The precursor to grunge.
Uncle Frank
wrong. grunge started in the late seventies with neil young.
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deathtokoalas
and if you listen to epp or green river, it isn't "grunge" as we understand the term. it's a kind of bluesy garage punk, more similar to the white stripes than to nirvana. if you acknowledge that melvins were the first act to really do something close to what we call grunge, you can look at the two bands that they cite as primary influences: black flag and swans. but it's a stretch to call black flag grunge. it fits early swans, though. and i'm not really aware of anybody else doing anything that nasty before them.
even early melvins doesn't really encapsulate what we think of when we say "grunge". the first band to really do grunge as we know it was soundgarden.
rem were never thought of as grunge at any point in their career. post-punk. jangle rock. college rock. indie rock. alternative rock. or just plain out pop music, really. there's no sludgy guitars, here.
rem are, however, almost singlehandedly responsible for the rise in popularity of what we called alternative rock in the mid 80s. it's fair to say that grunge wouldn't have had a foot in the door if it weren't for the success of rem.
Ghostbusters3
Sorry but REM is nothing like grunge.
Hal Emmerich
When I listen to "Stand," I think of King Buzzo and Dale Crover.
deathtokoalas
sarcasm aside, you can't disassociate rem from it entirely. i couldn't imagine osbourne getting into rem much. but there's a few tracks like "welcome to the occupation" that could almost pass as unplugged alice in chains songs, and were certainly influential on the screaming trees. and i think automatic for the people was a big influence on the nature of nirvana's unplugged set. but, that intersectionality aside, it's absolutely wrong to think of rem as creating grunge or something. they were a measurable outside influence, but not central to the genre's development.
