There was no escaping grunge in the 1990s, nor was there any escaping the inevitable road it would lead rock music down. The old guard of rock music that dominated the charts before grunge came along was given a difficult choice: Do something radically different, or go grunge. The following three bands decided to give the genre a shot. Let’s take a look!
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Def Leppard
Def Leppard is one of those bands that just about no one would associate with grunge music. They were the pinnacle of classic 1980s hard rock and glam metal, with early works in the 1970s leaning toward heavy metal more than anything else. But, like their old guard contemporaries, Def Leppard had to embrace grunge or get left in the dust. The result was Slang, released in 1996. Personally, I wish they hadn’t gone with the trend of the era. This album lacks the shredding solos that made Def Leppard so easy to enjoy, and it was clear they were doing something they didn’t necessarily want to do. In retrospect, Vivian Campbell even said that they went in the wrong direction with Slang: “I remember going, ‘We’re spending a fortune here, and no one’s going to buy this record.’”
Thankfully, the follow-up Euphoria was much better.
KISS
KISS fans have historically been hard to impress, and they were not particularly impressed with KISS’s attempt to go grunge. The 1997 album Carnival Of Souls: The Final Sessions was torn to pieces by critics and fans alike after it dropped. It’s surprising, considering the band was always successful in sticking to musical trends. But with this album, which is quite heavy compared to their previous works, there was something missing. Maybe they just needed more time to refine this particular record. But, even by the time they released Carnival Of Souls, grunge had more or less died off.
Metallica
Another legacy band that tried to embrace grunge and forgo their traditional sound, Metallica released the album Load in 1996. Any metalhead who was alive back then knew that embracing alt-rock over metal was a bit of a cultural faux pas. When Metallica did it, they got a lot of hate. Are we really surprised? “Metal” is in the band’s name! Still, this album isn’t the worst thing the band ever cooked up, and its reviews leaned positive. Though, they were still mixed.
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