Listomania: Ranking the 10 Best Seattle Grunge Bands of the '90s

By Cory Graves Thu., Feb. 17 2011 at 12:19 PM

Categories: Listomania

Pin It

On December 31, 2009, when Chris Cornell tweeted that the "Knights of the Soundtable" would "ride again," fans assumed 2010 would become known as the year of Soundgarden, finding the '90s grunge legends reforming and regaining their once dominant form.

Disappointingly, they were only half right; the rockers did ultimately regroup, but only ended up making a handful of select live performances, and an appearance on Conan. As the year winded down, the whole thing began feeling more and more like a ruse cobbled together to hawk copies of their new greatest hits album -- or copies of Guitar Hero, depending on who is being asked.

Then, this week, seemingly from out of the blue, the band made a somewhat surprising announcement on their website and posted a black-and-white image of themselves jamming in a studio. Said the statement:

Over the past few months, we've been busy jamming, writing and hanging out together -- exploring the creative aspect of being Soundgarden. It feels great. We have some cool new songs that we are going to record very soon. Thank you for all of the support!

After a lackluster 2010 from the band, we won't blame anyone for treating this news with a we'll-believe-it-when-we-see-it attitude. But, despite our doubts, we're still pretty darned jazzed.

Enough so to rank our top 10 bands from the 1990s Seattle grunge scene, anyway.

10. Screaming Trees
After a batch of albums recorded for SST, Screaming Trees became one of the first of the Seattle bands to earn a major label deal when they signed with Epic in 1990. Their subsequent album, Uncle Anesthesia, produced by Chris Cornell, never managed to sell a ton of copies, but still served as a sign of things to come from the burgeoning scene.

9. 7 Year Bitch
Somewhat prophetically, the band lasted just seven years. In that time, though, they were some of the most aggressive and dominating punk rocker chicks in the grunge scene. Eat your heart out, Courtney.

8. Mother Love Bone
Mother Love Bone featured Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament -- but this is more than just a way to shoehorn some Pearl Jam-ers onto this list twice. Though the band's short-lived career was largely overshadowed by the death of frontman Andy Wood just days before the release of their debut album, Apple is still considered one of the biggest catalysts to bringing national attention to the then still-underground Seattle grunge scene.

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.