Author(s): Michael Lavine

photography

This profusely illustrated tell-all account of the life and death of the Grunge movement - which emerged in late - 1980s Seattle before taking over pop culture proper for the better half of the 1990s - covers the whole scene from a wide variety of angles. More than a decade after his death, alienated, awkward, heavily eye-lined Kurt Cobain continues to sit front and centre in the arena of popular culture, as the subject of books, music, fashion, gossip, and inspiration for major motion pictures and documentaries. Together with flannel-sporting music obsessed communities emerging (in the late 1980s and early 1990s) from the chilly Pacific Northwest, Nirvana, Sound Garden, and Pearl Jam changed the scene with wild aggressive sounds and truly alternative records. Author Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth) writes about the discovery of Seattle punk youth; the seminal bands that defined the movement; the exploitation of the subculture; the backlash of grunge; as well as the death of his longtime collaborator and intimate Cobain.