Well I think that grunge music is not dead, it only changed its name! For example in the 80's NIRVANA was called a punk rock band and later it was called a Grunge band. People will say "alternative" now. A band like Green Day is called alt or grunge (to the limits) - for me they're good but not grunge! To be called a grunge band there is only one big rule: THE BAND MUST BE FROM SEATTLE AND PLAY PUNK/HARDCORE MUSIC! Nirvana was grunge but really (in the soul)! And for the end: The so called punk rock music cannot exist in the US! It's a kind music that comes from England and exists only there. Here in US it's Grunge the others are alternative only. Well that's it!The first three sentences are right in my opinion. Many of today's grunge bands existed and made music long before anybody had ever pronounced the word grunge. At this time their music was called punkrock, independent or alternative. So it is right to say that it has changed its name. After Nirvana's breakthrough with Nevermind all the Seattle bands and every band that sounded similar to them was called grunge. But I've never heard anybody call Green Day an alternative or even a grunge band. Although the writer restricted this by the words "to the limits" I think that it is simply wrong. Some members of Green Day have their hair dyed and they make short fast songs so they are definitely a punk band. The "big rule to be called a grunge band" is also something I can agree to only partly. That the band must be from Seattle is simply wrong. In 1992 there were already bands like the Stone Temple Pilots who were not from Seattle but from Los Angeles and today there are grunge bands from all parts of the world. Bush for example are from London and Silverchair even come from Australia. Then when you think of the original grunge sound the part that a band "must play punk/hardcore music" (lines 5 and 6) is right, but the modern sound, which is in fact the one that got so popular, is far from being hardcore. Hardcore music has got rap vocals in it but most of the grunge vocalists sing very melodious in their songs. There are still some recitative elements in some songs (in Alive for example) but they are used in a melody and not in a monotonous pitch of the voice on a single tone like in hardcore music. Then in line six the writer declares that Nirvana was grunge "in the soul". This is not right because the band never identified with the word grunge but hated it. They were labelled grunge by the music industry but in their souls they were punkrock musicians. In the last three lines the author says in a way that grunge, punk and alternative is all the same, but simply has different names and that the name is determined by the country the band comes from. This is another falseness for me. Grunge, punk and alternative have distinguishable characteristics. Sometimes the borderline between the styles isn't very obvious. There are also often mixtures between two styles so it is hard to say what is what but there are still differences. All in all I would say that this is not really a theory but rather just an accumulation of statements which are not even substantiated by any kind of measure. So after this bad but still productive theory here are some more things I have found out:
There have also been many people who said that punk was dead. But just recently there has been a kind of a punk revival with bands like Green Day and Offspring that hit the charts with songs like "Basket Case" and "Self Esteem". And just like there are many new punk bands there are also lots of new grunge bands. There are on the one side new bands like Silverchair (whose singer and guitarist Daniel Johns has got a similar voice to Kurt Cobain an even looks very much like him) and Bush (whose vocalist and guitarist Gavin Rossdale resembles Eddie Vedder a bit and also sings similar to him) and on the other side there are the old bands like Pearl Jam who still exist although they have changed a lot. There is also a follow-up band to Nirvana with the Foo Fighters and members of old Seattle bands are doing solo projects (Jerry Cantrell and Chris Cornell for example). So there is already a new generation of grunge bands to make sure that grunge doesn't die too soon.
But after all these arguments for and against statement that grunge is dead. I still think that grunge is alive and will live on for a long time. In my opinion any kind of music isn't dead as long as somebody listens to it. Take classical music for example. It is over two hundred years old now and people still listen to it. Perhaps it is a bit exaggerated to compare modern songs with the masterpieces of great composers like Mozart and Beethoven. The Beatles might be a better example. One of them is already dead but their songs are still played on the radio and they are idols for people like the vocalist of Oasis for example. So their music has made them immortal. And as people still listen to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and all the others grunge isn't dead but lives on in people's minds.
