I've only been watching from afar but I've had this same feeling about Alice in Chains. As I see these matches come up I'm struck by how even the AIC songs I've always considered their greatest struggle to hold ther own against much lower-tier material by these other bands. I think time may have broken down some of the aesthetic distance between AIC and a lot of their less gifted inheritors in my mind -- while the other five bands have weathered the test of time such that each of their more singular qualities seem to rise to the surface while their more generic "alt-rock" elements just kind of linger as inevitable timestamps (no different than the Beatles, the Who, Zeppelin, Springsteen, etc.), AIC feels evermore like squarely a '90's band, and when I engage with their music (which is far rarer than it is with any of the others), I feel like I just don't hear in it now what I heard in it then.

I can never help but feel like people who listen to STP and conclude that they're "grunge lite" simply aren't listening. As someone whose tastes steer more centrally towards eclectic pop, jazz, etc, with more formal compositional qualities, STP were operating at a level of musical sophistication -- at least such that it refers to employing richer musical ideas to arrive at finished products that are no less empirically satisfying for their complexity -- that utterly trounces the other bands on this list.

Soundgarden are a weird one for me in that they're the only band on this list where I put off discovering a good portion of their catalog until semi-recently (I didn't really dig into anything pre-"Badmotorfinger" until after the reunion), so a lot of their music is fresher in my mind and present sans the nostalgia that accompanies the rest of this stuff. I love their music but I don't process it the same way as these other bands -- their stock trade is compositions more than "songs" in a lot of regards, meaning that the bare essences of their words-and-music are a lot less gripping absent the complex building blocks and structural framework of their arrangements. I don't mean to suggest that stuff's not all of a piece, just that the more engaging components of their music don't always register with me on sight of a song title. I'd probably be voting against a lot of their songs if gut reaction was the driving motivator.

This era of Smashing Pumpkins has aged extremely well for me -- I can listen to pretty much anything from the 1991-1996 period and just get absolutely swallowed up by the sound of it, even when the songwriting isn't anything special. Of all of these bands, they were the most creatively restless by some distance, and I love how that reflects in their body of work -- every marginal evolution is mapped out in real time, presumably owing to the fact that Corgan was such an egocentrist that the only one he trusted enough to bounce his ideas off of was a recording that he could play back to himself.

Nirvana's small but perfect body of work remains one of the most satisfying collections of music I own. Every year it sounds deeper, richer, smarter, funnier, louder, catchier, and more visionary. Truly life-defining music for me.

And Pearl Jam are Pearl Jam. They can seem like dancing bears at times, but I haven't written 10,000,000 words on a message board for any of these other bands.

1. Pearl Jam
2. Nirvana
3. STP (tie)
3. Smashing Pumpkins (tie)
5. Soundgarden
6. AIC

You always write such great posts, that I want to read them twice. Still don't really agree with your opinion here about AiC, and the ranking of Soundgarden. Have you listened a lot to Jar Of Flies?

I've only been watching from afar but I've had this same feeling about Alice in Chains. As I see these matches come up I'm struck by how even the AIC songs I've always considered their greatest struggle to hold ther own against much lower-tier material by these other bands. I think time may have broken down some of the aesthetic distance between AIC and a lot of their less gifted inheritors in my mind -- while the other five bands have weathered the test of time such that each of their more singular qualities seem to rise to the surface while their more generic "alt-rock" elements just kind of linger as inevitable timestamps (no different than the Beatles, the Who, Zeppelin, Springsteen, etc.), AIC feels evermore like squarely a '90's band, and when I engage with their music (which is far rarer than it is with any of the others), I feel like I just don't hear in it now what I heard in it then.

I can never help but feel like people who listen to STP and conclude that they're "grunge lite" simply aren't listening. As someone whose tastes steer more centrally towards eclectic pop, jazz, etc, with more formal compositional qualities, STP were operating at a level of musical sophistication -- at least such that it refers to employing richer musical ideas to arrive at finished products that are no less empirically satisfying for their complexity -- that utterly trounces the other bands on this list.

Soundgarden are a weird one for me in that they're the only band on this list where I put off discovering a good portion of their catalog until semi-recently (I didn't really dig into anything pre-"Badmotorfinger" until after the reunion), so a lot of their music is fresher in my mind and present sans the nostalgia that accompanies the rest of this stuff. I love their music but I don't process it the same way as these other bands -- their stock trade is compositions more than "songs" in a lot of regards, meaning that the bare essences of their words-and-music are a lot less gripping absent the complex building blocks and structural framework of their arrangements. I don't mean to suggest that stuff's not all of a piece, just that the more engaging components of their music don't always register with me on sight of a song title. I'd probably be voting against a lot of their songs if gut reaction was the driving motivator.

This era of Smashing Pumpkins has aged extremely well for me -- I can listen to pretty much anything from the 1991-1996 period and just get absolutely swallowed up by the sound of it, even when the songwriting isn't anything special. Of all of these bands, they were the most creatively restless by some distance, and I love how that reflects in their body of work -- every marginal evolution is mapped out in real time, presumably owing to the fact that Corgan was such an egocentrist that the only one he trusted enough to bounce his ideas off of was a recording that he could play back to himself.

Nirvana's small but perfect body of work remains one of the most satisfying collections of music I own. Every year it sounds deeper, richer, smarter, funnier, louder, catchier, and more visionary. Truly life-defining music for me.

And Pearl Jam are Pearl Jam. They can seem like dancing bears at times, but I haven't written 10,000,000 words on a message board for any of these other bands.

1. Pearl Jam
2. Nirvana
3. STP (tie)
3. Smashing Pumpkins (tie)
5. Soundgarden
6. AIC

I agree that Facelift is the worst album in this tournament. Even No Code is better as a whole. Facelift is just the first 4 or 5 songs and a bunch of boring early 90's metal tunes to me, and I usually like early 90's metal.

WTH man