The 10 greatest songs from the grunge era- Final 5 countdown

Another group of friends that left their legacy for grunge and rock music is Screaming Trees. They are one of the very first bands to create what would latter be labeled as the Seattle sound, with their first rehearsals going back as far as 1985. Their greatest success came with their 6^th album, the second with the epic label, Sweet Oblivion, edited in 1992, which includes Nearly Lost you. despite their low profile and less expansive personalities, the band managed to deliver great shows with lots of energy and constant feedback from the audience.

The song was Screaming Trees most successful single until date, helped by the recent boom of Nirvana`s Nevermind that paved the way to other Seattle inspired bands achieve national and international commercial success. The meaning of the lyrics is not clear to everyone with fans reading a heroin addiction confession while other talking about suicide. Nevertheless it is a catchy and very well structured song with a distinguishable guitar riff like all of the great songs presented at this list.

This is Pearl Jam`s third single from their debut work , Ten, one of the most influential rock albums ever made. Lyrics were written by Eddie Vedder and talk about a repressed young kid that kills himself in the classroom in front of his high-school mates . The situation described on the song is based in a real tragic event that happened in 1991 at Richardson High School in Texas where Jeremy Delle put an end to his life in front of everyone .

As for the music it is a classic Jeff Amment composition with the bass guitar having a fundamental foundation of the melody using a repetitive yet catchy bass line.

The music video for Jeremy was the last made by Pearl Jam in the following 8 years, mainly due to all the debate around the violence and disturbing images of this video, with parent associations and MTV seeing it as a bad influence to youth.This episode really illustrates the band`s attitude towards music: deliver great songs and great shows making all the noise and debate around it sterile.

Jerry Cantrell, guitarist and co-vocals of Alice in Chains, wrote the music and lyrics of the most successful song from the band until date. The lyrics refer to the late Andrew Wood, the signer from one of the grandfathers of grunge ( Mother Love Bone) that died from a heroin overdose in the beginning of the 1990`s.

As for the music it is made of a simple yet accurate riff with a strong drum beat, while the bass guitar is solid and heavy. Layne Staley voice is powerful and darker than ever with the singer some of the reasons to consider him one of the best vocalists and front men of rock history.

Plush was the biggest commercial success of Stone Temple pIlots and is included on the band’s debut album, Core, and reached number one position at billboard mainstream rock tracks chart. So far it remains the best known song from the band having sold millions of copies worldwide.

A great guitar work combined with a strong voice and impacting writting is all Plush is about, with lyrics talking about some news that Scott read at a newspaper about a dead girl found in San Diego the band’s hometown.

The music video received heavy broadcast from MTV which took this song commercial success even further.

My very first choice is a song summarizes everything about grunge era: from moments of euphoria to more introspective ones, all packaged in a mix that combines the power of heavy rock, a punk alternative attitude and a unique live energy also made from destruction of guitars, crowd surfing and mosh pits, that I experienced back in 1994

That being sad,my number one choice is Lithium ( Nirvana).

All of the songs at this top 10 series could be my number one, specially the final 5, therefore feel free to post your alternative top 5 or top 10, hope you had a good time at list remembering what rock used to be all about

Cheers,

David