Music of Washington
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Template:USstatesmusic The U.S. state of Washington includes several major hotbeds of musical innovation. The largest city in the state, Seattle, is best known for being the birthplace of grunge, while nearby Tacoma and Olympia have also proven influential.
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Punk rock
Seattle's punk rock scene was always limited, but is important for its influence on the development of grunge music. In the 1970s, Ze Whiz Kids made a unique and bizarre variety of confrontational music and helped launch a hardcore punk scene that included The Mentors, RPA, The Rejectors, The Lewd, The Enemy and, most influentially, Solger and The Fartz, and New Wave bands like The Heats, The Cowboys, The Mice, The Telepaths, Visible Targets, Chinas Comidas and X-15. Hardcore skinhead bands like Extreme Hate, The Boot Boys and Firing Squad also gained a following. Green River, a hardcore band that splintered into Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, were one of the first grunge bands. Also drawing on the hardcore scene were The Melvins, Soundgarden, and Nirvana.
Garage rock
In the early 1960s, several garage bands achieved regional and some national fame. Perhaps the most famous of these are The Wailers, whose regional fame was paramount for several years in the early 1960s. They are often considered the fathers of Seattle's rock scene.
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Record producer Jerry Dennon of Jerdon Records was responsible for bringing The Kingsmen (of Portland, Oregon), best known for their national hit "Louie, Louie," to the ears of northwest audiences. The Kingsmen soon found themselves embroiled in a rivalry with local favorite Paul Revere & the Raiders, who also released a version of "Louie, Louie". Local music fans were split between the two groups, and the city's music scene polarized as a result. The Kingsmen's version caught on nationally after a Boston radio station picked up the song and Dennon negotiated distributing rights with Wand Records out of New York City. The song's supposedly suggestive lyrics led to it being banned in some localities, including Indiana.
Twee pop
In the late 1980s, a form of alternative rock called twee pop was popular in the United Kingdom. A small cult following around bands like The Orchids and Heavenly formed in the US, centered around Olympia's K Records and the band Beat Happening.
Riot grrl
Riot grrl is a form of hardcore punk which arose in Olympia, Washington in the 1990s and was led by bands like Bikini Kill, known for their militant feminism and raw, uncompromising sound. The genre never achieved much success and soon died out, though stalwarts Sleater-Kinney did stick together and found themselves approaching mainstream audiences after the turn of the millennium.
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Grunge
Grunge music began as a mixture of heavy metal and punk rock, and arose from the hesher scene in Seattle during the 1980s. The earliest bands included Green River and Soundgarden, among others, most signed to legendary indie rock label Sub Pop. By the late 1980s, several future stars had begun performing, including Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Mudhoney, while the death of Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone led to that band's disintegration and subsequent reformation as Pearl Jam. In 1991 (see 1991 in music), Nirvana's Nevermind, along with Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger, Pearl Jam's Ten and Alice in Chains' Dirt brought grunge to the top of the national charts, where it stayed for several years, until Kurt Cobain's suicide and the departure of several major bands.
Hip-hop
The most famous hip-hop star to come out of Washington state has been Sir Mix-A-Lot, best known for "Baby Got Back", an early nineties novelty hit. He also had another, less well-known song, "Bremeloes" (referring to the women of Bremerton, Washington), that achieved some fame. Later regional acts include Source of Labor, Oldominion and Blue Scholars.
Other noted Washington musicians
- The Brothers Four
- Heart
- Jimi Hendrix
- Kenny G
- The Microphones (aka Phil Elvrum, now Mount Eerie)
- Modest Mouse
- Queensrÿche
- Screaming Trees
- Sunny Day Real Estate
References
Blush, Steven. American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Feral House. 2001. ISBN 0-922915-717-7