The Best Grunge Albums Of All Time Ranked

Grunge (sometimes referred to as the Seattle sound) is an alternative rock genre and subculture that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American Pacific Northwest state of Washington, particularly in Seattle and nearby towns. Grunge fuses elements of punk rock and heavy metal, but without punk’s structure and speed. The genre featured the distorted electric guitar sound used in both genres, although some bands performed with more emphasis on one or the other. Like these genres, grunge typically uses electric guitar, bass guitar, drums and vocals. Grunge also incorporates influences from indie rock bands such as Sonic Youth. Lyrics are typically angst-filled and introspective, often addressing themes such as social alienation, self-doubt, abuse, neglect, betrayal, social and emotional isolation, addiction, psychological trauma and a desire for freedom. Here are all of the best Grunge albums of all time.

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15. Siamese Dream – Smashing Pumpkins

“After initially grabbing attention with their debut album, 1991’s Gish, Smashing Pumpkins broke out with their sophomore record, Siamese Dream. Butch Vig, now enjoying his victory lap after the massive success of Nevermind, was back in the producer’s chair. Front man Billy Corgan set the bar extremely high for himself and his band, determined to “make the next album to set the world on fire.” He and the group met those lofty expectations.”

14. Alice In Chains – Alice In Chains

“With their third full-length album, a self-titled set, Alice in Chains honed in on the melodic chemistry that had worked so well on previous efforts between Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley. Dealing with a multitude of personal issues, the band channeled some of that into the music, with themes of depression, anger and the effects of drug use all playing a big role in the disc. The sludgy single “Grind” and the driving “Again” most embody the grunge spirit, but the melodic “Heaven Beside You” showcases that melodic element that was uniquely Alice amongst their peers.“

13. Bleach – Nirvana

“With Bleach, Nirvana introduced themselves to the indie-rock world as Seattle’s newest purveyors of messy, heavy, morose hard rock. Then just two years old, the band made an album for just $600 that perfectly summed up the punishingly dreary sound of the burgeoning grunge scene. “There was this pressure from Sub Pop and the scene to play ‘rock music,’” Kurt Cobain said in the biography, Come as You Are. “We wanted to try to please people at first, to see what would happen.” That effort yielded harsh riff workouts like “Floyd the Barber” and “Paper Cuts,” tracks that not only reflected Cobain’s fervent Melvins fandom, but actually featured that band’s drummer, Dale Crover, behind the kit.”

12. Jar of Flies – Alice In Chains

“Mind if we just jam?” Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell told producer Toby Wright in 1993 after the band booked time at Seattle’s London Bridge studio between tours. Grunge’s darkest group saw massive success the year before with their breakthrough album Dirt. But where that album ratcheted up Cantrell’s brutal, chainsaw guitar, Jar of Flies, recorded in 10 days after the band was reportedly evicted from their apartment, showcased the quartet’s deft, if still deeply bleak, acoustic balladry.”

11. Temple Of The Dog – Temple Of The Dog

“The death of Mother Love Bone singer Andy Wood in March of 1990 left the Seattle rock community completely devastated. The charismatic frontman was close friends and roommate with Chris Cornell, who poured all his heartache into new songs like “Say Hello 2 Heaven” and “Reach Down.” Once he played them for surviving Mother Love Band members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard and learned they’d just formed a new band with some guy from San Diego named Eddie Vedder, they all decided to come together and honor Wood by recording them under the moniker Temple of the Dog.”

10. Apple – Mother Love Bone

“The death of Mother Love Bone front man Andrew Wood days before the scheduled release of Apple halted the group’s ascent, but their first and only album remains a rightful grunge-era classic. While the quintet had a major influence on the early ’90s Seattle scene (two of its members, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, went on to form Pearl Jam), Apple owes a greater debt to ‘70s hard-rock titans like Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith. Wood howls lustily over groovy, muscular riffs on “This Is Shangrila” and “Holy Roller,” while the band gets downright Stonesy on the acoustic guitar- and piano-laden “Man of Golden Words.”

9. Facelift – Alice In Chains

“This album came out in 1990, which is at least a year or two before many of the albums on this list. It’s safe to say that it’s a very important album in the history of grunge. Not only that, but it is heavy as all hell. I must also mention that Layne Staley’s best vocals are often found here, especially on Man in the Box, I Can’t Remember, Love Hate Love, and Confusion. This album is right on par with Dirt in my opinion, if not better, and it’s also my favorite Alice in Chains album and favorite grunge album.”

8. Core – Stone Temple Pilots

“With the grunge explosion firing on all cylinders thanks to the Big 4 of the Seattle scene, Stone Temple Pilots were the next in line to get the grunge bump with the release of their 1992 album ‘Core.’ There were initially Pearl Jam comparisons early in the band’s breakout, but they quickly forged an identity of their own. Scott Weiland proved to be a powerful frontman right out of the gate with his commanding presence on “Sex Type Thing,” while the slower-paced melody of “Plush” was the song that really pushed the band to new heights.”

7. Purple – Stone Temple Pilots

“STP had a lot to prove when they went into the studio to begin work on their follow-up to Core. It seemed like the more albums they sold and the more MTV played their videos, the more flak they received for somehow being inauthentically grunge. But they went into Atlanta’s Southern Tracks Recording Studio with producer Brendan O’Brien armed with new songs like “Interstate Love Song” and “Empty” that were inarguably brilliant and destined for MTV and Top 40 radio.”

6. Badmotorfinger – Soundgarden

“Soundgarden’s creative and commercial breakthrough came with their third album Badmotorfinger, which went double platinum and established them as forerunners of the burgeoning grunge revolution. Rather than chase the pop-inflected hardcore punk of Nirvana or the dour alt-metal of Alice in Chains, Soundgarden concocted a hooky, highbrow blend of Zeppelinesque riff-rock augmented by unorthodox guitar tunings and dizzying time signatures. Guitarist Kim Thayil flips effortlessly between sludgy, metallic riffing on “Rusty Cage” and “Face Pollution” and psychedelic arpeggios a la “Planet Caravan” on the cerebral “Mind Riot.”

5. In Utero – Nirvana

“Nirvana’s final studio album is a scream. Not a sleek, stylized shout like its multiplatinum predecessor, In Utero is an unpretty howl of pain and frustration, the ultimate act of defiance toward a record industry that never understood this band in the first place. It’s an album of caustic irony (“Serve the Servants,” “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”), cleansing rage (“Scentless Apprentice,” “Milk It”) and raw nerves (“Pennyroyal Tea,” “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle”). Kurt Cobain’s anger sometimes misses its target (see “Rape Me,” far too crude to work as the feminist statement he intended it to be), but that same self-destructive intensity makes In Utero an essential grunge document.”

4. Superunknown – Soundgarden

“After proving they could move millions of copies on their own terms with ‘Badmotorfinger,’ Soundgarden proved they could streamline their thorny, inimitable songwriting just enough to do it again on an even larger scale, with the stunning ‘Superunknown.’ Sacrificing none of their mold-shattering individuality, the quartet simply fine-tuned virtually every song here – “My Wave,” “Fell On Black Days,” the title track — into a potential single. And the tunes that were actually chosen as official singles, primarily the muscular “Spoonman” and psychedelic nightmare “Black Hole Sun,” went on to define the grunge era, even as it neared its conclusion and fell on black days of its own making.”

3. Ten – Pearl Jam

“Pearl Jam came out of nowhere (really, they rose from the ashes of Mother Love Bone), and along with Nirvana’s Nevermind they helped reshape the musical landscape with their debut album, Ten. The record actually came out a month before Nevermind but took a longer route to the Top 10 – a carryover effect of Nirvana’s gargantuan success. But in some ways Ten has been the more influential album, a more classic rock-indebted LP with more traditional pathways to its grunge core.”

2. Nevermind – Nirvana

“That ‘Nevermind’ ranks among the greatest rock records of all time goes without saying; but it also bears mentioning that Nirvana’s sophomore opus catalyzed a musical and cultural revolution like no other work of popular music short of the Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper.’ A perfect storm of raw power and melodic sensitivity ‘Nevermind’ and its complement of immortal tunes, led by “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” basically claimed rock and roll back for its original intended audience – disenfranchised youths — 35 years after Elvis set the example.“

1. Dirt – Alice In Chains

“If the public at large still remained oblivious to the grunge community’s pervasive drug abuse, then Alice in Chains went ahead and told them all about it on 1992’s ‘Dirt.’ Undisguised examples like “Sickman,” “Junkhead,” “God Smack” and “Angry Chair” were terrifying and mesmerizing in equal measures, and similarly gloomy issues like depression, war, and mortality pervaded other key tracks like “Them Bones,” “Rooster” and “Would.”