re: How misguided were kids when they chose grunge over hair metal?

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However the grunge alternative movement seriously harmed the guitar as an instrument for about two decades and glorified shitty musicians

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Y’all act like punk hadn’t been around since the 70’s at that point. Grunge was a mix of metal and punk. It took the heavier more dour sound of late 80’s bands like Queensryche and blended it with the attitude of punk and hardcore. A lot of the early grunge musicians came from the hardcore scene, and punks and metal heads NEVER got along.

I think it’s also a big difference between who was making the music and why. The grunge guys tended to be heroin addicted nihilistic losers complaining of the meaninglessness of existence. The hair metal guys were a bunch of insecure coked out nerds cosplaying as what they imagined a cool person would be (sorta like how Donald Trump’s persona is what a homeless guy imagines a super rich person to be).

The metal guys were chasing fame so they could get laid. The grunge guys didn’t really want that. They were just making art. That’s why the metal artists embraced fame and being rock stars while the grunge guys largely fell apart under the spotlight.

They weren’t doing this to drink and f$&k, nor to be role models. If anything, they were actively trying to be the opposite.

The reality is that grunge was never really supposed to leave the underground artistic scene, but Geffen saw an opportunity and made a brilliant business decision. Grunge was commercialized and coopted by corporate america at record speed. It’s no surprise that it’s stars couldn’t handle it.

The reality was: metal had gotten stale. Thrash was still too unapproachable for mainstream audiences, and hair metal had gotten too cliche’d and corny. Audiences hungered for something more real. If it hadn’t been grunge, it would have been something else. Hip/hop was already blowing up at the same time. There’s a scenario where grunge doesn’t explode and instead: rock music is abandoned by mainstream culture at least 15 years sooner than it was in our timeline.

Like it or not, grunge and the bands it influenced, inspired, and shined a spotlight on helped keep rock relevant in mainstream culture well into the mid-late 2000’s.