change anything about the way I was to
fit in with this great little fad, 1 was already looking like that. Coming from
the country, we already wear our checked shirts and stuff you know
(laughs), it's like hick town, just like where a lot of these bands came from.
So 1 think it's actually culturally, you know, geographically we're apart, but
culturally 1 could relate to this music on a level that maybe people in other
parts of Australia may or may not have been able to. (Gordon)

At one point Gordon also described himself as being 'a little carbon copy of Kurt Cobain'

when he was a young grunge fan, suggesting that not only did he identify similarities

between himself and Cobain, but actively tried to emphasise them as much as possible.

Most respondents felt that the only features that set Cobain apart from them were his

musical talent and his ability to express shared emotions in a recognisable way. Yet, even

here the lack of musical prowess he displayed made being like him an attainable goal, and

made him more mundane and less exceptional. A number of respondents who are

themselves musicians were actually quite disparaging about Cobain's musical abilities

(while still not denying his talent):

It wasn't about being musical, it wasn't about being able to play every scale
on the guitar, it was about the feel, like, the feel that Nirvana had was in the
music, and then, a lot of other bands were a part of it, but the feel that Kurt
had in his music was amazing, if you can write a song with 2 chords or 3
chords, like Molly's Lips was only 2 chords, but still it's a cool song. You
get other songs like Something in the Way, which 1 guess is only 2 or 3
chords, but the feel that he put into it was just amazing. (Percy)

Respondents also commented on the egalitarian ideals that the grunge scene was built

around, and during his life Cobain was portrayed in line with the accounts that respondents

gave—an authentic, ordinary, flawed person struggling with a difficult situation. While the

media has shifted its emphasis onto Cobain's exceptional qualities to stay in line with its

own narrative forms, it is still vital to fans that their idol (1 use the term advisedly in this

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context) is someone close to them, that they could talk to, be friends with, or even be. Few

people feel they can aspire to be a genius, or a saint, and the media accounts presented in

the anniversary magazines thus failed to gain a hold in the collective memory of these fans.

It is also interesting to note that respondents not only contradict the media reconstruction of

Cobain. but are aware of it and express cynicism towards it:

I didn't hang out with your grunge crowd, but since then, meeting people
who are still fairly obsessed by it, even seeing things like in Who magazine
last year when they had a big spiel on the tenth anniversary of his death, and
you sort of think, well, was there this much publicity ten years after Elvis
sort of thing, so it'll be interesting in the future to see if t h a t . . . almost vigil
keeps up, 1 guess, and see if he is bigger than Elvis, really. (Claud)

1 remember at the time being surprised but also realising very cynically that
that was the beginning of the end, because once he'd died he was going to
join the bar in heaven with Jimi Hendrix and Elvis and everyone else, and
that the Nirvana legend would forever be changed. Death ... they will
forever be the most popular band out of grunge because of that, so, you look
at a band like Pearl Jam and say if Eddie Vedder had died the situation
would be reversed, everyone would be going 'oh. Pearl Jam Alive is the best
song ever written'. (Seamus)

Seamus and other respondents showed an awareness of the nature of mythmaking and the

reproduction of certain narratives with respect to such premature deaths, or compared

Cobain's death to that of other significant rock figures. When asked if he remembered

when Kurt Cobain died. Max, the oldest respondent at 45, said: 'Oh, not nearly as well as I

remember when John Lennon died (laughs), no'. Max's comparison with John Lennon

here, and Seamus' and Claud's comparisons with Jimi Hendrix and Elvis show that they are

aware of how such deaths become homogenised through the way they are reported. Max's

quote also touches on the relationship between being affected by such events and youth,

which will be discussed further in Chapter Seven.

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The question of contestation is important here as it appears to show the creation of an

ahernative 'truth' to the accounts of the powerful, those in control of the means of mass

communication, and therefore one of the means of creating both memories and history.

Thus we see, at the time of the tenth anniversary of his death, conflict between 'official'

and private/collective accounts of the meaning of Cobain's life. However, a pivotal point to

bear in mind is that the respondents' accounts are not completely removed from media

accounts. Kitch (2000, 190) notes how one of the central features of the narratives created

during the initial coverage of celebrity deaths is the ordinariness of the deceased: 'they

explain the famous in terms of the ordinary, uniting audience members with each other and

with the celebrity through 'basic' values'. This also allows the celebrity to represent the

reader. In this way, the accounts of respondents continue to align with an earlier account of

Cobain, that used by the media during his lifetime and in the immediate aftermath of his

death, when there was less call for his sanctification and he was, indeed, still just a man.

The perception of Cobain as an ordinary person is central to respondents' ability to identify

with him, and as a result still maintains a strong hold. Thus, respondents are not creating

something new; rather, they are preserving an earlier set of symbols that retain importance

to them.

However, it is not only fans who are attempting to retain this image of Cobain. When

Aberdeen announced plans for a statue of Cobain to be erected. Nirvana's bass player Krist

Novoselic responded by writing a letter to the local paper threatening to knock it down:

Kurt would hate the idea of a statue. When Kurt is put on a pedestal, it
leaves him exposed to attack, be it from self-appointed judges who harshly
condemn the junkie outcast, the well-meaning misguided fans whose
idolatry is proof that they never understood what Nirvana was about or just
from pigeon droppings fouling up the likeness of a man who talked about
the real things people should understand. (Anonymous, 2007)
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Furthermore, the media accounts themselves have not become set in concrete (as already

demonstrated by their change over the ten years following Cobain's death). For example,

Mazzarella's (1995) research on what was being written in the media immediately after

Cobain's death found that a major theme focused on how the suicide was portrayed as an

image of all that was wrong with 'Generation X', and was used by the media to try to

explain and understand this generation, which they mostly were not a part of This theme is

still present in the anniversary media, but only as a marginal theme. This seems to at least

partly be because the journalists writing at this point are younger, part of what is called

'Generation X' themselves, meaning they are less likely to accept the veracity of such an all

encompassing label (Pecora and Mazzarella, 1995). The complicated relationship between

fans and media (see Thornton, 1995) is evident here, as many of the journalists contributing

to the tenth anniversary magazines were themselves fans of Nirvana at the time of Cobain's

death (although some were the same people who were reporting at the time). Although it

might be expected that these younger journalists would interpret and remember this event

differently to the journalists who wrote the earlier accounts of Cobain's death, the generic

'rock death' template appears to exert the stronger influence. Given the shift towards this

account, it appears that, overall, the accounts of fans have remained more constant than that

of the media. This shows that although the memory of audiences comes from media reports,

it does not necessarily continue to conform to them.

Further demonstrating this changeability of media accounts is Rolling Stone's

commemorative issue, which makes no mythologising statements, and says of its attempts

to gather quotes on people's current feelings on Cobain: 'Some are dismissive, and the

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reverence afforded Cobain does invite some retrospective scepticism' (Wooldridge, 2004).

Similarly, a letter printed in NME's anniversary edition notes:

... over the last decade the man has been transformed into something beyond
human ... Although Cobain was an exceptional talent, it is increasingly
undignified to see him endlessly spunked over like some kind of chocolate
Jesus...Let us all try to remember him as a real human being. Not as a dead
rock star. Not as a god. (Marsh, 2004, 17).

This letter draws out quite a possibly sarcastic, possibly supportive response from the

editor^; but these voices are being given some space, showing the interaction between

dominant and marginal accounts, and that the hegemonic dominance of the mass media is

perhaps not as solid as we are sometimes led to believe.

It can be seen from the evidence above that remembering is a complex process. Although

some groups within society possess greater resources and power when it comes to shaping

memory, this does not result in the straightforward 'imposition' of memories on the less

powerful. Dominant and marginal accounts play off each other and change according to

the way each group constructs its present identity. The memories of media and of fans

have taken their own trajectories specific to their requirements. Respondents need Cobain

to continue to fulfil his role as an object of identification, whereas for journalists he has

become a 'legend' or myth and therefore more emphasis is placed on elements of his life

or work that can be used to portray him as beyond human. For both groups, however, the

^ 'Is this a good time to state my ... opinion that Nirvana were a monumentally overrated bunch of dreary,
whining corporate-board-Pixies who singlehandediy fucked up American alternative music for the best part of
a decade by angst-coating and homogenizing the late-80s popcore of Husker Du and Black Franc.s for the
iocks thereby snatching US alt.rock from the filthy experimental paws of Sonic Youth et al and handmg it to
Alice'In Chains on a soggy grunge platter? ( . . . ) And that 1 wouldn't spunk over them if they were a nougat
Jesus? Thought not.'
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memory o f Cobain is still strong and his artistic reputation, while being emphasised in

different ways, is ultimately unchallenged.

In terms of reputation, one area in which the memory of Cobain is similar in the accounts of

respondents' and media reports is in his status as an 'artist'. Becker (1982) discusses how

people defined as 'artists' are the ones who undertake the 'core activities' during the

creation o f a piece o f art, while others do 'support' activities and are not granted the same

status. Artists are also seen as being unlike other people:

At an extreme, the romantic myth of the artist suggests that people with such
gifts cannot be subjected to the constraints imposed on other members o f
society; we must allow them to violate rules of decorum, propriety, and
common sense everyone else must follow or risk being punished. The myth
suggests that in return society receives work o f unique character and
invaluable quality. Such a belief does not appear in all, or even most,
societies; it may be unique to Western European societies, and those
influenced by them, since the Renaissance. (Becker, 1982, 14-15)

That Cobain has been accepted into this type o f framework is particularly evident in the

media accounts (where he is 'superhuman'), but it is very clear that both journalists and

respondents do not see Nirvana as a collectivity through which the music was created, but

see Cobain as the artistic talent around which the group revolved. Nirvana's bass player

Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl are discussed very rarely by respondents, and are

mentioned most often in media accounts in their capacity as 'people who were there' and

who can therefore give us a first person account o f what Cobain was 'really' like. Their

contribution to the music-making process is rarely if ever discussed. The only mention this

receives is in a negative sense, as when it is emphasised that Cobain contested the group's

policy o f splitting song writing royalties evenly, and was awarded 75 per cent o f royalties

(for example, see DeRogatis, 2003, 32). Even in the context o f Grohl's current success in

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the Foo Fighters, where it is recognised that he is the main creative force in the band, the

role that the other musicians played in Nirvana is downplayed to the point that they become

artistically invisible. This portrayal o f Cobain fits in well with how the media has

constructed him. Other rock stars who have died early are often similarly portrayed as the

creative centre o f the group of which they were a part, regardless of how accurate this may

have been before they died—Jim Morrison and Michael Hutchence can be seen as

examples o f this trend. This emphasis on Cobain as the solitary creator of a body of work

emerges from the respondents' accounts also, suggesting that despite their emphasis on

Cobain as an understandable human being, the myth of the romantic genius artist has

enough o f a pull to skew their understanding of the band away from seeing it as a collective

enterprise.

A further question to raise with regard to the areas where media and fans disagree is

whether either o f these accounts will eventually oust the other. Will the image of Cobain

as merely 'one of us' fade as the people who lived through the time of his popularity and

death lose their feeling o f group membership in regard to this time and retell this story less,

and as new fans who 'discover' "Nirvana take on the media's contemporary account as the

only one available to them? Will the marginal account cross into the media and become the

dominant narrative, or will the media account continue to be transformed in accordance

with other factors? Although this question was not a major focus o f this study, at the

present time both ways o f conceiving of Cobain identified in this chapter appear to be

present among younger fans, and seem to be actively competing with each other. A quick

examination o f on-line communities based around Nirvana or Cobain (in this instance 1

have used Livejoumal.com as my source) demonstrate this. While some posters frame

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their appreciation o f Cobain in terms that sound decidedly 'worshipful', they are

relentlessly 'flamed' by others who do not see this as appropriate. An entertaining 'flame-

war' in a community called '_kurt_is_god' (http://www.kurt-is-god.livejournal.com)

illustrates this perfectly. One poster, eyes_of_kali, takes issue with the name o f the

community:

Let's cover something shall we:

-you don't L O V E him at all, there's a difference between fangirl worship and
love
-listen to the music don't idolize the singers, that's what real fans do
-do you realize how disrespectful you're being to him? He'd be embarrassed
by this community. He was a person, a person that if any o f you kids met
you'd turn your nose up to him. Don't lie.

A less aggressive poster, missy, responds to being asked whether she thinks Cobain is God

by saying: 'He is in a way, maybe not a God, as he was a "normal" guy from Aberdeen

USA, but he is a true inspiration, especially to me.' While what is going on here is probably

more about matters of distinction and cultural capital, with these individuals trying to find

ways to establish themselves as 'better' or more 'authentic' fans, we can see Cobain's

memory continuing to be a site o f contestation, even for newer fans. However, it seems

likely that for the majority o f people Cobain has/ will become interchangeable with other

dead 'legends' from across the years. At the time o f writing (early 2008), a series of

greeting cards has just appeared in newsagents featuring pop culture icons. Among the

images o f James Dean, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles sits what has become

the 'classic' image o f Cobain,^ the generic dead rock star for those under 40.

' Taken by Martyn Goodacre, this photo features a pensive looking Cobain wearing heavy eyeliner staring up
into the camera.
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Having examined the memories o f journalists and respondents and drawn out the

similarities and differences between these, as well as raising the question o f the memories

o f Cobain held by younger music fans (a topic that requires further research to be fully

understood), 1 will now turn to other types o f commemorative activities that have been

associated with Cobain. This will allow exploration o f sites o f memory in other sectors of

society with different access to power and memory formation than either of the groups

discussed above.

Official commemoration of Cobain

As noted earlier, pop culture celebrities are rarely the object of official state

commemoration (in terms o f statues, parades, plaques, and official days of

commemoration) as happens with other public figures or events. However, they are

increasingly becoming commemorated in various forms at the physical locations they are

(or were) associated with, often in order to attract tourists. For example, in Liverpool the

Council encourages Beatles-related tourism (Homan, 2006a, 67), and the home and grave

of Elvis at Graceland is a major tourist destination (Gibson and Connell, 2005).

The most official form of commemoration of Cobain can be seen occurring in his

hometown o f Aberdeen, where the Kurt Cobain Memorial Project was started in 2004. This

group aims to establish memorials to Cobain in order to 'provide a token o f our deep

appreciation for Kurt, his music and his kindred spirits all over the world'. In mid-2005, the

group achieved the first o f its goals, with a large plaque reading 'Come As You Are' (the

name o f a Nirvana song) being added to the sign welcoming visitors to Aberdeen. In the

next few years, the group aims to build a park dedicated to Cobain—'complete with
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memorial-related art, including a graffiti wall'—and a youth centre. The group attempts to

construct the figure of Cobain in a way that is in keeping with the essentially 'mainstream'

character of a community group aiming to help youth and engender civic pride. The FAQ

page on their website (http;//www.kurtcobainmemorial.org/) makes the following claims:

Is it true Kurt Cobain hated Aberdeen?

No. While it is true that Kurt said some derogatory things about Aberdeen
from time to time and had some negative experiences here it has been stated
by Krist Novoselic that neither he nor Kurt hated Aberdeen. In fact, in a
1995 speech to the Hoquiam City Council, Krist told a story about how he
and Kurt liked to talk about the good times they had here.

Is it true Aberdeen hated/hates Kurt?

No. Kurt has received the same reaction from conservative older folks that
any 'rock star' would receive. Nirvana was probably more popular here
among younger people than most places across the nation. National
journalists searching for an 'angle' for their pieces tended to focus on the
negatives of Aberdeen and looked for evidence to back that up. This
included one legendary example of a reporter going into a tavern at noon
and searching for anyone there who might say something to back up their
theory that Aberdeen residents as a whole are poverty-stricken alcoholics
lacking in culture. In sum, you find what you're looking for.
(http://www.kurtcobainmemorial.org/faq.shtml)

The website also seeks to further Aberdeen's claim of 'ownership' of Cobain by refuting

suggestions that he may have been bom elsewhere. These examples show the town not only

attempting to lay claim to Cobain, but also actively tackling other attempts to construct him

in a light that is not in line with their aim to claim him as 'their own'—that is, reports that

say he did not like the town and was not even born there. Such retorts are also necessary for

the project to gain legitimacy through portraying itself as something Cobain himself would

have approved o f

By creating memorials to him, the citizens of Aberdeen are attempting to attach physical

locations within the town—and arguably the town itself, through the sign at the entrance—

185
to the memory of Cobain. The project emphasises certain aspects of Cobain's Mfe and

personaHty (for example, his creativity and success) while downplaying others, such as his

drug addiction and stated dislike for institutions such as those here being established under

his name. This is done in order to create a figure that can justifiably be commemorated in a

context not far removed from 'town hero'. Just as Lincoln's image went from supporter of

racist policies to equal rights campaigner, Cobain—for this group and in this context—has

been transformed (and perhaps sanitised) from an anti-social outsider to a worthy (if

somewhat tragic) civic figure. This can be seen in the statement that the addition to the

welcome sign 'will help bring attention to Kurt, Nirvana, and our Community's

commitment to a positive, welcoming spirit'. Although Cobain's rebellious aspects have

been retained in other contexts, such as in the continued marketing of him to young music

fans, they serve no function for this group.

This Kurt Cobain Memorial Project is based around the importance that physical places can

hold in memory. The places where events have occurred, or where important figures have

been, can be powerful in evoking the past and providing a feeling of connection to it. The

Aberdeen group needs to make the strong claims that they do because most people

associate Cobain more with Seattle, the city in which grunge was seen to have its origins.

The importance of place can also be seen in the journeys that some fans make to locations

associated with Cobain. For example, numerous fans visit the Young Street Bridge in

Aberdeen where Cobain supposedly slept for a time when he had nowhere else to live, and

which he sang about in the song Something in the Way. However, for most Nirvana fans a

trip to Aberdeen or Seattle (where the Experience Music Project has established a museum

with a significant amount of floor space devoted to documenting grunge) would be out of

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the question, and would be rejected by most fans as taking their adoration of Cobain 'too

far' or in the wrong direction.

Another aspect o f commemoration, which can be accomplished on an individual level and

requires little in the way o f resources, involves the remembrance and marking of important

historical dates, in this case, the anniversary o f Cobain's death each year. For a minority o f

respondents marking such dates is part o f their relationship with music:

Early April every year I still get out one album and put it on, around the time
o f his death. 1 do the same for Jeff Buckley as well. In June 1 always listen to
Alanis for her birthday - on my calendar I've got them all marked, birthdays
and death days and things like that, I'll try and match up my, I'll do a week
o f Nirvana or something around the time of his death to show my
appreciation for what he did. (Bill)

Roger mentions hearing the replay o f the news breaking on Triple J on different occasions,

to commemorate the ten year anniversary o f the death and Triple J's thirtieth year on air.

However, this form o f commemoration is not mentioned by most respondents, and is seen

as being inappropriate by some:

I don't even know his death day by heart, people who don't even own a
Nirvana album will tell me 'oh, today's Kurt Cobain's death day', its like,
oh, that's nice (laughs). (Seth)

This discussion shows the importance o f commemoration and how places and dates can be

used by different groups to remember and to put forward different accounts of the past and

the people involved in it. Although people such as Cobain are rarely the subject of official

commemoration in the way that political figures are, they are still commemorated and the

form this takes is a site o f contestation for those with vested interests in how he is

remembered.

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Conclusion
This chapter has highlighted a number of ways in which Cobain has been used
symbolically for different groups with different agendas: as a down-to-earth,
understandable individual for fans who need to feel connected to him; as a focus for charity
work and civic pride for those to whom he has become a symbol of community; and as a
literal 'rock god' for those in the business of music journalism. To some extent these ways
of remembering Cobain are in conflict with one another insofar as these different groups
have different requirements for Cobain. However, there are other places where the accounts
are similar, as with the consideration of Cobain's status as an 'artist'. This discussion
suggests that individuals and groups do not necessarily agree with how memories are
constructed in the media, despite the apparent power that the media has to portray the past
in certain ways, and the vested interest it has in doing so. Such challenges to dominant
accounts seem to be most successful when the memories of the less powerful are important
to their identity in some way. However, there are limits to such challenges, and these will
be examined in more detail in the following chapter.
CHAPTER SIX: Gender and grunge

Even when w o m e n do wield the real power, as is often the case in

matrimonial matters, they can exercise it fully only on condition that they
leave the appearance of power, that is, its official manifestation, to the men.
(Bourdieu, 1 9 7 7 , 4 1 )

The previous chapter concentrated on how Kurt Cobain is remembered differently

according to the uses different groups have for the past in the present. This chapter will

argue that what has been forgotten about grunge is just as important as what has been

remembered. In particular, despite the important contribution of women to the grunge

scene, they do not have a strong presence in the memories of either respondents or the

media. The woman who is most often remembered, Courtney Love, is used to reinscribe

traditional gender relations through condemnation of her rejection of them. The other

women musicians from the time of grunge and the challenge they made to gender

stereotypes (along with male musicians of grunge who were also committed to gender

equality) have been either forgotten or re-labelled as 'Riot Grrrls'. This re-labelling allows

the threat being posed to patriarchal relations to be compartmentalised and contained, while

the grunge label is reinscribed as a form of masculine rock.

1 will first discuss what I will call the 'gender equality project' of grunge, particularly with

regard to its relationship to the Riot Grrrl movement it was contemporaneous with, and the

media accounts of the time. Second, 1 will examine the fate of this project through the

accounts of respondents and more recent, retrospective media reports. Finally, I will

examine how gender issues associated with grunge are connected to questions of

189
respondents' identities, particularly for those few respondents who still remember the

gender equality project of grunge as being central to its importance.

The message of gender equality associated with grunge was not one 1 initially expected

would be a central theme of this thesis, except perhaps to note its existence and the positive

outcome of such a message. The findings I uncovered in regard to gender were unexpected.

As an example of a bias a researcher can bring to a study, my own experience with grunge

was not something I had ever thought about in gendered terms, except perhaps to

acknowledge its gender neutrality. However, despite my feeling that the gender equality

message was an important component of grunge, it was mentioned only by a small minority

of mostly female respondents. As a consequence of my assumptions, there were no specific

questions in the interview about gender and it was only in the later phase of interviewing

and in the analysis phase that 1 noticed these themes appearing (or failing to appear).

Noticing this allowed me to add questions on the issue in the final interviews, and to

include this as an example of the importance of forgetting to understanding memory.

Why do women disappear?

There is a longstanding trend within society for women to become invisible and be

forgotten when the past becomes 'history'. Joan Wallach Scott (1988, 5) notes that:

Historians searching the past for evidence about women have confronted
again and again the phenomenon of women's invisibility. Recent research
has shown not that women were inactive or absent from events that made
history, but that they have been systematically left out of the official record.
In the evaluation of what is important, of what matters to the present in the
past, women as individuals or as a definable group rarely receive mention.

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This phenomenon o f disappearing women has been discovered in many areas of culture.

For example, in their examination o f etchers from around the turn o f the 20'^ century, Lang

and Lang (1990) found that although there were many well-known women etchers when

the art form was popular, 'with few exceptions, neither their names nor their works seemed

to have survived' (1990, 269). Recent interest in etching has led to the rediscovery of some

female artists, but still to a lesser degree than the male artists. Lang and Lang found that the

women weren't forgotten because their work 'wasn't as good', as the women were highly

acclaimed at the time. Although the women had marginally less renown than men during

their lifetimes, this difference increased greatly over time.

Lang and Lang (1990, 285) suggest that the women's reputations have not survived because

they were 'bom at the wrong time, they also lived too long and were more likely to have

died at the wrong time'. That is, they were born at a time when women were not taught to

be assertive; they outlived family who might help sustain their reputation; and they died too

long after their success and the popularity o f 'etching' overall for their death to be notable

and help to sustain memory o f them. While these explanations are sociological, in that they

are based around the social status that women held, Lang and Lang also suggest that the

women did not take the necessary steps to ensure that their reputations would survive. For

example, they did not take as much care as the men to ensure that their works were

identifiable, properly catalogued and archived.

However, the examples provided by writer such as Wallach Scott regarding the

disappearance o f women from history in general, and the findings in this chapter that show

women disappearing well before their deaths, and in circumstances where their work is as

191
well catalogued and as easily accessible as men's, suggest that being female is in and of

itself enough to make being forgotten more likely. This could be due to women's lack of

involvement in record keeping (Kleinberg, 1988) and their lack of control over the way

language and symbols are used to reproduce power structures (Wallach Scott, 1988, see

also Henderson, 2006). Although Wallace Scott notes that currently the voices of women

are being heard and recorded in many aspects of modern life (although this does not

necessarily guarantee their preservation in the future) this is still for the most part not the

case in rock, or 'serious' popular music, as this chapter will demonstrate.

Many researchers (eg, Thornton, 1995, Shuker, 2005, 119) have noted the way women's

contribution to popular music is mostly denigrated as 'pop', as opposed to the 'serious

music' produced by male bands, which reproduces the general association of women with

low-brow culture and men with the high-brow (Huyssen, 1986). Even where women have

established a presence in the rock scene (not an easy prospect; see McRobbie and Garber,

1997, Bayton, 2006), they are far more likely to be sexualised vocalists than to play

instruments. It is also possible that as sounds themselves can be heard as gendered

(Jarviluoma et al., 2003), even when women do participate in rock the association of the

sound of this music with the masculine is difficult to contest. Furthermore, as Helen Davies

(2001) argues, the male-dominated press responds to women's attempts to break into the

world of 'serious music' by reducing the woman in question to her gender, either through

concentrating on her physical attributes or through endless comparisons with other women

artists, as though sharing the same gender is enough to make all female artists the same in a

way that male artists are not.

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It was demonstrated in the previous chapter that rock journalists tend to conform to specific

narrative forms. Davies (2001) demonstrates how the dominant cuhure within rock

journaUsm can affect what is—and more importantly what cannot be—written, how this

stems from overarching societal norms, and shows the effects this can have on readers'

perceptions. In particular, she argues that women are not considered capable of producing

serious music, usually because the assumptions surrounding what comprises such music—

particularly as regards the issue of credibility—are constructed by a patriarchal music press

in a manner that systematically excludes women. Credibility is closely associated with the

idea of authenticity, and this is automatically denied to women who are seen as being in

any way manipulated or not in control of their own material (eg, by singing other people's

songs). If they are not performing their own material, then they cannot be expressing

something 'real' about themselves. Credibility is also associated with intelligence and

seriousness, and when women display these (for example, by commenting on politics or

talking about depression) they are often derided, although male artists doing exactly the

same thing are often lionised. Finally, credibility is associated with subcultures and being

separate from the mainstream, and it 'is difficult for female performers to separate

themselves from the mainstream because ... the mainstream is often defined precisely as

music associated with girls and women' (Davies, 2001, 306). It will be shown below how

the intelligence of a woman like Courtney Love can be used against her, and how although

Riot Grrrl was a subcultural movement centred on females its very separateness has been

detrimental to the women associated with the more mainstream grunge movement.

Most significantly, Davies (2001, 302) notes that although the press must include women in

order to 'create images of themselves and their publications as liberal and non-sexist', this

193
occurs periodically in what is fashioned in each instance as a 'discovery' of the new

presence of women in rock. This can occur because retrospective writing on serious popular

music excludes the women who may have been at the forefront of any given movement. As

Davies (2001, 302) explains, the 'exclusion of women from history' means "there is little

sense of an ongoing tradition of women in the music industry". Women are a perpetual

novelty, and each new group of successful female performers is heralded as the first'.

Women are also excluded through their absence from the canon, as can be seen in the lists

of the 'best' grunge albums discussed below (see von Appen and Doehring, 2006 for a

discussion of how this occurs).

Grunge, Riot GrrrI and Gender

As discussed in Chapter One, in an article on the politics of grunge, Shevory (1995)

identifies gender politics as one of the four main political themes of the movement (along

with generational conflict, independent recording, and style). He notes that 'Grunge

supported, and was supported by, an alternative culture that has begun to substantially

change the position of women in white rock music' (Shevory, 1995, 43). The prominent

male figures of grunge, such as Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder, were vocal in their support

of tolerance and equality, not just for women but also races and sexualities other than white

heterosexuals. Kurt Cobain in particular enjoyed playing with gender roles. He allowed his

own sexuality to be called into question by often wearing dresses and/or makeup on stage,

in film clips and on photo shoots and wrote explicitly feminist songs, such as Sappy ('He'll

keep you in ajar/and you'll think you're happy/he'll give you breathing holes/and you'll

think you're happy') or Been a Son ('She should have died when she was born ... she

should have been a son'). Grunge bands in general avoided imagery that objectified or
194
degraded w o m e n . N o longer were women in film clips scantily dressed and dancing

provocatively, but instead were more often portrayed as equally participating audience or

band members.

This time in which grunge was successful in particular saw the rise of the 'female bass

player' (for example, Kim Gordon, Kim Deal, Sean Yseult). This trend is examined by

Clawson (1999), who argues that the feminisation of bass playing through an appeal to

stereotypical gender traits (eg, women are good at playing bass because it supposedly

requires more instinct and feeling) served to devalue the role of the bass player in the band.

However, Clawson notes that this still meant roles as musicians were opening up more to

women, which was a step forwards from the almost invisible female musician of before (a

claim that itself serves to reinforce the disappearance of earlier female musicians). A

number of the female bands associated with grunge, particularly L7, Hole and Babes in

Toyland, became commercially successful during this period also. Thus, at the time of its

greatest popularity, grunge offered a message of gender equality and presented a higher

proportion of women participating as creative band members than had been apparent in

recent rock history—particularly in comparison with hair metal. Part of this message of

equality originated in and was reinforced by the associated 'Riot Grrrl' movement.

What is Riot Grrrl?

Riot Grrrl has been the subject of a greater amount of academic research and comment than

grunge, probably due to the explicitly political feminist nature of the movement. For

example, Gottlieb and Wald (1994) give an in-depth account of the origins and aims of the

movement, incorporating feminist and subcultural theory. Briefly, Riot Grrrl was a
195
w o m e n ' s collective organised around the music scene, which produced fanzines and

recordings, and organised and supported gigs of female musicians, while maintaining sharp

social commentary on the position of females in society at large. The Riot Grrrls focused on

the support females can receive from one another, and problematised the female body by

talking about female desires, body parts and more taboo subjects such as incest and rape in

an up-front and confrontational manner. They placed a strong emphasis on allowing

younger females to express their experiences, as demonstrated through the fact that they

were 'Grrrls' not w o m e n (see Wald, 2002). Participants used their bodies as message

boards by scrawling provocative words (such as 'Slut' and ' W h o r e ' ) on their arms, legs and

abdomens (Attwood, 2007). For example, a famous photo shoot of Kurt Cobain and

Courtney Love with their daughter, Francis Bean, showed the infant girl with 'Diet Grrl'

written on her stomach. While on the one hand encouraging female support of one another.

Riot Grrrl also encouraged participants to express anger that they felt at the way they had

been treated or victimised due to their gender, thus colonising the 'traditionally' male

territory of anger (Klein, 1997).

It has been argued by some academics that since its inception in the early 1990s Riot Grrrl

has suffered the same fate of incorporation and normalisation as grunge (as discussed in

Chapter One). They note that the appropriation of parts of the message of Riot Grrrl by

'mainstream' performers such as Alanis Morrisette has the potential to spread this message

further, but on the other hand takes away the DIY message of the Riot Grrrls and turns the

movement into another product to be sold. As Schilt (2003, 228) notes:

it was a realistic assumption that girls inspired by Bikini Kill could and
would start their own bands. But how realistic was it for girls to aspire to be
the next Alanis Morissette or Baby Spice?

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In the early 1990s the Riot Grrrls, tired of being misrepresented, declared a media black-

out, and refused to speak to any mainstream journalists or allow documentation of their

activities (Kearney, 1998, Rosenberg and Garofalo, 1998).

Despite the difficulty associated with applying genre labels authoritatively (as discussed in

Chapters One and Two), there is strong evidence that grunge was closely associated with

the Riot Grrrl movement. Both grew out of the same 'art world' which was centred around

Seattle in the late 1980s, and grunge had 'important cultural connections to what Bikini Kill

has called "REVOLUTION GIRL STYLE N O W " (Shevory, 1995, 43). The Riot Grrrl

label would be denied most (if not all) exclusively male bands, but the female bands

involved could be—and have been—classified either as Riot Grrrl, grunge or even punk.

There is demonstrably a significant overlap between these genres. For instance, as will be

shown below, there is a shifting of labels of female bands between grunge and Riot Grrrl.

The two movements were geographically and temporally very close, and there was a

constant sharing and exchange of personnel and ideas. One oft-repeated illustration of this

interaction is in the story behind the name Smells Like Teen Spirit, which was a phrase

written on the wall of Kurt Cobain's house by Kathleen Hanna, singer of Bikini Kill and

co-founder of the Riot Grrrl movement (Aizlewood, 2005, 53). The use of this phrase as the

title for Gottlieb and Wald's article on Riot Grrrl discussed above reinforces this

association.

A further demonstration of this overlap can be seen in a Sub Pop compilation album from

1991, 'Sub Pop—The Grunge Years'. The tongue-in-cheek nature of the title can be seen in

the cover photograph of two suited men talking on mobile phones in the back of a
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limousine. The album title should not, therefore, be read as a straight-forward labelling of

any of the bands involved as grunge or indicative of their acceptance of such a label.

However, it does demonstrate that grunge was an operative term at this time and suggests

which bands would be described as such. Of the 13 artists included on this compilation,

three (Hole, Babes in Toyland and L7) are all or almost all-female bands (the only

exception being the guitarist in Hole, Eric Erlandson), and two more bands (Beat

Happening and The Walkabouts) have female members. A perusal of the Sub Pop roster

shows many female bands on the label, including many ostensibly Riot GrrrI bands such as

Dickless. While hardly overwhelming female representation, this is a far more healthy

showing of female musicians than in most forms of rock (see Walser, 1993 for a discussion

of how women were excluded from genres such as hair metal). This illustrates the high

female participation in grunge and the overlap between Riot Grrrl and grunge.

Despite the closeness of the two movements at their outset, over time they become

increasingly separate from each other. In looking at media reports from the time, again

mainly concentrating on the NME, this chapter will make the case for the existence of two

separate waves of female bands. The first was firmly a part of the grunge 'explosion' which

occurred around the release of TVeverwwt/where, despite the occasional use of labels such

as 'foxcore', the female bands were not singled out but were part of the wider musical

movement (Dalton, 1990, Cameron, 1991b). This wave included bands such as Babes in

Toyland, L7, Hole and Calamity Jane, which are explicitly singled out as some of the 'best

proponents' of grunge (Wells and Cameron, 1992, Morris, 1992). These bands are heralded

as the new wave of women in rock:

For all the lump-em-together bollocks that all female or female-dominated

rock bands have had to endure, it would be foolish to deny that there are
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 more and stronger role models for females in rock than at any time since the
late '70s and that is A GOOD THING. (Ridges, 1992b, 49)

A lengthy article on this new wave, 'The Witch Report' (Page, 1992) notes that: 'The fem-

grunge onslaught in America has produced the celebrated, scathing foxcore of Babes in

Toyland, confrontational noise merchants Hole, LA fem-metallists and "female Nirvana"

L7, and an ever increasing groundswell of newer names ...', while making no mention of

Riot Grrrl.

Articles such as these in the NME at this time help further illustrate the phenomenon

described above whereby women are constantly rediscovered. While the female grunge

bands had always been given coverage beforehand, during late 1992 and 1993 there was an

explosion of articles dedicated to the new wave of women in rock. While the later articles

appear to have been prompted by the 'discovery' of Riot Grrrl in the UK they give

coverage to women in rock more generally. With titles such as 'Rage Against the Man

Machine' (Anonymous, 1993b) and 'The Witch Report' (Page, 1992), these articles make

claims such as:

Women have grabbed rock by the balls and made it squeal in agony ... They
are reclaiming rock from the strutting, posturing macho Metal peacocks and
the fey, fumbling, characterless boys and dragging it down into a cathartic
sexual/emotional hell for a slice of long-overdue feminine judgment.
Women are suddenly not afraid to rock. (Page, 1992, 18)

This article ('The Witch Report') then goes on to reduce the women to their gender, as

Davies (2001) describes, by asking a group of female artists who have little in common

aside from being female questions such as 'Have you ever found it difficult to express

yourself and your sexuality freely in your music?' These articles erase most previous

female contributions to rock with their claims that this is the first time women have done

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these things (although 'Rage against the Man Machine' does make the admission that

women have lacked role models in music 'thanks to the untold, patriarchally obscured

history of women' [Anonymous, 1993b, 14]), and continue to reduce these women to little

more than their gender, even as they claim to be doing the opposite.

However, from the start of 1993 the NME starts to report on the second wave of female

bands, a 'new' phenomenon which is identified as Riot Grrrl for the first time in this

publication (Harris, 1993, Anonymous, 1993a). In particular, the genre-defining article

'Rage Against the Man Machine' (Anonymous, 1993b) sets out the meanings of Riot Grrrl.

It identifies the movement as having been in existence for around two years, but only in the

UK for six months or so. At this time, there is suddenly a clear demarcation between

grunge and Riot Grrrl. For example, Courtney Love is described in terms such as 'an

influential forerunner of the Riot Grrrl movement', thus establishing a temporal gap

between one and the other.

The differences between grunge and Riot Grrrl can also be seen in the way the bands

position themselves. While the newer Riot Grrrl bands such as Bikini Kill are almost

militant in their feminist stance and deliberately call attention to the fact that they are

female in their attempts to claim a space for women in the rock world (for example, see

Anonymous, 1993b), the earlier grunge bands follow a more traditional line in asking for

their music to be taken on its own merits regardless of their gender (for example, see

Harris, 1993, Morris, 1992).

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Thus while 1 do not deny the existence of Riot GrrrI as an entity in its own right, especially

in its non-musical forms, I wish to argue that it has since become a convenient label for any

female bands from this time. There is a stronger case to be made for including bands such

as Hole, L7 and Babes in Toyland under the grunge banner than that of Riot Grrrl, based on

media reports of the time, statements by the bands themselves and accounts of respondents

in this study. The message of Riot Grrrl gained more public attention through the success of

grunge than it otherwise would have had (which was at least partially facilitated by some

male grunge musicians), and musically there is often little to separate grunge from Riot

Grrrl except the presence of female musicians. However, it is significant that as time has

passed all female bands from this era have been pushed (not always entirely successfully)

more towards the Riot Grrrl label (for example, see Ali, 1997, Attwood, 2007, Nicholas,

2003, Huq, 2006, 140). Moreover, the label Riot Grrrl has increasingly been applied to any

female performer, especially those in rock (for example, see DeRogatis, 2003, Raphael,

1996 ), again serving to reduce women to their gender regardless of the differences between

their performances. This serves to separate the women performers out from the men,

leaving the label 'grunge' to describe the latter and thus allowing the entire movement to

conform more to journalistic ideas of what rock is about. This is also the case in the

accounts of respondents, as discussed in the following section.

The erasure of women's history can also be seen in academic writing on Riot Grrrl. Despite

acknowledging the prior presence of women in rock, even Gottlieb and Wald (1994, 251)

still refer to Riot Grrrl as a new, unprecedented phenomenon, and make claims such as that

the 'recent visibility of women in rock... signals greater access for women to male-

dominated realms of expression' without addressing why they believe this incursion of

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women into male territory will not suffer a similar fate to previous ones and be forgotten.
This fits in with the pattern of women's history being lost described by Wallach Scott, and
with the societal-wide pattern of the participation (and emancipation) of women being
repeatedly heralded as new (see also McDonald, 1994). If the accomplishments of women
in the past are constantly forgotten, it makes it easier for each new generation—as with the
journalists in the music press—^to congratulate themselves on the progressive nature of
society.

The disappearing women

Despite the prominence of female musicians at the time, both the female bands and the
message of gender equality and tolerance have almost completely disappeared from the
accounts of respondents, particularly male respondents.

Some of the male respondents explicitly identify grunge as masculine. For example,
Gordon identified it as 'mostly male', in a similar manner to other respondents:

The grunge stuff was very different because it was very deep, very
masculine, but also it could be croony or it could be full of anger. (Burton)

Can you say what the sound was? Yeah, it was full, and it was generally
fairly loose, ah, it had a degree of anger attached to it, and in that sense it
was an honest expression of adolescent rage, you know, the new angry
young man, in a way, as it's defined in the dictionary kind o f - not that I'm
making a sexist comment, but, you know, it was that expression of that time.
(Max)

In a more practical sense, ways that respondents reported using grunge in their day-to-day
lives suggested it was perceived as existing in a masculine territory. Three female

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respondents described using their liking of grunge as a way of improving their relationships

with males they knew:

Most of the girls weren't really into music, it was like girls don't do music,
sort of thing, and so I think a lot of [the boys] thought 1 was pretty cool
because 1 did actually appreciate music and 1 could talk about music with
them, whereas a lot of the other girls, you know, they wouldn't talk about
music, they'd talk about other things, so that sort of put me on a different
level with guys, because going to an all girls school, there's just a different
sort o f . . . first the boys are a bit weird because they go to an all boys school,
and they're like 'oh, girls', so if you can talk to them about something they
relate to 1 think that puts you on a different level with them. So 1 guess that
sort of changed my relationship with guys. 1 think 1 got along with them
better in terms of that sort of interest because 1 did like music whereas a lot
of the other girls didn't. (Kaye)

Do you think it changed your relationship with anyone, with people that
you knew? Hmmm ... no, no 1 don't think so. Although maybe, maybe, my
friends Jack and Barry, they really liked that 1 gave them that copy of that
Gluey Porch Treatment by the Melvins, they were really sort of like 'Ohhh',
it kind of gave them this new sense, cos 1 think they thought cos 1 was a girl
that, you know, 1 wouldn't like that kind of stuff (laughs), I was just like oh
no, you have no idea. (Louisa)

Did you know a lot of other people who were listening to grunge? Um ...
yeah, 1 think ... it was mostly males, like my male friends that would be into
that, a lot of my female friends were listening to whatever was on the radio
and stuff like that, yeah. 1 think it was more my male friends in school who
were into it. (Rita)

Only Louisa's account here suggests any shifting of the status quo in terms of her

challenging her male friends' notions of masculine and feminine music, in the others, Rita

and Kaye use what is accepted as a masculine cultural form to gain acceptance with males

on their terms or 'turf rather than causing any shift in the males' perceptions. That

respondents remember grunge in these masculine terms suggests that the gender equality

project of grunge may in some ways have had little impact 'on the ground' in the lives of

fans, making it unsurprising that this project and the female musicians are remembered less

than an examination of media reports from the time may indicate.

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Figure 4.1 (see Chapter Four) shows bands expHcitly labelled as grunge by respondents. It

contains only three bands, Hole, L7 and Babes in Toyland, which would be called 'female

bands', and two bands, Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth, with female bass players.

While Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth has always been portrayed as an equally participating

band member. Smashing Pumpkins has been constructed as being centred around the

tortured-romantic-artist stereotype of singer-songwriter Billy Corgan, and female bass

player D'arcy reduced to the role o f ' e y e candy' (for example, see Ridges, 1992a). As a

result of this and the contested position of Sonic Youth in regard to grunge (see Chapter

Four), this discussion will focus more on the other three bands mentioned. These bands

were also identified by the media as belonging to grunge, at least initially (as discussed

above).

One question that arises in relation to this table is whether there is a correlation between

commercial success and the likelihood of being remembered as grunge. To a certain extent

there is such a correlation demonstrated in the chart. Nirvana and Pearl Jam were the most

commercially successful grunge bands, and Soundgarden also had a number of high-selling

albums in Australia (Barnes and Scanes, 2003). However, the presence of Mudhoney as the

second most named grunge band causes difficulty for this claim as they have never had any

significant commercial success in Australia. The fact that they are mentioned by so many

respondents could be interpreted as an attempt on the part of respondents to lay claim to a

certain amount of cultural capital by being fans of a more obscure band who are also seen

as 'pioneers' of the movement. The amount of success achieved by L7 and particularly

Hole would be on a par with, if not greater than, that of Alice in Chains or the Screaming

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Trees. However it would appear that female bands have not become markers of cultural

capital in the same way that male bands are to the majority of respondents.

Taking L7, w h o were mentioned by five respondents, as an example, two of the

respondents who discussed them were female (although one of them [Michelle] wasn't

quite sure if they were grunge or not) and two were males who had worked in a company

responsible for distributing L 7 ' s music in Australia and thus had a greater reason to

remember them and regard them as important. The fifth respondent was a male, one of the

last interviewees, and 1 asked him directly about female bands, as 1 had begun to realise

they were missing from what most people were telling me:

Did you ever listen to any of the female bands associated with it, like
Hole or L7? Y e a h . . . H o l e , Courtney Love is just a dirty rock slut (laughs),
there's no other way to put it, I mean the way that she met Kurt (inaudible),
she came over when they were both drunk, didn't even introduce herself,
and poured a drink from his jug. How dirty rock slut is that? And good
looking girls know they can get away with that stuff L7 1 didn't really get
into, Courtney Love, I saw Hole but didn't really get into it. (Percy)

What is noticeable here is that the respondent does not dispute the inclusion of bands like

Hole and L7 under the label grunge, but needed prompting to remember them. The same

phenomenon emerged in the other interview involving this question, implying that the

reason for disregarding female bands is not that respondents had never heard of them in the

first place or were unaware of their association with grunge, but they have not been retained

in their memories in a way that makes it important or relevant to mention them when

discussing grunge.

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As the grunge movement has become more and more distant in memory, so have the female

participants in the scene become reduced in stature and importance in the media also, with

the significant exception of Courtney Love. As discussed in Chapter Five, the tenth

anniversary of Cobain's death spawned a number of magazine articles which gave

retrospective accounts of the grunge era. The text of these articles focused exclusively on

the male bands, predominantly Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Mudhoney, and the

two male founders of Sub Pop. A number of these articles include lists o f ' T h e Best Grunge

Albums', and here women do appear—if the list is long enough! Mojo magazine's 'Early

grunge classics' (Alexander, 2005) lists only 5 albums, with no female artists included.

Revolver's 'Flyin' the Flannel; 10 essential grunge albums' (Tepedelen, 2004) also contains

no female artists. However, lists of 20 or more albums find room for the female bands. For

example. Spin's '20 Greatest Grunge Albums of All Time' places Hole {Live Through This)

at 7, L7 {Bricks are Heavy) at 11 and Babes in Toyland {Spanking Machine) at 16 (Beaujon

et al., 2004). Guitar One's 'Plaid to the Bone; The 25 Greatest Grunge Albums' includes as

the last and third to last albums listed Hole's Pretty on the Inside and Babes In Toyland's

Spanking Machine (a Smashing Pumpkins album also appears on this list). This again

shows the grunge canon being reclaimed as a male space.

1 have demonstrated above that despite the importance of female bands and musicians at the

height of grunge's popularity, they are rarely mentioned by respondents and are

disappearing from media accounts. This process of marginalising and forgetting these

women began when the Riot Grrrl label became available as a way of separating women

playing heavy rock style music from the men. This is in keeping with a wider societal trend

for women to be forgotten more easily than men, and provides a case study demonstrating

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how this happens. Not all women, however, were forgotten, and 1 will now turn to an

examination of the memory of Courtney Love.

'The girl you know'^°: Memories of Courtney Love

People hate [Yoko Ono], they really do. Did you know that to Yoko
someone is a verb in America? It's something the boys say if they're
hanging out with you too much and they're going to school or if they have a
band. It's almost a myth that's used to suppress women. Y ' k n o w , "You're
gonna Yoko me. Y o u ' r e gonna destroy me".

Courtney Love, NME, 17 April 1993

One woman from the grunge movement who has not been forgotten is Courtney Love.

Reflecting again on the earlier quote from Percy where he discussed female grunge

musicians, the most remarkable element of this quote is that the first thing he says is that

Courtney Love is 'a dirty rock slut'. Love, as mentioned earlier, was the singer of Hole, and

later married Kurt Cobain and had a child with him. One way in which Lang & Lang (1990,

308) explain the survival of the reputation of some women from the etching movement is

through their association with men:

While most of the w o m e n and their work have been forgotten, some have
been less forgotten because they are linked in memory to other artists -
almost always men - w h o are remembered. Social ties to the famous can
promote the posthumous survival of a reputation and, indirectly, of the
artistic output on which that reputation is based.

Love's association with Cobain has provided the basis for her persistence in memory. Even

disregarding her association with Cobain she has always been a contentious figure.

Between being outspoken and articulate on issues of gender equality, making use of her

Lyric from Hole, Miss World, from Live Through This (1994) DGC.

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body and image to further such critiques, claiming to be bisexual, and battling drug

addiction (and at times various other musicians) she has always provided plenty of

sensational press. While never a 'tomboy' or cross-dresser as such. Love's use of clothing

during the grunge era (less so in recent years) could itself be read as a commentary on

gender roles and expectations. For example, her 'baby doll' dresses were simultaneously

inappropriate wear for a grown woman and suggestive of deviancy through the combination

of adult sexuality and symbols of childhood.

Various conspiracy theories since Cobain's death—mainly fueled by the Nick Broomfield

documentary Kurt and Courtney (1998)—have accused Love of driving Cobain to commit

suicide or worse yet actually paying someone to have him killed. These theories are picked

up on by some respondents:

How did you feel about Kurt Cobain's death? Well I was j u s t . . . I just
remember being pissed off that it was him and not Courtney Love, basically
(laughs). 1 just thought she ... yeah, it was just like, 1 had this perception of
her at the time that she was this groupie slut who, you know, got to go out
with Kurt Cobain and then, you know, driven him to kill himself, which was
pretty much my opinion at the time. (Missy)

1 fully blamed Courtney Love (laughs). I don't care what everyone else says,
it's her fault, whether she did it herself or whether she drove him to it.
(Bertha)

Love is disliked by most respondents who mention her, with some giving more personal

reasons for disliking her:

Yeah, she lived in Portland for a long time, so 1 remember seeing her around
and ... 1 mean it's kind of offensive for me to say so, but 1 don't remember
people liking her very much, so when he died I thought, oh well, you know,
1 can't imagine that she was a very good influence on him (laughs). That's
terrible of me to say, because 1 don't actually know her, but 1 remember, 1

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 just remember that 1 was never very impressed with her, so. And I don't
actually like her music very much, so. (Louisa)

Thus while Hole is mentioned more often than other female bands in relation to grunge, it

is the notoriety of Courtney Love that has given her band a higher profile than the other

female bands. Love is also mentioned by respondents far more often than Hole (13

respondents discuss Love, while only six mention Hole), and it would appear that her role

as a musician has been vastly overshadowed by her role as a wife and mother, and her

apparent shortcomings as such.

So why is Love the object of such dislike and criticism from fans? Academics, journalists

and indeed Love herself (as in her song 20 years in the Dakota) recognise parallels between

her and rock's other infamous widow, Yoko Ono (or even rock's other destructive blonde

stereotype Nancy Spungen). Yoko's name itself has become symbolic of the assumption of

a 'misanthropic role for any woman purported to be pivotal in the life of one or more

members of a venerated male collective' (Scodari, 2006, 58), and the operation of this

'Yoko Effect' can certainly be observed in Love's case. Both Ono and Love are strong,

outspoken women who are artists in their own right, and who have been criticised for their

influence over their dead husbands. Love is praised by many academics for her feminist

stance. Heywood and Drake (1997, 5), for example, discuss the ways in which Love can be

seen as a combination of elements of both second and third wave feminism:

Love's star quality and personal ambition may be a legacy of the Reagan
1980s and a quality discouraged by the collective movement ethos of second
wave feminism, but it was the second wave that made ambition a realizable
possibility for women. Equity feminist, postmodern feminist, and victim
feminist all at once. Love combines the contradictory aspects of these
discourses in a way that recognizes and makes use of complications that
young women working within dominant culture face today.

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The media has also praised Love for her feminist stance (for example, see Sutherland,

1993b, Iley, 2006). This praise fulfils the necessity for the press to appear liberal and non-

sexist, as pointed out by Davies (2001). However, such praise is reserved for interviews

with her and far more criticism (implied or direct) is found in gossip-style reports on her

actions, whether they be taking drugs, getting into fights, being taken to court, having

plastic surgery and losing custody of her child. Such reports both deny Love the right of

reply which she might have in an interview situation, and reinforce public opinion of her as

a deviant woman and therefore unfit mother.

The fact that this deviance comes in the form o f a white woman is also significant.

Although not as obvious (or as theorised) as the marking out of non-white femininity, the

construction o f white femininity is central to the understanding of whiteness and its

'others'. In her study o f the ways the image of Princess Diana has been used since her death

to reinforce the meanings of white femininity and erase actions of hers which did not fit

into this mould, Shome (2001, 323) observes that:

As symbols o f motherhood, as markers of feminine beauty ... as translators

(and hence preservers) of bloodlines, as signifiers of national domesticity, as
sites for the reproduction of heterosexuality .. .a nd as sites through which
'otherness'—racial, sexual, classed, gendered, and nationalized—is
negotiated, white femininity constitutes the locus through which borders of
race, gender, sexuality and nationality are guarded and secured. This
consequently marks it as a threat, since it is a site through which the nation
can spill into otherness.

Love's embodiment as a white female and a mother makes her use o f her body and her

behaviour o f public interest. She is seen as the 'keeper' o f the legacy o f Kurt Cobain

through his genetic material, his daughter, a more important position now that Cobain

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himself is lost to us. As such, powerful notions on motherhood come into play, particularly

regarding the notion that a woman should put her family before her own desires. One of the

most damaging attacks on Love was an article in Vanity Fair (Hirschberg, 1992) in which

Love is accused of using heroin during her pregnancy, an allegation which saw the newly-

born Frances Bean Cobain removed from Love and Cobain's custody during the first weeks

of her life. The publication of this article in September 1992, and Love's pregnancy more

generally, marked a significant turning point in the way Love is portrayed in the NME.

Prior to the announcement of her pregnancy, references to Love in the NME were

universally flattering. She was hailed as a groundbreaking musician and her strong

personality and forceful opinions praised (for example, see Walsh, 1991). Some weeks after

the announcement of her pregnancy, the only reference to Hole in an article dedicated to the

'new' women in rock is to them being a 'lesser talent' (Maconie, 1992), and the following

week an article by Roger Morton (1992) presented a summarised version of what was

contained in the Vanity Fair article. As well as accusing her of taking drugs while pregnant,

it also suggested she was responsible for Cobain's addiction to heroin. From this point,

criticism of Love in the magazine was unrestrained. An article on Nirvana the following

week, unsubtly titled 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', is an extraordinary piece of character

assassination, spending a great deal of time describing what a 'pain in the arse' she is and

ridiculing many of the traits for which she had previously been praised, such as her

outspokenness (Double, 1992).

Love's personality had not changed, but the shift of her status from 'single woman' to 'wife

and mother' and her refusal to fit in with dominant societal views of how wives and

211
mothers should behave resulted in condemnation and the reinscription of patriarchal norms

by the supposedly liberal music press. The only point at which these roles have worked for

Love was during the immediate aftermath of Cobain's death, when, as a 'grieving

widow'—a role which she performed more in line with social norms by being seen openly

mourning and apparently taking solace in her child—she was given positive coverage and

sympathy from the press. For example. Select magazine (Greene, 1994) describes a

'distraught' Love's search for Cobain during the days before his body was found, and gives

a sympathetic account of her grief after his death, ft has also been suggested that her

vehement condemnation of Cobain's actions may have discouraged copycat suicides

(Martin and Koo, 1997).

Only one respondent retained this sympathetic view of Love, saying:

1 thought it [Cobain's death] was incredibly sad for him personally, and for
his wife and also his child ... 1 found some of the ways that other people
reacted to it a bit heartless, like ... it was all Courtney's fault ... I think more
so for his child and his partner it was really devastating. (Shelly)

However, this was an isolated response, with the tendency to blame Love for the death

being far more prevalent. Other respondents were unhappy with her adoption of the widow

role in that it 'gave licence to Courtney Love to be the martyr' (Seamus).

Love's care of her child has since been closely scrutinised, culminating in Frances being

again taken from, and then returned to. Love's custody in 2006. As Shoemaker (1997, 112)

notes, 'it is amazing how easy it still is for conservative representations to silence and

subvert strong female role models, reducing them to their biological functions with

disturbing ease. Vanity Fair demonized the latest media "whore", Courtney Love, for her

alleged heroin abuse during pregnancy'. However, Shoemaker notes that the media has
212
praised Madonna for her more 'appropriate' response to motherhood; and in fact have

somehow put her back on the 'virgin' side of the virgin/whore dichotomy because she had

acted in a manner considered more natural by putting her energies into raising her child

instead of into her career.

Love's (and to a lesser extent, Cobain's) parenting skills were also questioned by

respondents:

Courtney is still a bad role model. These people were caught in a lifestyle
that, they unfortunately take on roles as role models, but they had a child,
and they were setting such a bad example for the way you should raise your
child and that sort of thing. (Bill)

But 1 probably, if anything 1 just thought, my first initial reaction [to

Cobain's death] would probably have been 'oh poor Francis', even though
she was little, we thought that she'd be left with Courtney Love and have a
screwed up life. (Clara)

The criticism of Love here is twofold. First, her bad mothering will be detrimental to her

own child as she grows up, and second, her bad mothering will be detrimental to other

children because she is providing a bad example for other parents.

The use of Love as a 'foil' for Cobain places an even stronger emphasis on the

unacceptable extremes of her personality and makes her seem even more of a failure as a

female. As has been discussed earlier, Cobain was known for playing with gender roles,

and also had other traits that might be considered feminine. He had an unusually slight

build (to the point where it was reported he would don extra layers of clothing to make

himself appear larger), and was described in terms of passivity through being sensitive (a

feminine trait), uninvolved in events around him and ultimately unable to deal with life

213
itself (see Muto, 1995). For example, the damaging Vanity Fair article describes Cobain

thus:

Kurt is wearing pajama bottoms, is bare-chested, and has a sparkly beaded

bracelet on his wrist. He is small and very thin and has pale-white skin. His
hair, which he's dyed red and purple in the past, is now blond, and his eyes
are very blue. His face is quite beautiful, almost delicate. Where Courtney
projects strength, Kurt seems fragile. He looks as if he might break.
(Hirschberg, 1992)

And in Uncut Legends the dynamic between Love and Cobain is described as:
Physically slight and with persistent, chronic health problems, Kurt was
almost uniformly perceived as hyper-sensitive, passive, dependent,
emotionally insecure and the 'female' of the relationship. She was the
'male'—physically dominant, tougher, more assertive, confident and
outspoken. (O'Connell, 2004, 83)

While Cobain also demonstrated masculine tendencies, particularly anger as expressed

through his music, he was by no means an exemplar of'masculine' behaviour; and, in

comparison with Love, she can appear the more masculine." One of the accusations made

against Love before Cobain's death was that she was essentially a 'bad influence' on

Cobain. As mentioned above, the damaging Vanity Fair article blamed Cobain's drug

addiction on Love, and other articles comment on her apparent dominance over him. Such

accusations can be seen as critical of both parties and their rejection of social norms—of

her as being unfeminine in her assertiveness, and him as unmasculine for not being

assertive enough.

Love was also more likely to express anger, to physically as well as verbally fight with

people (something Cobain made a point of never doing), and was as sexually transgressive

as Cobain in terms of the use of her body. While he wore dresses, she would adopt physical

'' When discussing the idea of the 'mascuHne' and 'feminine', I am not meaning these as essentialist or fixed
notions; rather, 1 am discussing stereotypes which do, still, hold a lot of power. ^^^
stances more commonly associated with men, particularly on stage. The issue of Love's

'control' over Cobain is certainly pertinent to the idea that she was responsible for his

death, and this issue was strongly reflected in comments on Love by respondents reported

earlier. Isaac said:

And 1 watched, my sister's doing a media course at the moment, and she
watched that Kurt and Courtney documentary the other night, that made me
even more depressed, to hear how fucked up she made him and how she
completely warped his relationship with his kid. (Isaac)

Love has also come under repeated attack for her sexual behaviour. In an earlier quote, she

is portrayed as a 'dirty rock slut', and criticism on this front comes from all angles—fans,

press, and, most tellingly, other musicians. A number of bands have released songs which

are reportedly aimed at Love—for example. Nine Inch Nail's Starfuckers Inc, which

includes lines such as 'my god's a shallow little bitch trying to make the scene' and '1 sold

my soul but don't you dare call me a w h o r e ' o r Tori Amos' Professional Widow

(•Starfucker just like my daddy')'^—which usually comment either on her sexual or

'wifely" behaviour. It seems almost unnecessary to point out the hypocrisy present in the

rock world as regards the sexual behaviour of women and the condemnation they receive

for the same behaviour glorified in men. For example, the book Rock Bottom by Pamela

Des Barres (1996) gives short accounts of the lives of twenty-one musicians who died

young. Only one woman is included in this book—Janis Joplin—and while the sexual

conquests of the men discussed in the book are recounted as well-deserved awards for the

As regards the NIN song, this was apparently the result of a sexual encounter between Trent Reznor and
Love. Love's comeback to Reznor's subsequent attacks on her was to suggest T h r e e Inch Nails' would be a
more appropriate name for his band. ^ , • j i
The definitive target of this song has never been confirmed by Amos. However, the fact that it .s widely
rumored to be about Love suggests that the sentiments it contains reflect how people either feel about Love or
would expect others to feel about her. For an example of a discussion of this song, see
http://www.songnieanings.net/lyric.php?lid=13535 ^^^
success they have achieved, JopHn's sexuaHty is pathologised. Love has never hidden the

fact that she has sexual desires and does indeed act on them. The fact that she has often

engaged in pubhc affairs with other musicians has made it easy for others to label her a

'starfucker'—in essence, a groupie, something that some male journalists (at least) have

long suspected is the only role for women in rock (Davies, 2001, 315). This again detracts

from Love's talent as a musician and refocuses attention on her body.

Love's version o f white femininity is, then, not a matter of concern to national identity, as

in the case o f Princess Diana, but to the place women are expected to occupy in popular

music, and in culture more widely. These ideas cross national borders, and are deeply

pervasive in the Western world. While sexual transgression along the lines of that offered

by Cobain can, arguably, ultimately serve the status quo in that it removes the need for

women in rock through providing the feminine in men (Davies, 2001, Huyssen, 1986,

Bannister, 2006), the sexual transgression of Love is a threat that needed to be somehow

contained. Judging by the negative reaction of respondents to her, this has been

accomplished quite successfully.

However, not all respondents had a negative view o f Love. Some reported liking her music,

and Clara, while ambivalent about Love overall, finds positive as well as negative sides to

her:

See, that's my other big problem - 1 look at her and 1 don't want to buy
albums from her when she looks good, I'd buy albums from her when she
looks like trash, because 1 feel that's when she really lets her real self out,
not when she's all being pretty and girly and stuff- even though 1 do like it
when she looks like that. So you were listening to Hole back at the time
when you were listening to Nirvana? Yeah, it's probably got to do with
the fact that I'd seen Kurt Cobain and Courtney were married, and a friend
o f mine was really big into Hole. Did you find her ... was she a role model
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 to you at all do you t h i n k ? Definitely by looks. I'd try to dress like her I
suppose. 1 wouldn't say that 1 wanted to be like them, because they didn't
have the best lifestyles. 1 do, I'm one o f those people that buys books and
reads about new stuff, and Courtney Love was a role model to me for a
while just because she did clean herself up, cleaned herself up for Frances
Bean when Kurt died and stuff, and 1 was like, I'm so proud of her for doing
that, but she's fallen back into it again, so ...

Bill also finds some positive effects that he believed Love had on other people he knew:

1 like that because, probably because Courtney was so raw and, you know,
the more you read about Courtney the more interested 1 was, and her
addictions and her stripping lifestyle and that sort of thing. 1 had a lot o f
friends who were sort of, could be described as wrong side of the tracks and
that sort o f thing, and they could identify with her and they supported her,
and 1 supported her.

Here again we see the concept o f authenticity being central to respondents' approval or

identification with musicians. Clara and Bill are hardly approving o f Love and her lifestyle,

but her 'realness' and personal struggles create empathy for her.

Charlie gives a more detailed account o f what he perceived as the positive potential

contained in Love's persona:

I would even go so far as to say that the 'fuck you' attitude in pop and the
open sexual thing is a product o f things like Courtney, because Courtney
made women go 'fuck you', really for the first time openly in music history.
There was always women with attitude, but there was no one with that sort
o f attitude, and that sort o f attitude you see a lot in young girls today, and I
think that's a very prevalent sort of thing, and 1 think from what anybody
ever thinks about Courtney [I met her], she is who she is.(...) 1 really respect
her because she's not fake, she is who she is, and she's never been shy about
it, and she really does epitomise that American ... fame thing, if you know
what I mean. Even though she comes from a really punk rock thing she has
always wanted to be famous, and she really did work at it. 1 think especially
on the female side she's a huge influence on attitude and things that are
going on now.

This opinion corresponds with the readings given in academic articles on Riot Grrrl and

Courtney Love—that their presence in the rock apparatus is positive, posing a challenge to

the male status quo and offering role models and alternatives to young women who come
217
into contact with them (Attvvood, 2007, DeChaine, 1997, Gottlieb and Wald, 1994).

Ovenvhelmingly, though, this potential is contained and diffused by the normalising effect

of'official record keepers', in this case mainly the music press, erasing the influence of

women and vilifying women who do not fulfil what are deemed to be appropriate feminine

roles (Davies, 2001).

The only woman involved in grunge who is remembered by respondents is Courtney Love,

and she is remembered in an almost overwhelmingly negative light. The quotes above

represent the only positive comments respondents had to make about her, as opposed to a

far greater number who remember her negatively. In this case, the retrospective narratives

o f grunge and the memories o f respondents appear to be in alignment—as opposed to the

situation with the perception o f Kurt Cobain after his death—which suggests that

respondents' present identities are supported more by remembering grunge as a masculine

cultural form. This is something that needs to be kept in mind, and possibly researched

further, as women who actually do pose a threat to the status quo can in this way be

silenced over time even with the full cooperation of the fan base that are supposedly the

targets o f change for the transgressors.

'Pretty on the Inside'^"^: Female respondents and the gender

equality project of grunge

While the message o f gender equality in grunge has not survived on a collective level, it did

impact on a minority o f respondents in a way that has had lasting consequences for their

Album by Hole (1991), Caroline Records.

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identity. Three o f the female respondents described how, for them, grunge opened up the

possibilities o f different identities and different ways of being female. Clara described

feeling as though certain people looked down on her, so 1 asked:

The people that were different to you at the time - what were they
listening to at that point? It was the Spice Girls! We had lots of girls that
liked the Spice, 'cos, at [high school] lots o f girls liked the Spice Girls and 1
used to get picked on big time for the music 1 listened to and the way I
dressed, but 1 liked grunge clothes because you could be yourself and you
don't have to sit there and put on lots of make up and be all princessy, you
can just go around in a t-shirt and pair of jeans, and shoes, and become cool.
That's another thing that 1 love about grunge, you can be yourself and no
one really looks down upon you, that's in that same circle anyway.

Here Clara contrasts a more conventional femininity with what she felt grunge allowed—

'being herself, being comfortable, not playing on sexuality. Janie gives a similar account:

Ok, basically, 1 used to be much more of a girly girl, and I'd wear skirts and
stuff, and 1 always felt kind o f comfortable, but 1 knew that 1 could be more
comfortable, kind o f thing, and 1 wasn't quite sure about the whole thing,
and then basically I went out and 1 got this outfit - well, I bought my first
pair o f really cool jeans, before that I always had really daggy jeans, but I
bought these mad grungey kind of jeans that had rips, and they were great,
and they were beautiful, and I still love them and miss them, but then, yeah,
1 wore this kind of, I wore Converse, I think I'd bought my first pair of
Converse, which 1 associate with all that thing, and 1 bought this Chili
Peppers t-shirt which 1 cut the sleeves off, and 1 had this top tied around my
waist, and it was kind o f ultimate grunge fashion, and I felt so comfortable,
yeah, and I went to the school dance like that, which was really unusual, cos
before that we had all been incredibly girly, you know what I mean, and we
always tried to look kind of stupidly sexy and stuff, but that night, it was
wonderful. 1 felt great, and from that moment on 1 always dressed like that,
very casually, and never wore short skirts again or anything. Yeah, 1 don't
know, in a way - 1 just found that fashion really relaxed, and 1 found the
whole scene really, it was all about kind of, 1 don't know, it just wasn't
putting on airs, and it was just all very mellow, and that's what 1 liked.

Although these examples are principally about clothes (and in Janie's quote some questions

could certainly be raised about the commercialisation and marketing of these fashions),

these women are relating a discovery o f different ways of being which have been presented

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to them through grunge. A third example, Lily, goes even further. She describes in much
more depth her first encounters with some of the female grunge bands, and the challenge
they presented to her ideas of gender. Here she describes her reaction to the L7 single
Shove, given to her by her uncle:

1 loved L7—1 was terrified but 1 thought they were kind of cheesy at the
same time, because it was Shove and Fast, those 2 songs, and I loved it, 1
thought it was kind of daggy but awesome at the same time, and also the
picture on the cover scared the fuck out of me, I don't know if you've seen
the cover to Shove, the single, they've just got blacked out teeth and eyes
rolled back in their heads, and to me who's used to seeing at that time
Madonna and glammed up chicks, 1 was just like 'oh my god, who are these
women—are they actually women?', 1 wasn't sure if they were women or
boys, I was like 'are they dudes with long hair or what?'.
She also remembers and describes elements of the equality project of grunge discussed
earlier:
Because, particularly, Kurt Cobain, he was able to speak his mind, and he
was awesome, very pro-choice, pro-women, these things meant heaps to me
in particular, and he was fairly anti-violence, even though he appeared to be,
although 1 didn't know the guy, violent in his own nature kind of thing, just
a lot of energy which 1 think is a really healthy good thing, just smashing
things and just 'ahhh!' and then he killed himself, which is the worst.
A recurring theme in this interview with Lily is the idea that grunge facilitated a process of
discovering alternative ways of living which she has pursued since, being heavily involved
in playing in bands (particularly all-female, grungey sounding [as she says] bands) and
promoting the cause of women in rock through radio shows and other methods. The only
bands Lily classifies as grunge are Nirvana, Hole, Babes in Toyland, L7, and a more recent
band fronted by a woman. The Distillers, suggesting her idea of what constituted grunge
may be significantly different to other respondents in that she seems to connect it much
more strongly to feminine aspects of the genre than any one else.

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There was only one instance o f a male respondent discussing these new gender

possibilities. Burton, who was in a band at the time, noticed fashions changing at the time.

He said:

When I first saw my singer turning up to gigs wearing my grandfather's

clothes 1 wasn't very happy, because I was used to wearing leather pants and
a leather jacket and all black and throwing my hair around, sort of thing, and
he was wearing his grandfather's clothes, and the next minute the other
guitarist is wearing flannies, and the bassist, she's wearing jeans that are
way too big for her - and she had a great figure, you know, I was like 'you
look fantastic, all the guys love you, look what you're wearing, you look
ridiculous' sort o f thing.

This is an interesting quote because it shows a male response to this shifting o f female roles

away from objectification. It is also worth noting that although Burton was initially

challenged by this, later in the interview he did say that after a while he grew to like the

grunge fashions, at least for himself:

I guess over time I found those clothes comfortable - leather pants are very
uncomfortable, but ripped jeans, very nice, yeah, and you get very hot up on
stage - the flannie, very nice, you can just rip it off and have a singlet or t-
shirt underneath. It's a different sort o f showmanship, I guess, it was also
more laid back, which 1 liked, I began to appreciate that.

While Lily appears to have fully incorporated the gender equality project o f grunge into her

memories o f the movement, Clara and Janie do not explicitly discuss the feminist ideals of

the time. However, all three of these respondents have continued to adhere to grunge ideals

o f femininity at the everyday, embodied level of the habitus. Even though Clara and Janie

do not identify this as a feminist-inspired change, their shift to a less 'princessy' or 'girly'

mode o f dress and presentation represents a challenge to the gender order that they continue

with to the present day. That this challenge has become unquestioned habit for these

women shows the partial success o f grunge's gender equality project and that it continues

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to exist in memories, even as the names and music of the women of grunge are being

forgotten. Wliile on the one hand 'unfair political requisites can be performed "intuitively"

and hence silently by social actors...and even collective minutiae such as shared gestures

and affects can thence help foreclose alternative futures' (Narvaez, 2006, 70), the opposite

must also be true: where actors silently and intuitively resist social norms, as these women

do, then alternatives and possibilities remain open. Despite the reinscribing of gender

nornis described above, given the limited scale of my sample relative to the overall

audience for grunge at its height, if only three respondents to this study (seven per cent of

respondents) report a change on this embodied level then the potential overall effect on

society is significant. However, further research is required to fully understand or measure

such an effect, especially for males.

Conclusion

In the years since grunge was at its peak, the women who were celebrated as an important

part of the movement have either been mostly forgotten or have been vilified. In the first

half of this chapter 1 presented an account of how w o m e n ' s history fails to live on, both in

written accounts and in the memories of people who participated at the time. Where bands

such as Hole, L7 and Babes in Toyland have not been forgotten, they have been

conveniently subsumed into the Riot Grrrl movement; a move that serves to separate

w o m e n ' s history out from a more mainstream male history of conventional narratives and

to compartmentalise it. 1 have also examined how the potential threat of a woman like

Courtney Love, who rejected stereotypical gender roles, can be contained and diffused by

the reduction of w o m e n to their bodies and their bodily functions, particularly reproduction

the roles associated with it that are still largely unchallenged and unchanging in the
222
Western world. However, this rather bleak picture is mitigated somewhat by the minority of

female respondents in this study who took enough from the equality project of grunge to

make a difference to their own presentation of femininity and behaviour on a very personal

level, bringing about change on the level of the habitus. Although the cultural signs and

circumstances that made this possible for these respondents may not still be available to

other, younger, w o m e n today (at least not in any broad sense) they continue to be embodied

in these, and other, w o m e n from this time. The constant recycling of fashions makes it

almost certain that at some point these ideas will be revisited—and will no doubt again be

heralded as a n e w breakthrough for women.

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CHAPTER SEVEN: Generation X, 'The 90s' and Youth

All that's sacred comes from youth,

Dedication, naive and true.
With no power, nothing to do,
1 still r e m e m b e r . . . w h y d o n ' t you?'^

This chapter will examine three ways of organising memories that have become available

for framing the time of grunge. At the time of its popularity it was often associated with the

concept o f ' G e n e r a t i o n X ' . Theories of generations developed in sociology will be briefly

explored, and the possibility that collective memories may be developed around shared

generational identity will be discussed. More recently, grunge has become a marker for

'The 90s' and it and the culture associated with it have become a shorthand way of

referring to this period. Finally, for respondents grunge was something associated with their

youth, and, as youth is connected to generational theories and it is the youth culture of the

90s that represents this time, this holds all three of these concepts together. While

postmodern theorists and studies of the 'life cycle' in Western societies have suggested that

the life cycle is no longer standardised and that the idea that youth is no longer associated

with biological age, the way the concept of youth is used by respondents when recalling

grunge suggests it performs important functions in organising memories. As such, the focus

of this chapter will be on the reproduction of social power through memory.

This chapter brings the discussion of the different available ways of organising memories

of the time of grunge back to a discussion of youth and how the construction of and

" Lyrics from Pearl Jam Not for You, from Vilalogy {\994), Epic.

224
memories of youth help to maintain social hierarchies. As Bourdieu (1993c) has pointed

out, the way youth is structured is important because it:

reminds us that the logical division between young and old is also a question
of power, of the division (in the sense of sharing-out) of powers.
Classification by age (but also by sex and, of course, class) always means
imposing limits and producing an order to which each person must keep,
keeping himself in his place.

Examining memory provides a way of understanding how such divisions are maintained

and justified over time. It will be demonstrated that the idea of generations and generational

conflict as constructed by the media helps to keep the 'youth of the day' in a subjugated

position, while the way individuals remember their own youth allows them to justify the

inequality suffered by those younger than them.

It is worth mentioning again at the outset of this chapter that the nature of the respondents

to this study makes social reproduction (rather than social change) a more obvious line to

pursue, as the respondents are for the most part functioning members of society embedded

in societal structures of employment and/or education. Individuals who are not (actively)

challenging the status quo can, as 1 have mentioned elsewhere, be ignored in cultural

sociology, or researchers can struggle to find political meaning or resistance in their actions

that may not exist (see Grajeda, 2002). The respondents to this study are not, on the whole,

involved in such actions. The possible exceptions to this are Barney (who at the time of his

interview had recently quit his job to pursue a career as a musician) and Lily (whose

explicit challenging of gender roles was discussed in the previous chapter). This is not

intended to be a negative comment on my respondents, merely an explanation for the

exclusion from this chapter or the next of detailed exploration into questions of how and

why societal change occurs. However, this does not mean grunge can therefore be

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automatically associated with societal reproduction. As noted in the methodology section,

the methods o f recruitment employed for this study were unlikely to find those outside

conventional society.

Generations

In very general terms, the sociological idea o f generations is based around the concept that

as one group in society ages and makes way for the next group, there will be differences

and probably conflict between these groups. Karl Mannheim (1972, 105), whose article 'On

the Problem o f Generations' is the starting point for most sociological debate on this

subject, argued that:

Generation location is based on the existence of biological rhythm in human

existence ... Individuals who belong to the same generation, who share the
same year o f birth, are endowed, to that extent, with a common location in
the historical dimension o f the social process.

Mannheim's work has been elaborated on by writers who have argued that generational

inequality is as important as other aspects of inequality such as race and class, and as such

needs further attention and theorising (Turner, 1998). These writers argue that the particular

set o f historical circumstances under which a group of people grow up creates a

'generational habitus' that gives this group a similar outlook on life and helps to shape their

opinions and actions throughout their lives, leading to a definition of a generation as:

a cohort o f persons passing through time who come to share a common

habitus hexis and culture, a function o f which is to provide them with a
collective memory that serves to integrate the cohort over a finite period of
time. (Eyerman and Turner, 1998, 91)

These theories o f generations are connected to work on memories both through the innate

connection between habitus and memory, and through studies that show that memories of
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public events are connected to age. Generally, events that occur during late adolescence are

remembered more and seen as being more important (Conway, 1997). The collective

memory of each generation will therefore be based around different events or frame them in

different w a y s (Schuman and Scott, 1989).

However, while the term 'generation' is used frequently in literature on youth cultures, the

exact definition of the term is still contested. As David Kertzer (1983, 126) points out,

while the idea of generations has established a strong hold in many fields of social and

political science, as well as in the popular imaginary, its meaning varies widely. He

identifies four categories which represent the most common usages of the term in the social

sciences: 'generation as a principle of kinship descent; generation as cohort; generation as

life stage; and generation as historical period'. However, he notes that even these usages are

often not clearly set out, or are used simultaneously with one another. Furthermore, it is

still unclear as to exactly how generations are created or how meaningful divisions can be

created within age cohorts that allow the idea of generations to continue to be meaningful.

For example, while the existence o f ' g l o b a l generations' based around shared media

exposure has been posited (Edmunds and Turner, 2005), other studies continue to show the

importance of place to the way events are remembered (Griffin, 2004). It has been

suggested that 'generation units' may exist which embody the 'spirit' of a generation while

not encompassing every person of a similar age (Mannheim, 1972); that specific

'traumatic' events are required to create a generation (Eyerman and Turner, 1998); that

generations coalesce around shared style or culture that not all persons of an age group

share; or that a generation must have a consciousness of itself in order to be considered as

such (Edmunds and Turner, 2005). It has also been suggested that generations may exist as

227
fields in the Bourdieuian sense, and individuals create their own positions in relation to

these generational fields (Gilleard, 2004).

While I am therefore wary of using the term 'generation' because of the difficulties in

defining what this means and the possibility for the term to be misleading due to the way it

suggests homogeneity across groups that may vary considerably, there are elements of the

discussions of generations that may help explain the position of youth. In particular, it is

important to note that age can be an element of collective memory, and that the specific

historical circumstances in which a group of people grow up will, inevitably, give rise to

habituses peculiar to that point in time. However, a distinction needs to be made between

the sociological attempts to define generations and media usage of the term. I am more

concerned with the more popular use of the word, and in particular the media construction

and populist use of Generation X and the continuing relevance of this term. The

sociological work is noted here mainly as a way of acknowledging the differences between

the popular use and the more academic definition, and the power relations that are inferred

when the differences between people of different ages are discussed. In the following

chapter, 1 will also develop an argument regarding the continued importance of class, and

how this more 'traditional' societal division may be more important than age or cultural

divisions chosen by individuals.

It is also unclear whether the issue of generations can be separated out from the issue of

youth and ageing. As Irwin (1998, 307) has argued, inequality between different

generations stems mainly from the difference in their ages. The young lack power and

privileges, but acquire these as they grow older. By this reasoning, the central issue

228
becomes that of the treatment and positioning of youth, and this will be returned to later in

this chapter.

Generation X

The concept of Generation X is important to grunge, as the two were closely associated in

the media coverage at the time. Given the difficulties that the concept of the generation

involves (as described above), 1 will not be treating the existence of Generation X as a

' f a c t ' ; however, the way it has been constructed in the media and popular works on

generations is relevant to the way the memory and the youth of this group has been

constructed. In the following sections, 1 will explore how Generation X was constructed

and its relationship to grunge, and then move on to an examination of whether or not this

has become a way of organising memories. As Ortner (1998, 416) notes, descriptions of

Generation X have:

... been contested at one point or another, by one writer or group or another.
The characterization of Generation X ... has shifted over time, as different
groups temporarily gained control over the image.

However, there were certain representations that were most prevalent at the time of grunge,

and these will be focused on here.

Kitch (2003, 186) has noted that 'generational characterizations in news media are

primarily phenomena of the last quarter of the twentieth century, and these reports have

been closely linked to a labelling trend that emerged simultaneously in marketing'. She

argues that both marketers and mass media have found the concept of generations useful in

selling products to particular audiences. In her exploration of the 'discovery' of new

229
generations in the print media over the last fifty years, she demonstrates that new

generations are almost always being discovered when they are teenagers or young adults

and are fi-amed as posing some sort of challenge or difficulty to wider society, particularly

through an appeal to the good qualities of the youth of previous eras who are referred to

nostalgically. Kitch (2003, 197) describes how journalists define the generation in terms of

particular cuhural items which the journalists choose to emphasise, while making this

choice 'seem to "come from" the story's subjects and audience'. Journalists also choose a

'defining moment' that unites the generation (Kitch uses examples such as Woodstock for

the Baby boomers and September 11 for Generation Y, but she does not say what this

defining moment might be for Generation X). This media discovery/creation of generations

suggests an attempt to impose a top-down way of ordering memories, which is constructed

to serve the purposes of capitalism.

To begin with, it needs to be established who is generally considered to be a member of

Generation X. Although initially defined by demographers as being those born between

1965 and 1976 (the 'baby busters') (Ortner, 1998), the age limits for members of

Generation X soon expanded. Huntley (2006), in her work on Generation Y, describes

Generation X as 'the age cohort born between the early 1960s and the late 1970s' (2006, 5)

while Generation Y are 'commonly defined as young men and women born in or after

1982' (2006, 2) (the generational status of those born in 1980 and 1981 is never explored).

Anyone older belongs to 'The Baby Boom Generation', and both Generation X and

Generation Y are described as their children. Howe and Strauss (1993) and Brabazon

(2005) give similar definitions of the age group Generation X is considered to cover,

proposing that it extends from 1961 to 1981, preceded by the Baby Boomers. Epstein

230
(1998) gives the years of birth of Generation X as 1964 to 1979. Overall, although there is

no consensus on the exact dates, Generation X covers those people bom from the early

1960s to late 1970s.

The term Generation X is believed to have first been associated with this particular age

cohort after the publication of the Douglas Coupland (1991) novel of the same name. This

book describes the lives of three young people who feel disconnected from society but

closely reliant on each other, and was taken to be a good indicator of the feelings of youth

of the time. Such ideas of disconnection and alienation typify how Generation X has been

described. In their book U''^ Gen (their name for the generation), Howe and Strauss (1993),

while ostensibly trying to provide a picture of this generation (in the US) in order to help

understand them, describe Generation X in generally negative terms. They describe how

they are less well educated than previous generations, tolerant of difference but cynical,

live lives centred on consumption and mass media and are overwhelmingly downtrodden

by the more successful Baby Boom generation. Best and Kellner (1998, 77) also describe

Generation X as relatively uneducated, and document their economic disadvantage and

increasing levels of violence. They attribute this violence to exposure to violence in mass

media, where 'life is rendered simply devoid of value, as impoverished social conditions

breed anger, apathy and violence'. Brabazon (2005, 19) believes that the most persistent

portrayal of Generation X has been 'as bored, listless, over-educated, underemployed media

sophisticates', which agrees with other accounts with the exception that her Xers are over-

rather than under-educated.

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Another term which was sometimes used to describe members of this generation was

'Slackers' (Epstein, 1998, Ortner, 1998), which refers to their supposedly apathetic view of

the world. In particular. Gen X was purportedly uninterested in politics and current affairs,

and did not engage with attempts to bring about social change. This supposedly apathetic

attitude was also reflected in the way the term 'slackers' was closely associated with the

grunge scene.

The woes o f Generation X were initially constructed in the media as being connected to

economic issues, such as declining home ownership rates, a lack of fulfilling jobs (despite

there being little empirical evidence for the existence of these problems for this particular

age group), as well as social problems 'including a soaring divorce rate, high rates of

working mothers and latchkey children, ecological disaster, the AIDS epidemic, and so

forth' (Ortner, 1998, 418). However, the terrible future predicted for Gen X has not come to

pass; rather, they have taken up positions in the existing social structure just as their parents

did, albeit with some minor changes (Campbell, 2004).

The media (and often scholarly) construction o f Generation X is problematic in that it

attempts to use 'generation' to describe all people of a certain age group, and as such fails

to acknowledge the differences in this group. As Crawford (2006, 11) points out,

differences in race, religion, gender and sexuality are subsumed under one label, which

itself seems to be based around middle-class lifestyles. As an example of the way the label

is applied to the entire age-group, when discussing Generation X , Howe and Strauss (1993,

12) ask:

Are they a "generation"? Yes, with a personality that reaches across the
board—rich and poor, black and white, Hispanic and Asian, male and
232
 female, celebrity and everyman. Whatever a 15- or 24-year-old's individual
circumstances, he or she can sense a composite personality, a generational
core.

However, Ortner (1998, 421) points out that although it was often claimed that Generation

X was 'diverse' and 'tolerant', little empirical evidence can be found to support such

claims. She notes that:

Despite these indications of greater diversity, the actual Generation X public

cuhure—the journalism, the novels, the films—is almost entirely white. And
despite the vast influence and popularity of African American performers in
popular music, most of the musicians and groups taken as epitomizing
Generation X (such as Nirvana, Beck, Hole and Offspring) are white.

She also notes that members of other ethnic groups do not feel connected to the idea of

Generation X (see also Huq, 2006). Ortner also sees class as being the defining feature of

the 'Generation', and argues that 'both the source and the target of the Generation X

imagery is the middle class' (Ortner, 1998, 421) and the particular relationship they had

with the changing economy in the early 1990s, rather than generational conflict or an all-

inclusive cultural moment.

The lack of a single cultural movement to unite this age group is emphasised by Brabazon

in her book From Revolution to Revelation: Generation X, popular memory and cultural

studies (2005). Brabazon sub-divides Generation X into a number of different groups by

separately examining a number of different cultural forms. These are the dance and house

movements, boy bands, and the film 24 Hour Party People with its focus on Factory

Records and the music scene in Manchester through the 1980s and early 1990s. Grunge is

only mentioned briefly, and in a disparaging manner: 'Rock has become the can(n)on,

firing at differences, with both punk and grunge following the path of disavowing the status

233
quo and then perpetuating it' (Brabazon, 2005, 89). Note that this is the usual mode of
criticising grunge as discussed in Chapter One, whereby the poHtical message and potential
of grunge is dismissed because of its success (although in this case punk is also criticised
rather than being used as an exemplar of the things grunge was not).

These examples of the empirical diversity of a group of people that the label Generation X
attempts to homogenise suggests the difficulties created when generation and cohort are
confused. The more academic definition of generation discussed earlier concentrates
instead on the idea that a group needs to recognise itself as a group and feel united by some
cultural moment. U thereby avoids some of this confusion by not automatically including
all people of a certain age under the same label. 1 will now turn to an examination of
whether grunge provided such a cultural moment and helped define Generation X.

Generation X and Grunge

At the time that grunge was popular, and particularly after the death of Kurt Cobain, a
major theme in media articles was the supposed correlation between what was being
expressed through grunge and the experiences of Generation X (Pecora and Mazzarella,
1995). The association between grunge and Generation X is so strong that alternative labels
sometimes used for the generation are 'Grunge Kids' (Saunders and Bauer, 1998) or 'the
Grunge Generation' (Campbell, 2004). Returning again to Shevory's (1995) work on the
politics of grunge, generational politics is one of the main themes he identifies.

Shevory is critical of the emphasis he says grunge placed on opposing older generations,
particularly the Baby Boomers, and argues that this emphasis means grunge musicians
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(unlike British punks) failed to focus on more important issues such as class and race.

However, he offers little evidence for this supposed fixation of grunge rockers beyond an

interview with Soundgarden and quotes from Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X. As

Shevory himself notes, the motif of youth standing up against their elders has been central

to rock music since its beginnings, and grunge was no exception to this trend.

However, it would seem to make sense that grunge became so big at that point in time

because there was a resonance between its producers and audience, which happened to be a

large section of people of a certain age. Bourdieu (1993a, 44) suggests that artistic

movements that occupy a dominated space within the artistic field will often find an

audience among those who occupy a similar dominated position within the wider structure

of society. A great deal has been written about the way grunge was supposedly a reflection

of the values and experiences of Generation X, suggesting that there was a certain amount

of harmony between grunge and a significant segment of young people at the time (Davis,

1999). A number of respondents attempted to explain the appeal that grunge had for them

by referring to the social position they had held at that time and explaining how grunge

'resonated' with that position:

Did you feel as though it rettected something about your life? Yeah like 1
said, 1 was in my early 20s, and 1 just sort of had dropped out of uni, it was
the second or third place I'd lived in out of home, 1 was the first one out of
home, living with this bunch of people, we were just taking drugs all the
time and just getting trashed and not really feeling like we fit in anywhere,
especially in Canberra, you know, it seems like such a sort of, had this
fa9ade of being such a nice place and, you know, everyone having so much
opportunity, and it's not true. So 1 think having something to sort o f . . . 1
don't know ... 1 guess having a, these songs that sort of expressed how alone
you weren't really sort of helped. (Sonia)

As has been discussed in previous chapters, the respondents can be considered a collectivity

in the way they share memories of grunge, and there is more than a suggestion of
235
respondents feeling as though there was a resonance between their social position and those

of the producers of grunge, is this then enough to suggest a 'generational consciousness'?

A minority of respondents did use the idea of Generation X as a specific way of relating to

and positioning their memories of grunge:

... that whole Generation X stuff that was kind of in the media, but which I
think had some, some relevance 1 suppose, that you come from a certain
background, and a certain range of influences through that, you know, w e ' r e
all waiting for the next Star Wars instalment, we all grew up listening to
certain sounds and so on, so that I think that being of the same generation as
those people that were producing it has—it appealed to me on a
subconscious level, but, I don't know what that is, but the sound did appeal
to me at that point in my life. (Uma)

So 1 d o n ' t think I really recognised it as being a new thing until I started

reading about it in the paper or whatever, and suddenly, you know, w e ' r e
Generation X and this was grunge music, and probably mostly on Nirvana or
Pearl Jam 1 guess. (Julie)

When I watched that video clip, just the lack of enthusiasm was it, you
know, it just summarised ... I was lying there just going 'oh my god, that is
exactly how 1 feel', as, you know, a 14 year old kid. 1 don't know, 1 guess
that's Generation X or something, but it just didn't feel right, it just
summarised h o w 1 felt, that whole video clip, all these people who just don't
care. (Percy)

However, the fact that the connections between grunge and Generation X were made by

and originated in the media needs to be kept in mind here, as can be seen in the quotes by

Uma and particularly Julie who explicitly states that her awareness of being a part of

Generation X only came from media reports. Percy is the only respondent who uses the

label in an unproblematic manner.

It would appear, then, that despite the strong media connection between grunge and

Generation X, the majority of grunge fans do not identify themselves as members of

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Generation X or use the narratives that were constructed around this generational label as a

way of organising their memories of this time. Rather than this being a case of forgetting

(as was the case with the women involved in grunge), this label is not used because it

appears that it was never accepted by the group. A study by Pecora and Mazzarella (1995)

conducted in 1994 and 1995 found that at this time, when Generation X was a major media

theme, the label was overwhelmingly rejected by college students who were supposedly

members of the generation. The respondents to that study reported that they did not relate to

the media description of Generation X or feel that it accurately described others of their age

group. In particular, they reacted against the idea that all people of a particular age could be

described in the same way. They also rejected the idea that Cobain or his music represented

them well (the timing of this survey will be relevant to this finding, as this was when

grunge had passed its peak).

This rejection of the image of Generation X portrayed in the media could have come about

through the negativity of the media presentation. People prefer to construct positive images

of themselves and their past (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994), and would be unlikely to describe

themselves as a 'slacker' with no future. This represents a failure of the top-down attempt

at labelling through Generational characteristics, as described by Kitch (2003), in that the

label has not been retained in the collective memory of the group it was meant to apply to.

However, the label served the purpose of defining the youth of the time as a 'problem' (as

well as supporting the marketing functions Kitch identifies), thus helping to maintain the

subjugation of youth within society.

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The decline in the use of the Generation X label is unsurprising. From the point of view of

those included under the label, because Generation X was used in such a negative way it is

unlikely that they would use this as a way of either framing their memories of the time

when the label was most used or as a way of continuing to identify themselves. Given that

memories help us to reconstruct and maintain our identities over time, it seems unlikely that

many individual or group identities would benefit from remembering their past actions in

such an unflattering light. While grunge may have gained its popularity from an appeal to a

particular set of shared circumstances or through its resonance with the lives of people such

as the respondents to this study, the respondents' experiences of grunge and their own life

stories do not mesh with the narrative that was provided by the media and it thus failed to

gain power within the group.

Neither have they presented an alternative, more acceptable way of identifying themselves

as a collectivity. This may be because while grunge did unite many people culturally for a

short period of time, these people all arrived at grunge from different starting points and

moved on to different places afterwards. For example, some respondents such as Kaye

arrived at grunge after being fans of hair metal, others such as Dylan through bands such as

Metallica, while others arrived via punk (Claud), 'alternative' (Ginny) or 'middle of the

road' commercial radio music (Donald). At the end of grunge, Murray and Martin describe

how they moved from listening to grunge to being involved in the dance music scene,

Trevor describes listening to heavier music, whereas other respondents such as Donald

remained strongly focused on grunge until the time they were interviewed. Furthermore,

respondents such as Ginny and Joyce became less interested in music altogether. The types

of involvement that the respondents had with different forms of culture were hugely varied

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across the group. The one place where they all meet is grunge. Whatever 'cultural moment'

may have existed around grunge did not exist before and was not extended beyond the time

o f its popularity.

The 90s
At the same time as Generation X has failed to gain hold as a way of organising memories

o f the time o f grunge, there has been an increase in commemoration of 'The 90s', and

grunge has become one o f the most prominent cultural markers of this decade. Just as an

image o f Sid Vicious can evoke 'the (late) 70s' to many people regardless o f whether they

were a punk, or a stereotypical hippy image can evoke 'the 60s', Kurt Cobain and the

fashions o f grunge have become 'The 90s'. For example, in 2008 The Simpsons, a

television series widely recognised as an insightful cultural text (Ott, 2003), produced a

retrospective episode concentrating on 'The 90s'. In this episode. Homer Simpson formed a

grunge band (Sadgasm) whose songs were melodically based on those by Nirvana and Hole

and whose lyrics ('razor blade o f apathy, shave me with your irony') satirised the

stereotypical view o f Generation X discussed above.

Just as labels for generations are used as shorthand by the media for certain qualities, or

more often to refer to young people, decades are also labelled by the media, and certain

events and social attitudes from the time are stressed more heavily in this retrospective

view. Davis (1984) suggests that decades are used to mark off one section of time from

another and are constructed in the media (generally as the decade comes to a close) as being

fundamentally different to each other in culture and 'feel'. However, this construction is not

entirely based upon the events o f the decade in question. It is also built in response to the
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way earlier decades have been constructed, in order to create an ongoing narrative. Davis

(1984, 17) notes that there are a 'limited number of formal plots or narratives that Western

peoples seem predisposed to choose among in fashioning their dramaturgic accounts of the

passage from one decade to the next', for example,

'Innocence/Transgression/Retribution/Redemption [or] Neglect/Loss/Reform/Reward'.

Because each decade is remembered as part of a narrative containing the decades prior to

and following from it, changing the perception of these times becomes difficult.

Writing in 1984, Davis attempted to guess how the 'mood' of that decade may later be

remembered, suggesting it may be 'some interpretative rendering which melds the

"abandoned Utopian ideals of the 60's" with the more "privatised self-fulfilment search of

the 70's"' (Davis, 1984, 21). While this was not, ultimately, a good description o f ' t h e 80s',

which have been more often associated with rampant consumerism and 'greed', it comes

closer to describing the way the 90s (and grunge in particular) were portrayed as a

revisiting of 60s ideals, but in a disillusioned and cynical way that turned the focus onto the

self rather than seeking wider societal change (Weinstein, 1995). In the same way that

grunge has been constructed as a rejection of the hedonism and inauthenticity of hair metal,

the 90s have been constructed as a return to simpler values after the frivolity and excess of

the 80s.

The unexpected and swift mainstream success of grunge, and the huge popularity it

obtained, which contributed to its overexposure and demise, has helped to make it the

marker of this time period. A cultural form that lasts too long loses its association with a

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particular point in time. As demonstrated in Chapter Four, respondents overwhelmingly

agreed that grunge was a phenomenon associated with the 90s. As Clara noted:

But 1 think there's a few bands in each generation that actually do that, yeah,
like Led Zeppelin and stuff like that in the 70s, and 1 think for the 90s it will
be Nirvana, will always be known. Nirvana will be known as the 90s I think,
so 1 think they've definitely made an impact, a lasting impact (...) so I think
if anything Nirvana will be one band that will always be known as 90s
music, so they've definitely made an impact.

Respondents did not, on the whole, try to characterise the 90s in any particular way. This

may be because such characterisations gain strength as we move further from the time in

question. Attempting to characterise an entire decade that has only recently passed may not

succeed due to the closeness of the events, but as time passes and detail is lost, broad

characterisations that fit a period of time into wider narrative schemes may be more

successful. Passing time may also increase nostalgia for that which is past. Nostalgia

involves identifying elements of the past that are recalled as being better than current

circumstances (Davis, 1979). However, as Grainge (2000) argues, in recent decades,

nostalgia has increasingly become a way of marketing to niche audiences rather than

something that is necessarily associated with emotional responses to the past. The 00s have

witnessed much nostalgia for 80s popular culture, with the success and popularity of 80s

'Retro' nights at clubs encouraging patrons to wear 80s fashions and dance to 80s pop

hits.'^ Such events help to reinforce how the 80s are remembered through concentrating on

certain genres of music and emphasising certain fashions. It seems likely that such nostalgic

returns to the 90s (such as that presented by The Simpsons) will begin to become more

" In another example of 80s nostalgia. Orientation Week at the Australian National University in 2008 had as
its theme 'Bom in the 80s'. New undergraduate students, who were indeed bom in the 80s but were, for the
most part, not old enough to remember the 80s, were encouraged to wear 80s clothes such as fluorescent
c o l o u r and legwarmers, and the student association played 80s pop hits (such as Billy Idol, Madonna and
Soft Cell) in the public areas of the university. ^^^
common during the next 5 to 10 years. Indeed, when being played Smells Like Teen Spirit
during his interview, Seamus notes that hearing it is 'almost like hearing a "classic" song
now, from the 80s.' As this occurs, the 'spirit' of the 90s will be more firmly established in
collective memory, and it seems highly likely that grunge will be central to this
remembrance.

Theories on decade labelling are currently not highly developed, and require further
research to understand in depth. Decade labelling is also in some ways a 'top-down' way of
organising memories, but is more connected to people's lived experiences of a time than
the Generation labelling that, as described above, has little meaning for the groups it
attempts to describe. However, as noted above, both of these ways of organising memories
are, to a greater or lesser extent, focused on the position of youth within a society, whether
through constructing youth as a problem or celebrating the youth culture of the past. 1 will
now turn to a discussion of youth and the memory of youth in order to understand how the
powerlessness of youth is reproduced through memory. The concept of youth is another
way available to respondents to organise their memories of this time.

The Meaning of Youth

The first issue that will be examined here is what 'youth' means. It is generally accepted
that 'our modem images of youth and adolescence were essentially the creations of the
Victorian middle class' (Murdock and McCron, 1993, 192), before becoming
institutionalised in the middle of the twentieth century through the 'establishment of
universal secondary schooling and the emergence of a whole complex of leisure and
entertainment facilities aimed specifically at youth' (see also Maira and Soep, 2004, Nilan,
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2007, Laughey, 2006). The creation of the 'teenager' was necessary to help explain the

behaviour and consumption patterns of a newly emerging group that was unusual in the

amount of leisure time and extra money that it had available. However, despite having a

relatively large amount of disposable income in comparison to previous cohorts, this group

was powerless in other ways. For example, they were still under the authority of parents

and teachers (Wicke, 1990). Many new markets opened up which catered to the money and

latent rebelliousness of youth, while concurrently concern over youth behaviour saw the

rise o f ' m o r a l panics' in wider society, whereby participants in youth subcultures from

mods to punks to ravers have been constructed as 'folk devils' by media and conservative

elements of society (Cohen, 1973).

However, in recent years some theorists (for example Grossberg, 1990, Gilleard, 2004,

Weinstein, 1999) have proposed that since the end of the 1960s youth has become a

floating signifier which has become disassociated from any particular biological age group:

The cultural formation o f ' y o u t h ' floated free from the social group of young
people. N o longer restricted to adolescents, 'youth,' smoothed over by
advertising and entertainment discourses, and made a safely energetic state
of being and feeling with an aura of rebellion, became available to all. The
youth culture got co-opted into the general leisure culture, and lost its
moorings in a particular group. It became a designation or identification that
could be taken up by anyone as the emblem of a life-style. (Weinstein, 1999)

These theorists argue that the qualities once associated more or less exclusively with people

of a certain age group (teenagers, or those under 25) have become more and more things

that people of any age group can take on or retain as they grow older. In particular, older

age groups can lay a claim to the positive qualities associated with youth, such as lack of

responsibility, relative freedom, a love of certain leisure activities such as listening to rock

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music or playing computer games, and, importantly, qualities such as idealism and a desire

to change the world.

Weinstein (1999) has argued that since the aging o f the 'baby boomer' generation, youth

has become more o f an idea and a way of behaving rather than an age or period in life.

Lifestyles and leisure activities once strictly associated with youth have become more

widely acceptable, and there has been an increase in the numbers o f people who pursue the

passions o f their teenage years well into their middle age, particularly activities such as

record collecting, gig attendance and playing and creating music. On some level, this is

hardly surprising, as the bands which people grew up with in many cases are also still

pursuing the same roles. The Rolling Stones and many of their peers are examples of this,

as their continued touring and recording has challenged the notion that rock and roll is

young people's music.

Weinstein and Grossberg (1990) also argue that a generational issue is central to this

disassociation o f youth from biological age. They argue that as a particular rebellious and

politically motivated form o f youth was established by the baby boomers during the 1960s

counter-culture, the cultural hegemony o f this group since this time has enshrined this

particular form o f youth as the best and as this generation has grown up they have not

wanted to disassociate themselves from these ideals, leading to the disconnection between

youth and age. In this way, baby boomers have retained power even over the ability to

define and gain the benefits o f youth, despite no longer being biologically young (for a

discussion o f the effects o f this in Australia, see Davis, 1999).

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Putting these arguments aside for a moment, the teenage years have been more often

socially constructed in Western society as a period of rebellion and self-discovery, a time

when ' y o u n g people will eventually move into adulthood, but not before a period of erratic

behaviour driven by raging hormones and a strong peer orientation' (Maira and Soep, 2004,

253). Empirical evidence shows certain life stages such as leaving home, marriage and

parenthood being delayed, leading to a redefinition of youth less in line with the idea of

youth as a 'transitional' period (Wyn and Woodman, 2006, Buchmann, 1989). However, if

youth as transition to adulthood remains the prevailing understanding of youth (regardless

of whether the reality has shifted), then it is likely that events that occur during this period

will be remembered to a greater or lesser extent through a filter that will shape these events

into an expected mould. If there is still a certain life-path that people expect or are expected

to follow, the way we remember can, as Halbwachs argued, help to retrospectively ensure

that we adhere to the norm, or lead us to cast events in a particular light. Given that my

respondents are mostly discussing their teenage years, patterns emerging from their

responses suggest h o w they remember this period of their lives, and these patterns

demonstrate h o w the powerlessness of youth can be maintained through youthful

experiences being remembered in a light that reduces their importance to current action by

constructing youth as an 'inauthentic' period.

This has come across in the accounts of respondents, through their attempts to explain their

actions or responses to certain stimuli (such as grunge) by referring to their age or status as

a 'teenager', and in the way they use their age to excuse certain behaviours or emotions

they n o w feel were embarrassing or inappropriate (or would be if they were done or felt

now):

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 I ' m not as obsessed as 1 was when I was about 17, you know, 17 year old
boys get obsessed with everything from (inaudible) to cars. (...) 1 mean,
back in the, back at that sort of point where you're sort of 17 to 24 or so,
music and band tribalism was sort of part of your badging, part of your
colour ... (Max)

So at that stage when y o u ' r e sort of trying to discover who you are and what
y o u ' r e about and trying to fit in and, sort of discovering the opposite sex and
things like that, it's just a messy time, there's a bit of confusion and things
like that. So being the sort of person that 1 am it was just sort o f - looking
back on it now it's like (inaudible) but it's nothing compared to real life in
the real world, but at the time when you're at school, and it's just a very
closed circle, it's your whole life and so it means a lot. (Trevor)

This quote from Trevor reflects the idea of the inexperience of youth, and positions youth

in a place other than 'the real world'. Youthful experiences are, according to him, less than

real despite their perceived importance at the time. Trevor's quote touches on a theme that

occurred in many interviews. This is the idea that youth is a period o f ' f i n d i n g out who you

are'. In much the same way as youth does not occur in the real world, it is also something

experienced by 'incomplete' people. In this way, youth is portrayed as an inauthentic

experience, and it is therefore unsurprising to find respondents distancing themselves from

this period and compartmentalising their youthful experiences as something apart from who

and what they are today.

The notion of the teenager is often thrown into comments on respondents' reactions to the

music in a way that suggests this concept holds a certain explanatory power in its own

right:

Can you tell me a bit more about your personal experiences with
grunge? Well, being the teenager I was and 1 suppose so naive to what was
really going on in the music industry. (Adrian)

You just get that whole, boys on stage with their long scruffy hair, and I just
love that look, and, I d o n ' t know. It makes me feel peaceful, even though the
m u s i c ' s sort of rocky and loud, it just makes me feel peaceful, and sort of at
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 home, 1 don't know. And being a teenager sort of, in that time, and then he
committed suicide and all that, it just had a big effect on me. (Bertha)
Do you think the importance of music to you has changed over time? 1
don't know, 1 think for everyone it gets more important when you're
growing up, like teenagers and stuff, but it's been pretty important to me my
whole life, because 1 grew up in a fairly musical family. (Lily)

The way the teenager is referred to suggests the respondents are assuming certain taken-for-
granted meanings for the word which seem to go beyond simply referring to a biological
age group. For example, Adrian links being a teen with naivety, while Bertha indicated that
being a teenager is implicated in the 'big effect' that Cobain's death had on her.

Other respondents go further in defining what is involved in being a teenager, and a number
of different ideas need to be disentangled from their recollections. First, being a teenager is
linked with negative and anti-social traits and behaviour, such as alienation, rebellion and
angst:
Yeah, 1 mean, each grunge band ... yeah, it's all about escapism and 1 mean,
a band like Nirvana's pure teenage angst, it's just about the anger of being a
confused teenager and just not knowing what to do with your life and being
expected to make all these decisions, whereas a band like Mudhoney has
that same teenage angst, the difference is they put a sense of humour in it
and it's a different twist (Dudley)
Is that lifestyle what you think your lifestyle at the time was like? Yeah,
I tried to, being as young as 1 was, tried to live it, 1 guess, in every essence,
so yeah. Did you think you were living the lifestyle presented to you by
grunge or grunge reflected the lifestyle you were living? No, it was what
1 wanted 1 guess, rebellious teenage years, it was what was happenmg, it was
the alternative at that time for kids to get into 1 guess. (Arthur)
Can you say why grunge appealed to you? Because 1 liked heavier things
than was on, what would have been on the pop charts a lot, and, as I said,
being a teenager, that sort of angry sort of slightly depressing and it had that
whole aura of being somehow rebellious or something, or anti-establishment
or something, which is something that really appeals to you when you're 13,
oh my god, someone says it's alright to not do what your parents want you
to do and stuff like that, so it's that whole ... and 1 think that was something
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 built up around grunge as well, you know, that it wasn't clean and nice, it
was rebellious, and that was something that 1 think appealed to me, that's
why I started smoking and stuff, I guess. (Kaye)

The negative connotations that being a teenager has for the respondents comes across very

strongly in these quotes, particularly in regard to feeling negative emotions. The idea of

rebellion is not necessarily discussed as a bad thing for people to have experienced, but is

dismissed as embarrassing. Kaye in particular uses inflections when discussing her

rebelliousness that imply that she is scornful of her younger self This may demonstrate

how a period of youthful rebellion can be used to ensure more obedient behaviour through

later l i f e — i f ' n o t doing what you're told' results in embarrassment then it is perhaps less

likely to happen again. The other negative emotions reported also frame the period of being

a teenager as an experience one would not want to return to, revisit, or extend

unnecessarily.

Second, being a teenager is portrayed as a universal experience that is the same for all who

go through it:

Y o u said to me before w e started the interview that 'Nirvana changed

y o u r life'. Can you tell me about that, why, what you mean when you
say that? God, um, changed my life ... well, 1 can't really say whether it
changed my life 1 can, but then again 1 was in puberty, for Christ's sake,
your whole life's changing, and 1 think maybe it reminds me a lot of that, a
lot about growing up or blah, that sort of, you know, it's stereotypical for
everyone really.(Drew)

OK, so w h e n I say grunge to you, what immediately comes into your

head? Pretty much my middle teen years, I'd say, from when 1 was about 13
to when 1 was about 17. That's, in everyone's life, that's some of your most
important years when you're growing up, it shapes who you are and for me 1
was right into that whole kind of sound at the time. (Jeremy)

Can you say w h y it appealed to you? 1 think that if you turn it up real loud
and j u m p up and down to it, it's definitely a release of teenage angst, just
that hormonal thing that 1 think most young people have at that age. (Sam)

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 I suppose Smells Like Teen Spirit always, it always goes from a ... 1 don't
know, 1 suppose when you're a teenager you go through a lot of moods and
Smells Like Teen Spirit seems to produce that, where you feel calm and all
of a sudden something triggers some sort of rage or anger. (Roger)

These respondents describe their experience of adolescence as something that is

stereotypical for everyone. This suggests that respondents have an expectation that there is

a typical narrative that can be applied to most experiences of youth and that they may be

adhering to when giving their accounts. The notion of what youth (or being a teenager) is

provides a way for respondents to organise their memories of their own experiences of this

stage of their lives. If, as previously noted, these feelings or experiences are now seen as

inappropriate or embarrassing, constructing them as being experiences common to

everyone absolves any one individual of responsibility for them, and labelling this period as

youth or teenagerhood compartmentalises it and quarantines it from who the person

believes they are now.

Third, there is a language shift that occurs in many of the interviews when these supposedly

typical teenage experiences are discussed. Respondents change from a first-person to a

third-person perspective when discussing adolescence and start talking about 'you' rather

than '1':

Can you say why grunge appealed to you? Like 1 said before, 1 think it
was just the ... it appealed to my teenage sensibilities at the time. You're
sort of angry at the world because nothing seems to make sense because
you're going through all these emotions and that kind of thing, and I think a
lot of the writing that they've done they've done during their late teens
themselves, (...) A lot of it's nostalgia now, 1 look back and I smile at
myself as a teenager, kind of thing. (Isaac)

I bought Nevermind(\\X\XQ late, 1 bought it in about ... it came out in 91,1

bought it in about 96, because, 96, 1 was only about 14, so ... I was about
mid-teens anyway. 1 think around about that time, that was the time, you
know when you're early to mid teenager, you have that really messy time
when you just sort of (inaudible), and 1 just sort of relate it to that, and that's
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 what it's all about 1 guess, with that whole album, 1 used to study to it a lot, I
think, so yeah, it just takes me back to that early to mid-90s period of my
life, that's the relation 1 have with it. (Trevor)

This shift could be serving a number of functions. It could be an invitation to the

interviewer to share in the experiences being described as the interviewee is no longer

talking about only their own experiences, it could also be an attempt by the interviewee to

distance themselves from what they are talking about, to make it less personal. It is as

though their personal experiences are being reframed as a group experience that is not

unique to them. This appears to be a further way of taking the feelings of angst, alienation

and rebellion that were experienced during this period and 'quarantining' them through

collective memory. This way of describing being a teenager serves the purpose of clearly

marking this time off as being finished, complete, and unarguably in the past. This is made

more explicit by Ginny:

Is there anything you would like to add or comment on? No. it's a bit
kind of odd to be thinking about it, it seems like rather a long time ago now,
and its odd to think about, like the questions make you think about 'who
were you then?', it's like 'oh god that's that person I'm trying to forget!'
(laughs) You know, that teenage person, or early 20s, because that's often a
time which is a bit hard. (Ginny)

The four oldest respondents, those who were over 40 at the time of the interview, had

somewhat different responses to grunge that help to clarify the position that youth holds in

respondents' memories. They described their experiences with grunge as something that

helped to reconnect them to their own youth, but in a way that reinforced the fact that their

youth was something that was in the past and was finished with. This was articulated most

clearly by Max. Throughout his interview. Max placed grunge in a position where he was

remembering it through the lens of his experiences with punk during his teenage years:

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 H o w old would y o u have been? I would have been 30. Do you think that
you w o u l d have related differently to the music than you would have if
you w e r e 17 or 18? Well, yes, absolutely, the one similarity is that when
y o u ' r e listening to that sort of music at 30 you're really trying to, you know,
get that essence of what you enjoyed about listening to the Pistols or
somebody like that for the first time, that's what makes you feel good about
it. So it's derivative, you want to feel like you felt when you were young,
but you k n o w you can't, y o u ' v e lost that and it's never going to happen
again. But there's an echo, and that's one of the great things about it, one of
the good things about music. So yes, it's a very different experience, you
know, because y o u ' r e not going to—oh, occasionally you do, but you're not
going to drive around in your car with this sort of sounds, making your ears
bleed, or wear it as a badge of pride, hey, 1 listen to Nirvana, you're just not
going to do that, but amongst your friends that you know and have the same
mind about that sort of thing, you might drive around in the car (inaudible).
But it doesn't have the same feeling.

For Max. youth is complete, but he relates to it as a positive experience that he enjoys

catching ' e c h o e s ' of through new musical experiences. However, he still alludes to the

negative aspects of youth, specifically anger, and sees adulthood as being something that

tempers such emotions:

The feelings in grunge of anger and things like that, was it something
you felt at the time or w a s it just something you could relate to? 1 think
in terms of that, when you're recognising the emotion in others when you're
30, whereas when y o u ' r e 17 you're identifying with it as a unity - this is
your anger, this is h o w you feel, rather than when you're 30 you're sort of
going '1 remember h o w 1 felt when 1 was 17'. 1 don't identify with that sort
of rage and anger anymore, you're smarter, you know more, you know that
rage and anger are basically rage and anger against yourself because you're
part of the establishment.

The above accounts offer a way of understanding adolescence as a universal stage in life,

one which is difficult, possibly embarrassing, and, most importantly, is bounded and

finished once 'adulthood' is attained. The dominant discourse that speaks of adolescence as

a liminal space in which our identity changes from one thing (child) to another (adult)

provides a narrative form through which memories of this time are shaped. The evidence

here suggests that respondents still see their lives as being structured by certain predictable
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periods which they go through at predictable times, and appears to contradict the idea that

youth has become unfixed from biology. The life course in Western society may indeed be

changing and offering less concrete paths for people to follow, but the effects of such a

change may be less significant if people still remember their lives according to certain

narratives.

A failure to move past the concerns of youth is also often portrayed critically in media and

cultural forms such as literature and film, creating further pressure to move past this stage.

A pertinent example is found in the movie Juno. One of the main characters is a man in his

mid-30s who connects with the teenage protagonist by sharing with her his love of (mostly

grunge) music and regaling her with tales of his 'moment of glory' playing support to the

Melvins in the early 1990s. He is portrayed as someone who is not acting in an age-

appropriate manner, and at one stage is lambasted for his outdated grunge fashions (a

Soundgarden t-shirt worn over a long-sleeved shirt). Figures in popular culture such as this,

as well as media reports expressing concern over young peoples' failure to 'grow up',

reinforce the bounded nature of youth and the appropriate roles for each life stage.

However, youth is not remembered as an entirely negative experience by all respondents.

The accounts of Max and the other older respondents indicate that, over time, the desire to

disassociate oneself from a recent (embarrassing, inauthentic) youthful self may be replaced

with nostalgia. While Max says he does not miss the negative emotions he remembers

experiencing when young, he does express some regret at losing the level of feeling he

experienced at that time. Similarly, another older respondent, Seamus, emphasises more

positive aspects he recalls from the time of grunge:

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 It probably just takes me back to kind of, a fairly happier time in my life,
and also, what's that, 10, 12 years ago, something like that, um, it reminds
me of being a lot more young and active and going out and, um, I guess of a
music scene that's no longer there that was very influential. So yeah,
{Smells Like Teen Spirit is] both nostalgic and it's a great song. (Seamus)

Some younger respondents made similar statements:

How do you feel about grunge now? Nostalgic, I suppose (laughs) ( . . . ) !

suppose I look on it with fondness, fondness for my youth, you know, it's
like my youth is gone kind of thing, and there it was at the time these albums
were coming out, so I can kind of look back on that and think, yeah, for a
while there it was really going, everything was really great, you know. And
then as you get older you get responsibilities and you have to start behaving
like an adult, so it's not quite as fun. (Dean)

I think a lot of the themes [of grunge] and that 1 still completely agree with, I
still feel a lot of anger towards the world about stuff, you know, and
obviously it's all tempered a bit now, it's not so high up and that kind of
stuff, but it still hits me on the same sort of levels, and sometimes 1 smile
and look back and think of how 1 used to feel when I listened to it, how
angry 1 was when I listened to Rage Against the Machine the first time and
that kind of stuff, now I still think they were really important with the whole
political stuff but I'm not so angry (laughs), do you know what 1 mean? It's
just all tempered by adulthood (laughs). (Isaac)

As Davis (1979) notes, nostalgia entails a very specific relationship between the past and

present, whereby some aspect of present circumstances is found to be wanting when

compared to the remembered past. In these instances, Seamus finds the present less fun.

Dean misses the freedom from responsibility and Max displays a certain concern about

having become part of 'the establishment'. Nostalgia can play an important role in the

maintenance of identity, in that:

The nostalgic evocation of some past state of affairs always occurs in the
context of present fears, discontents, anxieties, or uncertainties, even though
they may not be in the forefront of awareness, and ... it is these emotions
and cognitive states that pose the threat of identity discontinuity ... that
nostalgia seeks, by marshalling our psychological resources for continuity,
to abort, or, at the very least, deflect. (Davis, 1979, 34-5)

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While reinforcing the differences between the past and present, nostalgia may be a way of

presenting possibilities for the future through revisiting the past—if 1 have had fun/ been

rebellious/ been carefree in the past, then 1 know 1 have the capacity for such actions or

emotions and may be able to do these things again. It is important to note that the

disassociation with youth noted above cannot be too complete, and there is a certain tension

between wanting to remove oneself f r o m the experiences of youth and needing to maintain

a sense of identity over time which may be made difficult by a complete rejection of one's

earlier self The flexibility that memory allows means rejection of or nostalgic longing

towards the past is possible depending on how the individual or group constructs their

present identity. Regardless of the way youth is remembered, however, it is still constructed

as a closed-off period that cannot be returned to.

The way that respondents have remembered youth reinforces power relations in that if, as

they move on from their youth, people construct their own youthful selves as inauthentic,

unreliable and overly emotional (even though this can be regarded nostalgically) it is likely

they will regard the people who are n o w young in the same way. This is especially likely

given the strength that the notion of the teenager held among respondents. As some people

move into positions of power associated with adulthood, it is unlikely they would cede any

of this to a group constructed in such negative terms.

Conclusion

The above discussion has examined how respondents connect grunge and their relationship

with it to their memories of youth. Youth and adolescence are associated with negative

emotions and behaviour which respondents are happy to have 'left behind', and are
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portrayed as a finished part of life. Youth is the stepping stone to adulthood, which is

attained after individuals have ' f o u n d themselves', a process which many respondents see

grunge as being central to. This suggests two things. First, youth has not become a 'floating

signifier' as some theorists have suggested, and is still seen as being associated with

biological age and social institutions such as school. Secondly, the way youth is

r e m e m b e r e d — a s embarrassing, overly emotional, unhappy—frames youth in a way that

contains the potential threat that it presents. Grunge asked certain questions about the social

structure, particularly in regard to capitalism and commercialisation (as well as gender

issues discussed in Chapter Six) but these questions are diffused by the portrayal of youth

as a time that shouldn't really be taken seriously.

Youth is sometimes discussed in terms o f ' g e n e r a t i o n s ' , whereby groups growing up at the

same time come to take on shared characteristics and beliefs. This chapter has examined the

idea of 'Generation X ' which was associated with grunge and concluded that this

categorisation tells us little that is meaningful about this group, but is useful in thinking

about h o w collective memory is sometimes imposed from the top-down. The idea of

Generation X tells us more about the interests of some white, middle-class Westerners than

others subsumed under this label. The issue of class will be addressed in more detail in the

following chapter.

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CHAPTER EIGHT: Class and the memot7 of grunge

This thesis has thus far discussed h o w the memories respondents have of grunge have

reinforced societal structures in regard to gender roles and the position of youth, removing

the challenges that grunge posed to such relationships of power. This is despite memory

also being shown to be potentially resistant, as demonstrated in the way respondents have

maintained memories of Kurt Cobain that do not necessarily reflect the way he has been

remembered in the media, and in their rejection of labels ('Generation X' for instance) that

do not correspond with their self-perception. In examining all of these aspects, the contents

of the memories of respondents have been the focus of analysis, along with media reports.

In this fmal chapter, 1 wish to focus instead on respondents' relationships with their

memories and the types of narratives they present in order to ask. whether the way we relate

to our memories is as much an element of societal reproduction as what we remember. In

order to do this, 1 will concentrate on another important element of social stratification that

has remained peripheral in this thesis so far—class.

The chapter begins with a brief overview of the way class has been discussed in studies of

popular culture, followed by an examination of where grunge has been and could be

positioned in terms of class. This discussion will highlight some empirical gaps in the

available literature on grunge in terms of how its audience is positioned, and, although the

data collected for this study cannot conclusively fill such gaps, suggestions will be made as

to possible directions for future study. I will then return once again to the theories of

Bourdieu to discuss h o w his concepts of high-brow and low-brow appreciation of art and

culture and their relationship to class could be extended to memory.

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This chapter is an exercise in inductive research (McGee, 2007, 262), in that certain ideas
have been suggested by the data collected for this project but cannot, at this stage, be
definitively confirmed. Further research is required to develop the ideas set out below; in
particular, a survey that gathered much more in-depth and rigorous demographic data in
order to understand their social positions of the respondents more thoroughly would be
ideal. However, 1 have attempted to set out as fully as possible what has been suggested by
the data available at this time.

Class and popular culture

The way class has been theorised in relation to popular culture has shifted over the years.
The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) focused on class (in the Marxist
sense) as a central aspect of the experience of youth culture. In particular, the concept of
subcultures was centred on class divisions and class conflict. Many of the subcultures
studied by the Birmingham scholars (for example, mods and punks) were described as
being places where working-class youth could create identities that challenged the
mundanity and oppression experienced in their everyday lives (for example, see Hebdige,
1979). However, the type of rebellion these subcultures offered was seen as being
ultimately supportive of the status quo because the working-class youth who were
participating in them were rebelling against working-class culture, not the culture of the
elite that kept them subjugated (see Clarke, 1993).

However, this focus on working class-culture (and its supposed authenticity and connection
to a 'real' world that the middle classes do not have access to) has been challenged since
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this time. Researchers on popular music have noted rock's affinity with the middle classes,

while other work still sees it as a cultural form affiliated with lower class positions,

especially when compared with non-popular musical forms such as classical, avant-guard

or possibly 'world' music. Writers such as Grossberg (1993) have noted that although

much popular culture is indeed drawn from working-class experience it is nonetheless

consumed mostly by a middle-class (white male) audience, who are offered a vicarious

alternative to routinised everyday life by the working class experiences expressed through

rock. Other theorists have agreed with this assessment of rock's audience as middle class

(Savage, 2006, for example, see Middleton and Beebe, 2002).

Wicke (1990), however, argues otherwise. He perceives a disjunction between rock and its

audience insofar as the musicians of rock are middle class but are playing for a working-

class audience. Existing empirical evidence suggests that while there once may have been a

clear cut division between the middle-class audience of rock and working-class audiences

of pop (Frith, 1981, 214), today the audience for 'rock' (bearing in mind how broad this

label can be, and how it could be being used to mean different things by different writers) is

a broad one. For example, Longhurst (1995, 208) presents survey results that show that

approximately a quarter of respondents from all classes report that the last album they

brought was a rock album. This would seem to suggest that audiences for such music

cannot be easily categorised as belonging predominantly to a particular class.

However, as the CCCS have shown, it may be possible to argue that the response to this

music is different in different class groups, and the appeal to working-class (and other

dominated or marginal) culture as a source of authenticity for musicians is well

258
documented (for example, see Gudmundsson, nd, Middleton, 2002). Tales of youthful

deprivation and hardship are frequently recounted by rock musicians as a way to make their

music seem more 'real' (for an example of this, see the documentary Metal: A

Headbanger's Journey, where musician after musician describes the appalling conditions

they grew up in). Such tales may or may not be exaggerated, but a connection to the

working class and 'suffering' of some sort grants an artist greater authority in hard-rock

genres where the focus of lyrics is on hardship more than happiness.

Following on from the idea that rock can appeal to people from many different

backgrounds, more recently popular culture has been portrayed as a place where class

differences can be erased (at least for a time) and replaced with a shared identity. Although

this is sometimes seen as a negative process that erases cultural differences and replaces

them with a bland mass culture (Attali, 1985), or which leads to 'an illusory transcendence

of class' which has the potential 'to lead to frustrations and identity-crises' (Johansson,

1992), it is usually portrayed in a more positive light. Muggleton (2000) suggests that

subcultures are not class based, but contain members from different class backgrounds.

Theorists such as Frith (1981) and Thornton (1995) argue that 'youth' is more important in

creating groups around popular culture due to the shared experience of people of a certain

age (as described in the previous chapter), although this does not imply a situation where

participants are all 'equal'.

In 'Club Cultures'(1995, 11) Thornton draws heavily on the work of Bourdieu and his

notions of'cultural capital', to assist in the formation of the idea of'subcultural capital',

which she equates with 'hipness' and says 'confers status on its owner in the eyes of the

259
relevant beholder'. According to Thornton, this type of capital is gained through knowledge

of what is currently 'cool', and, as with other types of cultural capital, the effortless use of

this knowledge to set oneself apart from others. Thornton argues that this type of capital is

less class based than others, as it is mostly associated with an age group that rejects class

markers as a part of rebellion against a 'parent culture', and could in fact result in those

from higher classes adopting elements of culture from the lower classes. This was certainly

the case with grunge, when all associated with it began wearing second-hand and obviously

cheap clothes (until expensive, new versions of these clothes began to become available).

Recently, however, Thornton's work has been criticised by writers such as Jensen (2006),

who argues that it (and other work examining popular culture) has discounted the effects of

class to a greater extent than is warranted. She notes that this move away from examining

class was partly a response to the CCCS theorists' strong focus on class, but warns that:

The justified critique, namely that the CCCS theorists overemphasised class,
should not lead us to underemphasize class or social position. Instead, we
should reconstruct class as a relevant socio-structural factor together with
other variables such as gender, ethnicity and 'race' and scrutinize how these
factors intersect or inter-connect in complex ways and how this is related to
subcultures and subcultural capital. (Jensen, 2006, 262)

While Jensen still supports the use of the concept of subcultural capital to explain how

hierarchies are created and maintained within subcultures, she argues that the connection

between class privilege and subcultural standing should not be ignored. She points out that

'it might be the case that class, in complex intersection with other relevant socio-structural

factors, plays a differentiating role inside subcultures' (2006, 262). Other theorists have

criticised the concept of subcultural capital further, on the grounds that it is not sufficiently

260
different to cultural capital as Bourdieu explained it to warrant creating a separate label for
it (personal communication, M. Bannister, 11/6/2007).

The changes over time in regard to how class and popular culture are seen to interact with
each other have returned theorists to a 'middle-ground' where class is not ignored, but
where the possibilities that youth movements present for interaction in a seemingly
classless group are also acknowledged, it may be possible that 'youth' or musical tastes are,
for a period in some people's lives, more important in creating identity and solidarity than
class background. As subcultural movements have rarely been returned to and studied
retrospectively, there is little evidence at the moment to suggest whether the sense of
classlessness music can create has ongoing effects. This question will be returned to below
in the section on high-brow and low-brow memory. However, first the relationship between
grunge and its audience and 'class' needs to be addressed.

'He don't know what it means"': The 'class' of grunge

Grunge tends to be remembered as working class by respondents and the musicians of
grunge as working class by the press, but it is described by academics as part of the middle-
class rock apparatus described above. For example, Kotarba (1994, 145-6) argues that class
is central to the differences in how metal and grunge are received by critics:

A good current example of this elitism is the surprisingly warm reception

critics have been giving to grunge metal groups. This variety of hard rock
(or heavy metal, if you will) involves extremely loud and ferocious music,
sometimes almost devoid of melody. Grunge rockers have replaced
traditional black-jeans-and-spandex metal garb with flannel shirts and ratty

" Lyric from Nirvana, In Bloom, from Nevermwd{\99\)DGC. In this song Cobain berates the presumably
lower-class gun-toting members of Nirvana's audience for not understandmg the music. ^^ ^
 jeans. ( . . . ) Although one would be hard pressed to say that grunge is
s o m e h o w "better" than traditional heavy metal artistically or any other way,
the critics generally like it. The missing piece of this puzzle is the
demographic profile of the audience: middle class, college-oriented, and
otherwise socially respectable and desirable kids with whom critics prefer to
identify.

Empirically speaking, it is difficult to ascertain how correct this statement is about the

composition of the grunge fan base. Certainly, visual evidence from the era does seem to

suggest the audience for grunge was overwhelmingly Caucasian (as are all of the

respondents in this study) (see Huq, 2006 for a discussion of the 'whiteness' of grunge) but

it is more difficult to determine what class background a person may be from, or what their

educational status might be, when they are part of a youth movement that celebrates

working class fashions in the way grunge did. In the previous chapter, I noted the

correlation between Generation X and middle-class culture, and as grunge was so strongly

associated with the idea of this generation this may suggest a more middle-class audience.

However, as Kotarba points out, and as has been described by respondents and in media

reports, grunge shares a musical base with heavy metal, a musical form more often

associated with the lower classes (Binder, 1993). It does not then seem unreasonable to

suggest that a significant proportion of grunge fans may have been from lower-class

backgrounds.

The inclusiveness of grunge, and how it appealed to people from different backgrounds,

was noted by a number of respondents:

I d o n ' t k n o w if you remember, or what your experiences were like, but poor
people, people that, you know, were into their drugs, weren't going to get
too far at school, going to work shit jobs, loved it. People that came from
very well to do families wanted to be part of it, you know, they loved it too.
(Gordon)

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 You were saying that at school a lot of people who had different
interests became interested in the same...? Yeah, I guess it was a real
common thing, you know, these guys, the metal heads were listening to it,
and then there was the guys, and I went to school with [friend] ...and he was
always into that really fucking awful indie stuff, and then, you know, 1 went
through his collection one day and he had the self-titled Mudhoney record,
and 1 went 'cool, that's a great record'...and 1 thought that's weird, like the
indie stripey shirt dudes and the metal heads and then all the sort of, the
people who were into the stuff in between were all into it as well, and all the
hoppers and the footy heads and the, you know, 1 guess the music as
wallpaper type people who don't sort of, wouldn't go and buy records and
seek out music, but because its, they'll listen to it if it's there, they were all
listening to it as well. It was really weird, kind of thinking back, how many
people, how much people were into it and how all the different little cliquey
groups in college are all sort of, they had a common denominator, you could
always go into someone's record collection and sure enough there'd be a
copy of Nevermind and Blood Sugar Sex Magic and more often than not that
Pearl Jam record, the, what's it called, 10. (Dylan)

On a personal level, I recall a similar situation at my high school: the 'rough', lower-class
metal loving boys and the 'posh' Celine Dion listening girls discovering that they all liked
grunge, and being a little uncertain as to what that meant. This evidence suggests that the
audience for grunge seemed to be drawn from a number of different social classes. So it is
unlikely that grunge was a middle-, or lower-, class phenomenon, and these groups may
have come together for a certain period of time as part of a 'classless' youth movement.

Being from a working-class background has different consequences for audience members
and performers. A working-class background can increase the perceived authenticity of a
performer. For example, Kurt Cobain and his stories of deprivation (discussed in Chapter
Five) are used to further his claims to authenticity. Early in their career, the members of
Nirvana were described by one of the owners of Sub Pop as 'four guys in their early
twenties from rural Washington who, if they weren't doing this, would be working in a
supermarket or lumber yard, or fixing cars' (True, 2001, 11). However, this is not
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necessarily the case with fans. Thornton (1995) notes that discussions of the 'mainstream'

contain two contradictory ideas o f who constitutes the (working-class) mass, which is

sometimes portrayed as 'denigrated mass culture' but at other times is seen as being related

to 'authentic' working-class culture. Audiences o f grunge are discussed in the same way by

the press and respondents as Thornton describes 'mass' audiences o f dance music being

treated.

In accordance with this, the working-class nature of sections of Nirvana's fan base has at

times been constructed as negative. In particular, as the band became more and more

successful, the masses that constituted part of their new audience were portrayed as being

detrimental to the band (especially after Cobain's death) and to those fans who were truly

'authentic', in that they had made the band 'too big' while not really understanding them or

their message. The sections o f the audience deemed to be 'rednecks' or 'jocks' were the

focus of this negativity. These were the people who were accused o f having made Cobain's

life miserable during his childhood with their inability to accept difference; they continued

to do this through their inability to understand what Nirvana was 'really' about:

Mass acceptance had come too soon. The new fans, Guns N ' Roses loving
jocks who [Cobain] regarded as "uneducated dickheads, the strong-oxen
working-class type" were not his people—they were the people who had
terrorised his youth. (Aizlewood, 2005, 57)

Here, the 'masses' are associated with the working class. This suggests that there is a

contradiction in how working-class culture is perceived, in that it is portrayed both as a

source o f authentic creativity and the location of the unthinking masses. There is an

implication in this portrayal o f the working classes that, although 'real' experiences may

come from working-class backgrounds, it is only the more cultured, educated middle and
264
upper classes w h o can really appreciate the significance of such experiences. This also ties

in with the ideas of Bryson (1996), who, in line with theories on omnivorousness discussed

below, examines h o w tastes have changed so that the music which is now seen as 'low

b r o w ' or less cultured is that which is most closely associated with those who are less

educated and w h i t e — ' r e d n e c k s and j o c k s ' . It is no longer seen as acceptable to denigrate

musical forms associated with non-white cultures, as knowing about cultures other than

o n e ' s own has become a marker of good taste and open-mindedness. However, that leaves

the culture of the poor and less educated in our own society open to criticism, and it is this

working-class culture that becomes the marker of poor taste.

1 would n o w like to turn again to the ideas of Bourdieu to examine how pre-existing class

membership may have affected both how fans approached grunge and, more importantly,

how they remember it. Even if class is, for a while, not a factor for participants in cultural

movements, are there consequences for h o w something is remembered? The evidence

presented below suggests that, instead of trying to classify grunge as upper class or lower

class, it is more important to examine the different starting points of members of the

audience, as they may have experienced grunge differently because of their different social

standing.

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High-brow and Low-brow memory^^

Of central importance to this chapter is Bourdieu's concept of the high-brow/low-brow

divide. Bourdieu's conception of class is less to do with a straight-forward matching of

position with wealth or property ownership, as in a Marxist reading, but more to do with

the use individuals and groups can make of culture and their ability to use this to acquire or

maintain power. Class, according to Bourdieu (1985), comes from the ability to use various

types of capital, including economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. It is also about

'life-styles', the way of living shared by those in similar positions within society. Such life-

styles are connected to habitus, in that class habitus arises from people being exposed to the

same conditions, experiences and opportunities:

Though it is impossible for all members of the same class (or even two of
them) to have had the same experiences, in the same order, it is certain that
each m e m b e r of the same class is more likely than any member of another
class to have been confronted with the situations most frequent for the
members of that class. (Bourdieu, 1977, 85).

In particular, the similarities in the experiences and situations of those in similar positions

lead to similarities in taste (Bourdieu, 1984).

For Bourdieu, classes were not easily classified through specific criteria that could be

applied across the board, as the boundary of a class is like 'a flame whose edges are in

constant movement, oscillating around a line or surface' (Bourdieu, 1987, 13). It is

therefore important, he believed, to examine the practices of a group or individual, and to

take into consideration the way classes are not just about an objective position of a person

It is important to note that tiie labels high brow and low brow are being used here in a value-free manner. A
high-brow appreciation is not inherently better or more worthwhile than a low-brow one, but rather has been
associated with those in society who hold less social power, are 'lower' in the social hierarchy.

266
or group, but also about the relationship between different groups and fields, which

ultimately leads to some groups being more powerful than others. Class is not just about

wealth, or even status, but the use of culture, and this must be taken into consideration

when trying to understand people's social positions. One way he believed class distinctions

are maintained is through particular forms of appreciation of culture, which he referred to

as high, middle and low brow.

Bourdieu also notes that differential levels of capital are most apparent at the extremes, the

places where people possess the most or the least power and can be clearly contrasted with

each other. It can, however, be more difficult to make clear-cut distinctions between groups

in the middle, as 'it is in these intermediate or middle positions of the social space that the

indeterminacy and the fuzziness of the relationship between practices and positions are the

greatest' (Bourdieu, 1987, 12). For this reason, in the following analysis I will be

contrasting low-brow with what I am labelling 'high-brow' responses, but which are, in

reality a combination of middle- and high-brow responses that cannot, at this time, be

sensibly separated out f r o m each other. For the purposes of this chapter, I will concentrate

on the area where the divisions are clearest, in order to demonstrate that differences do

exist.

According to Bourdieu, to be high brow or low brow involves having fundamentally

different ways of approaching art and culture. As 'high' culture is constantly being pushed

down and adopted by those lower in social standing, and as many aspects of culture that

were once available only to a privileged f e w become more accessible through technological

innovations, those in possession of more cultural capital need new ways of maintaining the

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division between themselves and those ' b e l o w ' them (Bourdieu, 1984, 34). This is done

through the way they acquire and use knowledge, and how they relate to the object being

considered. Essentially, in order to appreciate something in a high-brow fashion, more

information is always needed than the object itself can provide. Thus, in this way of

thinking, to truly understand and appreciate a painting, for example, the viewer must know

something of the artist, the place this piece holds in relation to their other work, and the

position of that artist in the greater field to which they belong (for instance, are they typical

of a certain time, part of a particular movement or does their work represent some sort of

break with the past?). The work is related to in an abstract and symbolic manner. Art

changes f r o m something which represents reality—that is, privileging the subject—to

something which privileges the artist and style, meaning art becomes referent only to art,

not to nature or the signified (Bourdieu, 1984, 4).

Low-brow appreciation, on the other hand, retains a strong connection to the everyday

world, through the application o f ' t h e perceptual schemes of their own ethos, the very ones

which structure their everyday perception of everyday existence' (Bourdieu, 1984,44).

Cultural objects are viewed with 'practical' eyes. For example, a low-brow viewer would

be interested in whether a painting truly resembles that which it is supposed to ' b e ' ,

whether it shows talent on the part of the painter, and, quite simply, whether it appeals

visually to them as an observer (an aspect that is itself influenced by class). The focus for a

low-brow observer of art is on the object itself, and the object/s it is supposed to represent,

without reference to information that is not conveyed through the piece of art. Thus,

removing culture f r o m the everyday is one of the main ways distinction is preserved.

Whether a person has a high- or low-brow appreciation of culture is related to class in that

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it is decided by their upbringing and the cultural capital of their parents, and becomes

ingrained in their habitus (Bourdieu, 1984, 70).

Different groups of respondents have what might be termed high-brow or low-brow

responses to grunge, in accordance with Bourdieu's theories. A related question, then, is

whether it might be possible to identify low- or high-brow ways of remembering grunge. If

a high brow appreciation of music or art involves bringing outside information to bear on

an object, is it possible that a similar process might be undertaken in relation to our own

memories, or collective memories? Could there also be a dominant/hegemonic relationship

with memory which is at odds with how those of a low-brow disposition might relate to

their recollections? This is a somewhat different question to ask than whether different

groups in society will have different memories, which has been addressed in memory

studies already (for example, see Fentress and Wickham, 1992, Connerton, 1989). Instead, 1

ask whether in a situation such as that surrounding grunge, where many people of different

backgrounds converged on one cultural form, a difference can be seen in the way those of

high- or low-brow dispositions relate to, organise and discuss their memories. In this way,

memory itself can be seen as a cultural product subject to the same processes as any other.

To examine this question more closely, the interviews of those who can be identified as

high or low brow based on their descriptions of grunge and other forms of culture will be

examined to see if it might be possible to distinguish different forms of memory work being

undertaken. It is conceivable that a low-brow approach to memory might position memory

in the same way that is criticised by academics attempting to theorise memory; that is, as an

immutable, straightforward recollection of what has objectively 'happened'. This could be

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said to be almost a common-sense approach to memory in any case (and as such no

judgement is being made about the 'correctness' of such an approach). Such accounts

would be concerned with what happened, and what effects it had on the respondent,

possibly with an emphasis being placed on the emotional and practical outcomes of events.

On the other hand, a high-brow approach, as mentioned above, would look beyond the

specifics of the memory to attempt to place it in a wider cultural or social context, and may

go so far as to register and question the actual status of a particular memory, or memory in

general.

In creating the distinction between high brow and low brow, Bourdieu was interested in

separating out understanding and appreciation o f ' h i g h ' and 'low' cultural forms to

examine how these approaches affect social standing and power. However, as Frith (1996,

9) has pointed out, 'a similar use of accumulated knowledge and discriminatory skill is

apparent in low cultural forms, and has the same hierarchical effect', and the division

between 'high' and 'low' culture is perhaps not as clear as it once might have been.

Research by Petersen and others (Peterson and Kern, 1996, Peterson and Simkus, 1992) has

argued that having broader tastes—or at least knowing about and listening to a larger

selection of music—has become a marker of high-brow tastes in recent times. Peterson

terms this relationship with culture as 'omnivorousness'. While there is some debate as to

exactly how this 'omnivore' can be defined or recognised (Warde et al., 2007, Chan and

Goldthorpe, 2007, Savage, 2006), evidence does seem to suggest that there has been a shift

towards sampling many forms of culture rather than concentrating on exclusive forms.

With this current trend towards omnivorousness in consumption of culture amongst people

who would once have been considered high brow (Peterson and Kern, 1996), and when

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examining a youth-based musical form such as grunge which tends to eschew markers of

class (or at least the upper class) but had audiences beyond the lower classes, is it still

possible to apply Bourdieu's ideas to examine the possibilities for social reproduction

contained in such a movement? As discussed earlier, even though grunge itself could be

considered a low-brow musical form, it attracted audiences from different class groups.

This raises two possibilities. Either the higher-class people attracted to grunge could be

challenged by this different perspective, or bring their own habitus and cultural learning to

bear so they experienced grunge differently to others. Alternatively, people with high-brow

sensibilities might experience grunge in a similar fashion to others, but may remember it

differently.

Since only basic demographic details were collected on respondents, and since many

respondents from Canberra were public servants and/or had parents who were and are thus

difficuh to categorise in terms of economic and symbolic capital (as 'public servant' can

cover a vast array of j o b s and qualifications), this information will only be used as a guide

for positioning respondents in terms of class. Of far greater importance is what they said,

though a correlation between demographic details and data will give greater weight to

results, and some respondents would be expected to fall into one of the categories. For

example, Kay, w h o is a public servant and whose parents were a lawyer and IT consultant,

or Seamus, whose father is an academic, might be more likely to be considered middle or

upper class, while Barney, who is a self-employed musician with a farmer father and

housewife mother, might be lower class. Others, such as Ginny, who describes her father as

an artist, have parents w h o may have been high in cultural capital but low in other forms of

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capital. However, as indicated earlier, not enough data was collected from respondents to

m a p their position in social space with a high degree of certainty.

Bearing this in mind, and given Bourdieu's emphasis on examining practice (in this case,

how memory is a social phenomenon) as a way of understanding social positioning,

respondents have been classified as giving high- or low-brow accounts mainly on the basis

of what they have said during their interviews. Three main criteria have been used to

classify respondents as ' l o w brow'. Firstly the type of music they say they listen to is

examined. For example, claiming to listen to a wide range of music is used as a marker of a

more high-brow approach, as is discussion of classical music, which still has some

association with the high brow. The second criterion is the way respondents remember

grunge. If they have a more practical approach then this will be seen as a marker of a low-

brow appreciation, whereas a symbolic discussion is more high-brow. Finally, the way the

respondents position themselves in terms of their place in history and the significance of

their association with grunge in regard to wider societal changes or structures will be

considered. On the basis of these criteria, we can determine that there are 8 respondents

who have ' l o w - b r o w ' memories of grunge. These are Rita, Clara, James, Janie, Percy,

Roger, Joyce and possibly Dudley, although Dudley's age could be a factor in his responses

as he is younger than all the other respondents. Furthermore, none of these respondents

hold jobs, or have parents who held jobs, that are associated with high economic or

symbolic capital. For example, Roger works in maintenance and had a father who was a

fitter and a mother who was a nurse; Rita is a hairdresser whose father was a leather

craftsman and mother a public servant. On the evidence at hand suggesting these

respondents do not hold high levels of any form of capital, it seems reasonable to say they

272
could be classified as lower class. However, their responses must first be examined more

closely to support the assertion that they have low-brow memories of grunge.

Musical tastes

Indicators that have been considered in determining whether a respondent has a high-or

low-brow approach include a propensity to limit one's musical tastes (Peterson and Simkus,

1992). Most respondents say they listen to 'everything', which might indicate an awareness

of the cultural capital that can be gained by having broad musical tastes (as discussed

above). What is somewhat more difficult to draw out is exactly what 'everything' means.

An illustration of this difficulty can be seen in this comment from Bill, who says he listens

to:

Predominantly rock music 1 think, although it does vary, my musical

influences at the moment range from PJ Harvey through to Tori Amos to a
Perfect Circle—Smashing Pumpkins will always be king. Distillers if I'm
feeling aggressive, it really depends. I've got a wide range, I love
Portishead. Anything that's different, 1 suppose, or lyrically driven, guitar
driven.

Here, although he refers to 'a wide range' of music, the examples given indicate that this

range stays within the popular/rock pantheon. This could indicate a lack of awareness of

other musical forms, but it also shows that respondents do identify enough difference

within popular music to make it worth mentioning that they listen to hip-hop and pop and

metal. It also needs to be kept in mind that if having broad tastes has become a marker of

high-brow appreciation then it is possible that people might wish to give the impression of

this without it necessarily being the case, or they might believe they have a broad range of

tastes without realising what other possibilities exist (and this may be a marker of a middle-

brow approach). The respondents identified as low-brow, on the other hand, do not even try

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to give the impression that they have wide-ranging musical tastes. For example, when Clara
is asked about what sort of music she listens to, she answers 'usually grunge or heavy
metal', and in response to the same question Dudley says:

Mostly 1 listen to, 1 still find the grunge era what takes up most of my
collection, and basically, currently 1 just listen to, most bands have either
progressed over the years or formed other bands and 1 just listen to that stuff,
like for example 1 really like Mark Lanegan, and he came from the
Screaming Trees. 1 still listen to Pearl Jam and I really like Audioslave,
which came from Chris Cornell, so that sort of stuff 1 listen to now. It's all
sort of stuff that's branched out from anything that was in Seattle and
beyond, so that's the sort of stuff I'm into.

A noticeable trend across the respondents who make a claim to broad musical tastes is that,
despite this, when asked about their favourite bands they almost all name rock bands and
during interviews do not discuss other types of music. This can be contrasted with someone
like Arthur, who when asked about his favourite bands lists jazz musicians Duke Ellington,
Yusef Lateef and Pat Martino. Other respondents, such as Burton, also discuss broader
musical styles:

At the moment, 1 listen to a lot of classical actually, because I'm a classical

pianist, but 1 also—1 listen to a variety, so, a lot of hard rock and recently
some sort of, 1 guess. Northern European death metal, some of the more
listenable stuff where the vocals are vaguely tolerable. As long as the
musicianship's good I'll listen to it. But I'll still listen to a lot of old 80s
stuff, which 1 love, 1 love the bands, so ...

This suggests not only a wide breadth of musical knowledge but also an upbringing which
may have given him high-brow leanings, as classical music training is a marker of a
privileged upbringing (Green, 1999). Trevor tells a similar story:
Mum, Mum was a concert pianist and dad was quite into it as well, so when
1 was—mum sort of got me into classical piano training when 1 was about 4,
and so 1 did that for about 15 years, and then when 1 hit about 12 or 13 1
started listening to these bands and things, and so 1 started playing guitar,
and I've played guitar since then, and my brother plays drums, so I've had
the drums. It's just something I've always done, and if 1 don't do it, 1 get a
274
 bit narky and feel a bit empty, you know, and it's something that I can
always do.

What is interesting here is that while Trevor does not mention classical music when asked

about what types of music he listens to, after he mentions his classical training 1 asked him

whether he still listens to classical much:

Again, it comes down to my mood, sometimes I'll chuck on—'cos there's a

classical station, ABC Classical, so I'll chuck that on sometimes if 1 feel like
it. I've got a couple of favourite concertos that 1 do really really like, so I'll
put them on sometimes as well if I'm stressed out and 1 want to relax.

This indicates that he still actively listens to classical and has a good knowledge of it, and

possibly suggests that his liking of this high-brow musical form has become natural to him

to the extent that it does not even occur to him to mention it as something he likes

(although this may be a result of him knowing the focus of the interview would be on

grunge). Trevor fits the 'high brow' description in other ways as well, being a professional

himself and having parents with relatively high status jobs. This can be contrasted with this

quote from Roger:

I've been trying to buy myself a good classical CD, one that 1 can relate to
because 1 like the style of music, but classical music is, it seems to be hard
to actually get, it's not as easy as going out and buying a Nirvana album
because so many people play a version of Beethoven's Symphonies in
different keys, so which one do you like, he's got so many symphonies, and
they seem to have such complicated names, it's not like you can just go
down to buy Mudhoney's Piece of Cake.

This statement indicates that Roger has not been given the cultural capital need to allow

him to feel comfortable with the conventions of classical music, effectively preventing him

from engaging with such music despite having gained some knowledge about it.

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Overall, six respondents mention classical music, still one of the most obvious markers of

'legitimate culture' (Green, 1999), as one of the forms of music they enjoy. Bryson (1996)

identifies country and heavy metal as the two musical forms most strongly associated with

low-brow tastes, and while four respondents explicitly exclude country from their tastes

(with two of these making the exception of Johnny Cash), none say they like it. No

respondents reject heavy metal as a musical form, with the majority saying they like it,

which is to be expected given the close association between grunge and heavy metal.

Examining the musical tastes of respondents, and their tendency to be omnivorous,

provides one indicator of high-brow or low-brow approaches to culture. This assists in

classifying the respondents as one or the other, but is less directly related to memory than

the following criteria. However, it is the first step in establishing the differences that exist

within the group.

Symbolic and practical approaches

A further way to determine what approach respondents are taking is to look at whether they

are framing grunge in symbolic or practical terms. For the most part, the questions in the

interviews that give the most insight into this area are those concerning how respondents

would define grunge and whether they thought there was more to grunge than just the

music. The low-brow respondents answered these questions in what could be considered a

more practical way, confining their answers to musical and stylistic elements:

But overall it was just about normal laid back people just playing expressive
music, 1 d o n ' t think it was any more than that, 1 don't think there was any
political motivation for doing it. (Dudley)

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 So w h e n I say to you grunge, what immediately comes into your head? I
guess to be honest, things like Nirvana, and just the - I guess the image of
the grunge rocker person, you know, the sort of, I guess its not so much just
the music as the social side of it too, flannelette shirts and long hair, you
know, and certainly a time period, the late 80s and early 90s, 1 guess.
(James)

For this group, grunge can be defined principally in terms of the practical aspects of the

music, as demonstrated in this quote from Percy:

U m . . . h o w would you define grunge. Ok, so grunge in a definition would

be 4 chords, a DS 1 distortion pedal, a loud raucous guitar amp and a couple
of guys who have only been playing for 6 months (laughs), and that's
grunge, that's what it was, it was practicing in your garage and you were as
good as the biggest grunge bands in the world. That's exactly what it is, 4
chords, a distortion pedal, and a couple of guys that really couldn't play that
well. And a g u i t a r - t h e first guitar 1 owned I couldn't tune. I didn't
understand harmonics or all that sort of stuff, and the back was warped, I
couldn't tune it, so one day we just jumped in the swimming pool with it.
And then when we got out we dried it out and the guitar still worked, and
that was grunge. That's what it was all about, and at the time all the girls
were like 'oh, you play in a band' - it's a chatting up point, you can't deny
that.

Here, grunge can be broken down into its technical aspects and the actual effects that it had

for Percy. He could play it easily and this led to certain consequences for his social life.

Percy's interview tends to show a 'technical' relationship with music, where, for example,

as his own understanding of how to play music increased, he found less enjoyment in

simpler musical forms such as grunge.

The visual/stylistic aspects of grunge are the only other elements mentioned by this group:

Did you think there was more to grunge than the music? Um ... well,
there was the fashion thing that sort of came along with it. 1 suppose that
everyone sort of started dressing in flannies and all that sort of stuff. (Joyce)

So w h e n I say to you 'grunge', what immediately comes into your head?

To be honest, kind of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, it's kind of a fashion thing to me
as well lots of flannies and ripped jeans, but I've been thinking about that,
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 and to be honest 1 kind of have a mental blank about what grunge is, but
that's what I kind of think of, that Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Mudhoney, that kind
of slow grungey guitar music, you know. That's what I think of, dirty greasy
hair (laughs). (Janie)

This shows a very practical relationship with grunge on the part of these respondents. They

are not bringing any outside knowledge to their accounts, and have not reformulated or

rebuilt their memories to take into account things they know to have happened since. They

speak very strictly about their own experiences and the meanings grunge had for them, but

without using symbolism or giving grunge meanings outside tangible aspects like clothes or

the sound of the music.

On the other hand, other respondents displayed a much more symbolic understanding of the

relationship between grunge and music in general. For example, when discussing music in

general, Ginny mentioned its connections with ideas about art, freedom, self expression and

commercialisation:

1 just think that music is not just about entertainment, it's an art form as
well, and that the only way it can develop as an art form is if people have
some freedom to be original, not to have to kind of do whatever's popular at
the time and meet certain record industry standards about what will sell this
year. I think its really important for there to be a space for people to express
themselves through music, and if they find an audience that's great.

In regard to grunge in particular, high-brow respondents saw it as having wider connections

and meanings beyond the music itself or the fashions associated with it, particularly in

relation to their own emotions and identity. However, some took a further step in almost

completely disassociating grunge from its actual form:

1 suppose for me ... it's freedom, it represents freedom, basically, in a word.

(Dean)

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 I think, some of the Soundgarden stuff, like Black Hole Sun and stuff, which
is a great song, but what is it saying? 1 don't, 1 think it's more of a feel and a
look, you know, and a ... 1 think it's more that disassociation with what's
normal society and having more of an independent look and feel about your
life rather than the actual words saying something specifically to you.
(Missy)

U m a gives a very detailed account of the symbolism that grunge holds for her, which is

particular connected to Seattle, where she once lived:

And not just a fashion, because 1 think fashion implies something

superficial, whereas I think that the roots of grunge give it more meaning, I
think. Can you say in what w a y ? Um, what makes it more meaningful?
Yeah. [...] But also, 1 think that for me there's a sense that it really does
speak o f . . . there's something about Seattle which has a, things grow out of
it, and grunge is like that. That's why 1 think the word is actually quite
evocative, because it speaks of something kind of organic, and it sounds a
bit dirty, it sounds a bit—but it's also something that's kind of grown on its
own, through the cracks in the pavement, and that's kind of what Seattle is
for me, as well, it's a very artistic, creative place that does things in its own
way, and it just kind of seeps out from under the surface. In a sense that's
what, for me, knowing that or feeling that about Seattle, and knowing that
grunge comes from Seattle it kind of fits—or, it sort of comes from Seattle,
if you know what I mean, it's the context for it. So that, in a sense, gives it
an integrity, for me, that belies the fashion that kind of emerged later down
the track, which seemed to be a kind of global phenomenon.

This account can be considered more 'high brow' on a number of fronts. Uma finds

meanings in grunge which are not emergent in the music itself, connecting it to ideas such

as integrity and organic growth, and these meanings are tied up with knowledge that she

has that is not necessarily available to others. A similar pattern emerges when she discusses

how she appreciates music in general:

What I tend to do with stuff that 1 haven't heard before is hear the other
music within it, the musical influences, so for me it's still about making
connections and it's sort of finding the trajectory of the history of music,
musical history within that song, is also kind of fun.

Given that U m a ' s appreciation of music requires more than the music itself, this could be

considered an example of a high-brow approach.

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Respondents who may be considered high-brow also have a greater tendency to relate to

memory itself as an object with particular qualities, rather than in a straightforward,

practical way. For example, when asked about the death of Kurt Cobain, Kaye says:

I know where 1 was when he died, but I don't think it had a profound effect
on me or anything ... we were all sort of pretty shocked and stuff, and it was
sort of something that everyone was talking about for a long time, but I
wasn't upset, 1 didn't start crying or anything like that. It was more a shock,
I guess. I remember when he overdosed, he overdosed in Rome before
that—I remember that, it was such a huge—for some reason he seemed to be
such a huge figure in the world at that time, you know, and I don't know if
it's just my world or what, but I do remember all these things happening,
and I remember both times where I was when 1 heard these things on the
radio, so, it obviously had an effect on me, but 1 don't remember—I
probably was upset, but I don't remember feeling devastated or anything like
that. It's obviously, the fact that I remember those things, 1 guess that shows
that it had some sort of effect on me. (Kaye)

Kaye here demonstrates an appreciation of memory as an object with certain functions,

rather than a simple record of events. She explains that she has certain memories that she

expects would be associated with particular emotional reactions, even though she doesn't

remember experiencing those emotions. This positions memory as an object in that having

a memory might suggest other things about what happened than what the memory itself

contains.

Thus, we see that while it has been demonstrated in previous chapters that the respondents

share many memories of grunge and have a very similar understanding of what it was,

some respondents give an account of their memories that is very much in line with how

Bourdieu described low-brow appreciation of art, that is, referring to the object (art or

memory) as a straight-forward representation of something else. Other respondents see

grunge in more symbolic terms, connecting it to wider society or to concepts that are not
280
necessarily contained in the music or associated culture. This is made more apparent when

we examine the historical significance that respondents attribute to grunge.

Historical approaches

While referring to grunge in symbolic terms demanding more information than the music

itself contains is one way in which it can be appreciated, a high-brow approach might also

bring historical information to bear on individual experience in order to give it greater

significance. Here, the ideas of the Popular Memory Group (PMG) (1982) can be used in

conjunction with Bourdieu. The PMG explicitly discuss working-class experience, and

while a direct correlation cannot be made here between giving a low-brow account of

grunge and being a member of the working class, the two are likely to be associated, as has

been discussed above. The PMG (1982, 210) argued that 'a knowledge of the past and

present is ... produced in everyday life'. This is accomplished through use of mementos,

stories and heirlooms. This way of transmitting ideas from the past can also be connected to

Bourdieu's ideas by being seen as being produced by and part of the production of habitus.

According to the PMG (1982, 210), this sense of the past can of^en be silenced, especially

as it is experienced by groups such as women and the working class, because 'most

working class people are also robbed of access to the means of publicity and are equally

unused to the male, middle-class habit of giving universal or "historic" significance to an

extremely partial experience'. As with high-brow appreciation of art, high-brow memory

then uses information that is not contained within the memory as such to place individual

experience in a wider context.

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Most commonly, grunge was placed within the history of popular music, with respondents
describing the similarities it had with other musical movements (particularly punk, as was
noted in Chapter Four) and the 'cycles' that popular music goes through:

1 think like any musical style you go through a phase because its something
that's a little different, it becomes, people turn to it, it becomes popular, it
becomes very popular, it then becomes mainstream, and then we wait for the
next thing to come along, and we've been through a lot of phases since then,
in particular in the rap movement, and dance music. But I think, as I said
earlier, 1 think an acceptance, a lot of people are now far more accepting of
different styles. Grunge itself 1 think will just be a piece of history. (Patrick)

1 don't see grunge as being like a distinct social phenomenon that came and
went. Musically speaking it's come in a long line of music that is outside the
mainstream, 1 suppose, and it was just one manifestation of it. So, as 1 say 1
like a lot of punk music and post-punk music from the 70s and garage music
from the 60s and stuff, and for me it just seemed like, great, this is like
another, you know, this is another representation of that. (Dean)

Well, we're coming up to a time where cyclically and traditionally,

especially in the world of mainstream marketing, that there should be some
sort of resurgence. 1 mean we have the tenth anniversary re-release and the
box sets coming out of Nirvana stuff, but apart from the band, a lot of young
kids are wearing Ramones shirts at the moment, so we're getting to the 80s
again, and a lot of. Hot Hot Heat and the Killers and all these bands that are
sort of mixing indie 80s styles with the technology of these days ... 1
suppose I'm waiting for a grunge re-explosion in the next 5 years. That's a
cynical idea, but I'd just like to go on record saying 1 think it's coming
around the corner again. (Gordon)

These quotes show not only an understanding of the place grunge occupies in the history of
popular music, but also touch on the idea that history itself is predictable, that there are
patterns that are repeated in culture regardless of the name given to the musical form that
emerges at a particular point in that cycle. Without knowing what the respondents may
have said about the historical position of grunge at the time, the evidence from the
respondents also suggests that this historical positioning is something that develops over
time. At the point in their lives when grunge appeared, most respondents would have been
282
encountering this type of music for the first time, and reacting to it as though it was free

f r o m history. They would not yet have acquired the requisite knowledge to place music into

a historical context. For example, while in the above quote Dean connects grunge to other

types of music throughout history, he also encountered grunge as ' n e w ' :

W h e n you w e n t to the Mudhoney gig, did the music strike you as being
very different, something you hadn't really heard before? Yeah, oh
absolutely. ( . . . ) And 1 suppose because too 1 didn't really know much
about it, but 1 liked what I heard, and then when 1 saw a band like that,
Mudhoney, I just went, right, this is it, this is what 1 like and this is what I
want to pursue.

This placing of music into an historical context is therefore something that is likely to have

occurred later, as memory narratives were formed around respondents' experiences with

grunge. However, this has not occurred in the same way for all respondents.

In terms of linking grunge to 'history' in more general terms, in the previous chapter 1

demonstrated how a minority of respondents discussed grunge with regard to generational

issues, thus placing it in a wider societal context and also reflecting media themes of the

time. 1 also noted h o w one of my low-brow respondents, Percy, was the only respondent to

discuss Generation X in a non-reflexive manner. Some respondents also connected grunge

to other important themes in wider society, such as politics:

So 1 think [grunge bands] definitely filled a need, and 1 think a lot of it too
was filled by the angst of the Bush administrafion. My friend, when she
heard that [George W.] Bush got elected, we sent each other emails that
almost crossed paths with each other, like 1 was gonna send the email but
she got it to me first, but we were saying, well, at least the music scene will
get better (laughs) cos there's something to react to, the Clinton
administration we saw a sort of a lull in the music scene because it was just
sort of OK, it wasn't fantastic, it wasn't awful and even with the Monica
Lewinsky scandal it was just like, well, at least it's not a war. So yeah, there
w a s n ' t really anything to react against in that way that there had been under
the Reagan and Bush administration. 1 mean what Reagan did for the
country as far as I'm concerned was fuelled a lot of really good music
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 (laughs), a lot of music reacting against him, that was his contribution as far
as I'm concerned. (Louisa)

High-brow accounts from respondents not only fit grunge into a wider historical and social

context, but make claims for its importance and their awareness of this importance, making

them a part of the unravelling of history. A quote from Julie also demonstrates this:

And also, being at a friend's house and rehearsing for this play we were
doing and hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit on the radio for the first time and
going 'woah, that's gonna be huge!', which may be a made up memory that
1 have from later, but 1 do have this strong feeling that I heard it and was just
like 'wow!' Oh god, when you write something like that you must think
' I ' m a millionaire!' (laughs).

Julie's acknowledgment that this 'may be a made up memory' again shows an awareness of

memory as an object, but ultimately this does not seem to be as important as being able to

tell a 'good' story. This may be a 'useful' memory to have as it makes her account more

'historical' and positions her as not only witnessing but understanding important events as

they happened. This tendency for people to give a 'universal or "historic" significance to an

extremely partial experience' (Popular Memory Group, 1982, 210) could also be seen in

other accounts where respondents found further 'historical' connections:

One morning Smells Like Teen Spirit came on, they sort of said 'this is the
first time this song's been aired in Australia', I just kind of woke up as the
song started, and to me that totally summarised exactly how I felt as a
teenager. (Isaac)

Isaac's account gives him the status of being one of the first to hear the song, and his

immediate connection with it is also significant in terms of the claiming of cultural capital.

It is significant, then, to note that the eight respondents who have been identified as giving

low-brow accounts of grunge did not make such historical connections. As noted ^arlier,^^^
their interviews focused on their own, individualised experiences and they made few if any

attempts to relate their accounts to outside events. These respondents were certainly aware

of music history, for instance, but did not try to make grunge or their own experiences with

grunge fit a narrative that connected these with other events, or give their own experience

significance beyond what it meant to them personally.

More research is needed to conclusively show the existence or operation of high-brow and

low-brow memory, but the evidence presented above strongly suggests that the respondents

in this study demonstrate different ways of remembering grunge. In particular, more work

is needed to show a link between class position and different memory narratives. However,

this thesis again suggests that some respondents are more closely associated with high-

brow tastes, and these respondents are also more likely to remember grunge in symbolic

terms and to place grunge and their relationship to it in a broader historical narrative. On

the other hand, those respondents who show more low-brow tastes give accounts that are

highly individualised, focusing on their own experiences, which are discussed in practical

terms. This difference can be seen as being associated with class habitus, where particular

memory narratives and authorised ways of telling stories are naturalised. For middle- and

upper-class respondents this means displaying cultural capital by giving their individual

experiences symbolic and historical importance that lower-class people may not be taught

to lay claim to. Grunge may have been a 'class-free' space during its hey-day, or even a

space where working-class culture (or some elements of it) was valorised for a time, but

this does not amount to the disappearance of class or its effects on people's lives.

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The probable effect of such a difference in memory between these groups is that the

experiences of the low-brow respondents are less likely to be remembered on a collective

level. The high-brow accounts are reinforced and supported by their similarities to media

accounts, which also (as we have seen in the chapter on Kurt Cobain) use symbolism and

place their subject matter in historical narratives. These accounts are also inherently more

'collective' in that they rely on an appeal to shared experience as 'history'. The low-brow

respondents, on the other hand, do not try and make claims for the importance of what they

experienced—except insofar as it was important to them—and it seems unlikely that people

who do not see their stories as important to others will tell them as often, or with the same

emphasis through situating their experience in other related narratives.

This can be related back to Thornton's (1995) ideas about the denigration of working class

audiences when they are involved in cultural movements that have audiences drawn from

many different sections of society. Just as the working class audience of grunge was seen as

not appreciating grunge 'correctly' at the time, so could the low-brow approach to memory

by such audiences be portrayed as not remembering grunge 'correctly', and in need of

education concerning the 'real' importance of grunge.

Conclusion

Bourdieu theorised the class circumstances in which one found oneself as being constitutive

of many of those elements that are seen as being fundamental to our sense of identity,

including taste, in this chapter, 1 have attempted to expand this theory to include memory.

This approach constitutes a new argument against theorists such as Adorno who see

different types of music and their inherent qualities as having some bearing on, and ability
286
to change, the place of the listener in the world, it conversely also stands against those who

would argue for the apparently limitless creativity of listeners of popular music.

Furthermore, it limits the significance of claims concerning the 'classless' spaces observed

in youth cultures. If, in fact, class and the world view it bestows on people leads to such

fundamentally different ways of approaching the same musical forms—whether they be

ostensibly high brow, or, as in the case of grunge, low brow—then the possibility of any

music making a difference in terms of erasing divisions and inequalities between those of

different backgrounds is minimal. During adolescence there may be times when many

people from different backgrounds converge on a particular musical form such as grunge

(and any such convergence is more likely to revolve around a low-brow musical form than

a high-brow one, since it has been shown that an appreciation for the low brow has become

necessary for the high brow but not vice versa), but despite the apparently egalitarian nature

of such collective appreciation and the (limited) increase in the amount of contact between

people from different worlds that this entails, the fundamentally different approaches to

culture that different groups possess limits change and understanding of others.

Furthermore, if lower- and upper-class groups are then placing grunge into different orders

of signification by remembering it differently and placing different emphases on what is

important in retrospect, then any levelling effect that may have occurred would be limited.

(It is also worth noting that this is, of course, only one way among many that people claim

cultural capital for themselves.) Despite the shift away from considering class as an

important aspect of popular music, it is still a factor in determining the worth of a musical

form, and in the way its audience is regarded. However, further research is necessary to

determine the extent to which this is the case, and to develop the concept of high- and low-

brow memory further.

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CONCLUSION

This thesis has argued that ahhough a form of popular culture such as grunge presents

challenges to existing power relations, these challenges are mostly defused in the way

grunge is remembered by the majority one of its active agents, the fans. In making this

argument, 1 have used and contributed to the bodies of work on popular music studies and

memory studies, and have employed and expanded on the theories of Bourdieu. This thesis

contributes to the literature on popular music through being the first in-depth study of

grunge, and offers a new perspective on such music and its field through studying grunge

retrospectively and through the lens of memory. It contributes to the memory studies

literature by expanding on existing literature that connects memory formation to media,

particularly by demonstrating the ways collective memory centred on culture can be formed

and maintained in dispersed groups. It furthermore suggests a new way of understanding

the linkages between culture, power and memory by introducing the concept of high-brow

and low-brow memory.

The thesis began by situating the study in terms of the literature on popular music. An

initial definition of grunge was offered in the context of the lack of academic literature that

existed on the topic. It was demonstrated that this literature has been almost uniformly

critical of grunge, mainly because of its perceived inferiority in comparison to punk. This

nitiated my argument that grunge did in fact contain many explicitly political elements, an

mportant factor to note in then understanding the ongoing effects of such politics, although

t was also noted that the focus of the thesis on power would require greater emphasis on

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the less obvious, more affectual and embodied forms of politics as theorised in the work of

Bourdieu.

Chapter One also explored some themes in popular music studies that were relevant to

grunge, such as the concept of authenticity. For grunge musicians, authenticity came from

'realness' and a connection to everyday, working-class roots, and this authenticity was

challenged by the commercial success of these bands. I also argued that although grunge

(and rock in general) is often still constructed as a rebellious or oppositional space, for the

purposes of this thesis it was better understood as a part of the mainstream, given its

commercial success.

This chapter also began to explore the literature on memory. Sociological work since the

time of Halbwachs has conceived of memory as a highly social phenomenon that is shaped

and given particular narrative forms through interactions with other people. Collective

memories are memories shared among groups of people that help to create a common

understanding of the world, or particular aspects of the world, and also involve an

emotional connection to such memories. The literature on the potential contained in

memory for powerless or dominated groups within society to preserve their version of

events and challenge the accounts of the powerful was also discussed, with a view to

understanding who controls or dominates memory. It was argued that different groups

remember differently according to their how they construct their present identity, and that

although the media may appear to be in an overwhelmingly powerful position when it

comes to the creation and maintenance of memories in m o d e m societies, the interplay

between media, memory and individual and group agency is far more complex than it first

289
appears. Adding music to this relationship deepens this complexity, as music can represent

an embodied connection to the past that is not as apparent in other forms of media.

Chapter Two outlined the methodology employed for the thesis. The decision to use semi-

structured interviews and content analysis of media articles relating to grunge from various

time periods was discussed in the context of theories on qualitative research in sociology.

The decision to use interviews as one of the main sources of data was made as a result of

the lack of studies on grunge that gave a voice to the fans of this music. In total, 43

respondents who self-identified as having been 'fans' of grunge during the time of its

popularity were interviewed, and the resulting data coded and analysed using the NVivo

program. The iterative method of data analysis was used to facilitate theory building; that

is, the theories that have been the main focus of this thesis were suggested as a result of the

information obtained in interviews rather than interviews being guided by pre-existing

theoretical concerns. As these themes, especially the centrality of memory, started to

emerge, media reports on grunge were also obtained to compare and contrast with

respondents' accounts, and also to provide an understanding of how the media construction

of grunge has changed over time. In particular, every issue of British weekly music

magazine New Musical Express from 1990 to the end of 1994 was examined, as well as

'anniversary media' from 2004 commemorating the tenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's

death. These methods facilitated an understanding of changing conceptualisations of

grunge, and an in-depth examination of respondents' relationships with the music.

The tension between 'realness' and 'selling out' was central to the construction of grunge

and to how it has been understood since. In Chapters Three and Four 1 introduced

290
Bourdieu's field theory to try to better understand this conflict. These chapters also began

the presentation of the empirical evidence gathered for this thesis in order to construct a

more complete definition of grunge. In Chapter Three, 1 began by applying Bourdieu's

theories of fields to the way grunge was constructed in the NME. This was done to better

understand how and why grunge emerged at that particular time and place, and why it was

framed in the ways it was by the media. It was argued that grunge brought to the forefront

questions about authenticity that for a short period of time made explicit the struggles

between different fields in society over what 'success' is. Questions of success, according

to Bourdieu, can be directly related to questions of power, as it is the powerful who usually

decide the criteria for success. However, in different fields, different types of capital signify

different levels of success, and the tension in grunge between authenticity (symbolic

capital) and commercial success (economic capital) provided, if briefly, a space where the

hierarchies created by the dominance of economic capital could be (and were) challenged.

In Chapter Four the focus turned to the accounts that respondents gave of what grunge was,

and comparisons were made with the way it was described in the NME at the time of its

success. The commonalities between the early 1990s media definition of grunge and the

definitions given by respondents ten years or more later demonstrated the relationship

between media accounts and collective memories that are sustained over time, and provided

a 'baseline' of important events and concepts through which grunge can be understood. It

was shown that grunge is defined as being geographically associated with the Seattle region

of the United States and temporally associated with the late 1980s to early 1990s. Musically

it was defined as a form o f ' r o c k ' , connected to punk and metal but with a 'sludgy' sound

291
and eschewing virtuosic performances. Stylistically, it was associated with unkempt

streetwear and particular fashion items such as flannelette shirts, torn jeans and boots.

Having established what grunge was and the relationship between respondents' memories

and media of the time. Chapter Five delved more deeply into respondents' memories of the

main personality of grunge, Kurt Cobain. The chapter returned to the idea that memory can

be a site of contestation of power by demonstrating that the way respondents remember

Cobain is not the same as how he is depicted in contemporary media reports. Media

coverage of the anniversary of Cobain's death often constructs him as a legendary, almost

god-like figure. Respondents, on the other hand, remember Cobain as an ordinary, if gifted,

human being. It was shown that the respondents' construction of Cobain is still connected

to the media in that it reflects earlier media representations from the time that Cobain was

alive. The media accounts, however, have shifted, staying in line with the narrative frames

common to the depiction of 'dead rock stars'. However, these are not the only available

frames for understanding Cobain. Activities by community groups in Cobain's hometown

of Aberdeen were also discussed, presenting a third group's attempts to influence how

Cobain is remembered. This demonstrated the malleability of memory, but also the limits to

this malleability, and how memories are influenced by the current identities of groups. It

also showed the limits to the power of the media to shape memories.

Moving from a discussion of the possibility for contestation in how grunge is remembered.

Chapter Six examined an area where the memories of respondents have come to mostly

mirror those of the media. Although there were many female participants in the grunge

movement, and male and female grunge musicians were vocal in their support of gender

292
equality, both the female musicians and the gender equality message have disappeared from

subsequent accounts of grunge, in this way, although it presented a challenge to gender

power relations within society, the way grunge is remembered has defeated this challenge.

This finding corresponds with other studies that have demonstrated the forgetting of

w o m e n ' s roles in history more generally. Where female grunge musicians are remembered

they are either relabelled as part of the explicitly feminist 'Riot Grrrl' scene, thus leaving

the mainstream success of grunge in the hands of male musicians, or are vilified as 'bad'

examples of womanhood. This was the situation with the most prominent female figure in

grunge, Courtney Love. Since marrying Kurt Cobain, Love has been presented as a 'bad

influence' on her husband and criticised for not performing femininity in the 'right' way

through her roles as wife and mother. Criticism of Love is a strong theme in respondents'

accounts. However, despite this general forgetting of the women associated with grunge, a

minority of female respondents still recall the gender equality project of grunge and use it

as an ongoing inspiration in finding alternative ways to express femininity.

Chapter Seven moved the focus away from the music media to look at the portrayal of

grunge fans in other media, specifically in terms of the representations o f ' G e n e r a t i o n X '

and youth. In a further demonstration of the disjunctions between media accounts and the

memories of grunge fans, it is shown that 'top-down' attempts to impose the label of

Generation X on this group have failed. However, respondents reinforce power relations

that keep young people in a subjugated position in society in the way they remember

'youth'. This chapter demonstrated that the emotional responses that respondents remember

grunge inspiring are characterised in retrospect as unreliable and inappropriate. Youth

overall is conceived of as a time when people are over-emotional, overly idealistic and not

293
yet 'complete' as people. By thinking of youth in this way, cultural forms such as grunge

that are associated with youth are deprived of meaning because the political or social

questions such a movement raises among young people are subsequently dismissed. It was

also argued that although youth is sometimes portrayed as being released from its

biological moorings in contemporary society, the memories of respondents are still given a

narrative form wherein youth belongs to a particular, bounded stage of life associated with

institutions such as school.

Chapter Eight concentrated more on divisions within the group of respondents, moving

away somewhat from the conceptualisation of them as a collectivity. This chapter looked at

how class was relevant to the way grunge was constructed and how it was remembered by

respondents. Youth movements such as grunge have at times been thought of as 'classless'

spaces, and grunge did have audiences drawn from different sections of society who

participated in the ostensibly working-class culture associated with grunge. However, by

extending Bourdieu's theories of high-brow and low-brow tastes to memories, it was

suggested that respondents relate to their memories of grunge in fundamentally different

ways. Some respondents take a more practical approach to their memories, while others

invest them with symbolism and historical significance that go beyond what happened to

them personally. These 'high-brow' respondents are also more likely to comment on or

question the nature of memory itself, rather than treating it as an accurate record of 'what

really happened'. Given that Bourdieu positions taste and use of culture as central to

understanding power in society, extending his theories to how culture is remembered

allows us to see that participation in a classless youth movement does not (necessarily)

erase class differences. However, the data collected for this thesis does not conclusively

294
demonstrate the working of high-brow and low-brow memory, and further work is required

to fully conceptualise this.

Overall, the data collected from interviews showed the complexities of: remembering; the

relationship of fans with cultural items; and the way fans remember their relationships with

cultural items. Using media reports as a way of understanding how stories about grunge

were told by those with more power to influence how societies remember, it was

demonstrated that there are different possibilities for fans' engagement with these

narratives. Respondents' understandings of what grunge was were clearly connected to

what was said in the media about the movement, as the definitions of grunge were similar

in both cases. The forgetting of the women of grunge observed in the media was also

echoed in respondents' accounts. However, media narratives and fans' memories involving

Kurt Cobain differ, and not all respondents have forgotten the gender equality project of

grunge. Memory is also shaped by aspects of social identity other than engagement with

popular culture, and this can be seen in the way respondents distance themselves from their

younger selves and in the possible effects of class on the relationship respondents have with

their memories. The combination of these factors leads to a situation where, despite the

contested nature of memories and fans' agency in relation to the creation of meanings

around popular music, in most cases the status quo is reasserted overtime. Women are still

forgotten, class still creates divisions, and the creativity and rebellion of youth are

dismissed.

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Final words
For a long time, scholars working in the field of popular music have needed to stake a

strong claim for the importance and relevance of such research due to the 'high-brow'

leanings of the academy. While early scholars had to fight hard for acceptance, in more

recent times studies of various elements of popular culture—television, movies and

websites as well as music—have become more common and the stigma attached to them,

while not completely removed, is beginning to fade. However, during the formative years

of the field (and in response to the ideas of people such as Adomo, as discussed in Chapter

One) scholars needed to place special emphasis on the worth of popular music. To this end,

a body of work has built up around the most political aspects of popular music, ways in

which it brings about change in society, and the ways in which it is beneficial to audiences

and society on the whole.

I believe that popular music studies have become well enough established at this point in

time for a somewhat more critical approach to now be acceptable. Initially, I approached

this project believing I would show the unquestionable worth of grunge—that I would find

ways to demonstrate that it had changed those it touched, and changed them for the better.

When it began to become apparent that the data 1 had collected simply did not show this for

the most part, it was a source of considerable angst for me. 1 wondered whether I could be

happy if 1 produced a study that in some ways agreed with the detractors of popular

music and if I agreed with those critics, how could I continue to listen to and love the

music itself?

296
This issue was resolved for me in some ways when I considered more closely who it was 1

was studying. The voices in my study are those of ordinary music fans who in the 1990s

attached themselves to a particular commercially successful rock movement. Most of them

are not, and were never, in bands or part of a tight-knit musical 'scene'. These are the types

of fans w h o make up the majority of listeners of music, but who have been neglected in

popular music studies in favour of the more spectacular subcultural participants, the people

at the fringes, and those more likely to give music a political or even revolutionary edge.

The retrospective approach that 1 have taken also challenges the tendency for music to be

found to be central to people's lives as most studies are done when a movement is at its

height and ideals are yet to be tempered by time.

This thesis does not argue that popular music is irrelevant or meaningless. But it does argue

that sometimes, for some people, the ultimate effects that it has are negligible, and it can

serve to reproduce rather than challenge societal structures. This is a point of view that is

understandably often missing or not articulated in popular music studies, and it was an

unhappy mental journey full of disillusionment that brought me here. Most scholars study

popular music because they love it, and I will not lie and say that my love of music is

undiminished at the conclusion of this journey. However, 1 do believe that in order to study

something fully, both the good and the bad must be embraced, and that is what I have

attempted to achieve in this study.

However, this should not be read as a critique of grunge in particular, or as a vindication of

the scholars who dismissed this musical form as lacking the same impact as punk. This

thesis has demonstrated that grunge had strong political elements, as did punk, and also,

297
like punk, areas that were less concerned with such cerebral matters. The critique of grunge

that compares it unfavourably to punk rests on an overstatement of the political meanings

of punk, and an understatement of those of grunge. A similar study done with ex-punk fans

would probably reveal memory working in similar ways to reinforce—or bring about a

return to—the status quo. In this way, memory becomes a more important factor than the

music in question.

Furthermore, although the emphasis throughout most of this thesis has been on the way

memory has removed the threat grunge may have posed to existing power relations, it has

demonstrated places where this challenge has been sustained. The most obvious example of

this was in regard to gender roles. However, respondents have not entirely forgotten the

questions grunge asked about commercialisation and the way it made explicit, even for a

short period of time, the struggle in society over what it means to be 'successful'. Despite

the focus of this thesis on societal reproduction, the significance of these continuing areas

of what might be called 'resistance' should not be overlooked. Most grunge fans ultimately

did not have their world view radically altered by their experiences with this music.

However, the large scale of the grunge phenomenon meant that even if only a tiny

proportion of this audience continued to ask these types of questions, this probably

represents a much larger number of people overall than are engaged in more openly radical,

but much smaller, musical subcultures.

298
Appendix A: Outline of questions for interviews

1. What type of music do you listen to?

2. Who are your favourite bands?

3. Where do you hear about new music?

4. How often do you buy CDs?

5. Do you go to see bands? If so, how often and where do you go?

6. Would you say music is an important thing to you? Why?

7. Do you think this has changed over time?

8. When and how do you listen to music?

9. When I say 'grunge', what do you immediately think of? Are there any

particular memories or images that come into your mind?

Play song {Smells like Teen Spirit)- please tell me what comes into your head when you

hear this.

10. How would you define 'grunge'? (Do you think there is more to grunge than the

music? What bands do you associate with grunge?)

11. Can you tell me about your experiences with grunge? (How old were you/where

were you/what were you doing/how did you first hear about grunge?)

12. What were you listening to before you started listening to grunge?

13. Why did grunge appeal to you?

14. Did you know a lot of other people who were into grunge? Did your interest in

grunge change your relationship with them or anyone else?

15. I remember when I first got into grunge feeling a sense of connection with other

grunge fans - not necessarily people 1 knew - because 1 felt there were suddenly

299
 a lot of people around w h o were like me, who felt the same sorts of things I did,

because I saw myself in the music. Was your experience anything like this?

16. H o w did you feel about Kurt Cobain's death?

17. What effect (if any) do you think grunge had on you in any aspect of your life at

the time? Did it change the music you listened to significantly? Was this the

only effect?

18. Do you think the success and popularity of grunge was a good or bad thing?

Why?

19. H o w do you feel about grunge now?

20. Do you think, in retrospect, that grunge had any lasting effects, either personally

or on a larger scale? If so, what are they?

21. Can you tell me anything about how you went from listening to grunge to what

you listen to today/how have your tastes changed since you were into grunge?

22. is there anything you would like to add or comment on?

300
Appendix B: Codes used during analysis

Attitudes to Grunge success

"Mainstream"
authenticity
Kurt Cobain death
Music cycles
' G r u n g e ' Lifestyle
o Drugs
o fashion
o politics
o ethics/'attitude'
Media
Politics
Ethics
Industry
o Commercialisation
Oppositional
o To 'society'
o To previous music
o to others
o to mainstream
Punk
Influence of others
Music as solitary/individual experience
Music as communal/connecting
Emotions
Body
Memory
Identity formation
Nostalgia
Gender
Religious imagery
Class
Hierarchies

301
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