I sat through a "Biography of Grunge" on MMM last week. "Sat through" is a very diplomatic way of putting it. The program was awful, it was nothing more than a rapid-fire barrage of name dropping, soundclips, and quick facts. With the exception of the soundclips, the same ends could have been accomplished using a basic list of chronological events, the kind that appear in the appendices of history books. There was not a single mention of WHY grunge happened, i.e. WHY rock lacked soul and emotion in the 1980's, WHY Nirvana left from the middle of nowhere into mega-mainstream success, WHY people got bored of grunge in the mid-1990's (note to "Bio" producers: the "overexposure" excuse is overused to the point of no longer having any meaning, please be more specific next time if you want to make novel insights).

The main thing I took away from this program is how downright crappy most of grunge was, and how AWESOME Nirvana were compared to all their contemporaries. I was completely unenthused with grunge when it broke, so unfortunately, it wasn't until a few months after Kurt's death that I realised how great Nirvana really were. Now, hearing their songs alongside those of every other grunge band only accentuated how much brighter they shone (and still do shine) in comparison.

Oh, and I was glad about a couple other things: not a single mention of poseurs-extraordinaires Stone Temple Pilots. And they made fun of Silverchair.

Next time, maybe they'll think of mentioning the greatest grunge album ever made, that being Teenage Fanclub's "Bandwagonesque". But I doubt it.