Though no-one in the Pacific North-West's tightly-knit music community ever liked, much less embraced, the term 'grunge' as a description for the punk/metal/garage/sludge hybrid which oozed out of Seattle and spread like thick black tar across the world in the early '90s, the word has stuck.
And although Nirvana's Nevermind album is generally acknowledged as the scene's 'breakthrough' record - this despite the fact that Alice In Chains had sold 500,000 copies of Facelift before Smells Like Teen Spirit was released - grunge most definitely didn't start with Kurt Cobain's band, nor did it die with his passing in 1994, less than 9 months on from the release of In Utero, the album the trio considered their finest hour.
In truth, no-one originally expected Nirvana to be the Seattle's Next Big Thing. Sub Pop had high hopes for Tad, who'd received rave reviews for their 1989 debut album God's Balls, while Mudhoney - formed following the break-up of trailblazers Green River - were championed by Britain's weekly music magazines (Sounds, Melody Maker and the New Musical Express) from the moment that import copies of their brilliant 1988 debut single Touch Me I'm Sick got its first plays on John Peel's influential BBC Radio 1 show. Then there was Sub Pop alumni Soundgarden, who signed to A&M Records (via SST) for 1989's Louder Than Love album, and could count members of Metallica and Guns N' Roses as fans, and Screaming Trees, the scene's most combustible unit, fronted by everyone's favourite vocalist, Mark Lanegan.
Perhaps it might have been Mother Love Bone who crashed into the mainstream first, but the death of charismatic and much-loved frontman Andrew Wood from a heroin overdose just days before the scheduled release of their much-anticipated debut record Apple. From the ashes, Pearl Jam would emerge, their 1991 debut album Ten going on to sell 13 million copies in the US alone.
Grunge wasn't confined to Seattle, of course. Minneapolis trio Babes In Toyland smashed out an early scene classic with 1990's Spanking Machine, while San Diego's Stone Temple Pilots, mocked by purists, struck a chord with the record buying public with 1992's Core and its even more successful follow-up Purple.
And let's not forget that some of the most-acclaimed and beloved records of the time were made by friends from different bands bonding. Temple Of The Dog. Mad Season's Above. Brad's Shame. We could go on...
But enough of this nostalgia: let's get down to business. We want to know which grunge record you consider to be the very best. Let us know which of these classics, or maybe another not mentioned here, is the best by writing your arguments in the comments section below.
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