Showing results by narrator "Michael Stewart Foley" in All Categories

In the 1970s, an aggressive and nihilistic new style of music burst onto the pop culture scene in the United States and Great Britain. Punk, as this new genre came to be called, would become more than just a musical outlet for disaffected youth—it would disrupt the entire music industry, spawn shocking fashion trends, and even shake up the political status quo.

You can’t truly understand the last decade of the 20th century without a look at the muddy, electrifying rock music that would come to define it: grunge. For such a short-lived genre—at least in the mainstream—grunge had a lasting impact on American music and culture. It also provides a unique lens through which to examine the post-Reagan, pre-internet America of the 1990s. In the six lectures of The Story of Grunge, you’ll explore the rise and evolution of the genre, tracing it from Seattle subculture to MTV and the Billboard charts, all the way to its decline and evolution into new forms.