The first noted instance of referring to a Seattle band as “grunge,” was in a 1981 letter by Mark Arm, according to Clark Humphrey in his account of the Seattle music scene, Loser.1 In his letter, in which he nominated his own “band”, Mr. Epp and the Calculations, as the most overrated band in Seattle, Arm writes: “I hate Mr. Epp and the Calculations! Pure grunge! Pure noise! Pure shit!” (Of course, Epp as a band didn't even exist yet.)

Bruce Pavitt later claimed to have popularized the term as a musical label in 1987, when he wrote some promotional copy for Green River, describing the band as “ultra-loose grunge that destroyed the morals of a generation”.2 Humphrey also notes that a Sub Pop press release described Mudhoney as “ultra sludge, glacial, heavy special, dirty punk.” It was among the many references Sub Pop would make toward “grunge” in its marketing, an exploitation they cheerfully fed to reporters and fans.

In the late 80s, “grunge” did actually define a sound – high levels of distortion, feedback, fuzz effects, a fusion of punk and metal influences. Though the bands attributed to the label definitely had unique talents, there was definitely a similar “sound” there. Much of this had to do with similar production and promotion. Many of these bands were on either the C/Z or Sub Pop record labels. Jack Endino, the so-called “Godfather of Grunge” recorded Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Green River, Nirvana and Blood Circus between 1984 and 1989.

But, by 1990, “grunge,” as a synonym for loud, heavy music, had peaked. Bands like Green River, the U-Men, Cat Butt, Feast and Blood Circus had broken up; Mudhoney and Soundgarden were veering into a new sound, and the scene was full of bands that didn’t fit the original label, like the Fastbacks, Young Fresh Fellows, Posies, Walkabouts and Beat Happening. (Even Nirvana, now liberated from the more restrictive sound requirements of Sub Pop, wanted to go into a poppier direction. Their more commercial approach was apparent in their breakthrough album, 1991’s Nevermind.) The 80s version of grunge, with long-haired musicians wailing away in front of tiny crowds at squalid clubs like the Central Tavern or Squid Row, was dead.

In 1991, Nirvana’s Nevermind album, Pearl Jam’s Ten, and Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger were all released, and the following year, Alice in Chains released their landmark album, Dirt. With four huge alternative stars all hailing from the same region, the music media wanted a label to describe this new Seattle sound. Despite the music sounding significantly different from each other (and from bands that originally carried the "grunge" label), the “big four” Seattle bands were all labelled as grunge. Any other bands from Seattle at the time, were lumped into the category as well. Ben London of Alcohol Funnycar described it like this: “If you lived in Seattle and were under 30 at that point, you were grunge,” no matter what your band sounded like.

While inaccurate, the grunge label was convenient. For years, MTV and mainstream music magazines used grunge in almost every reference to Pearl Jam, Nirvana or Seattle music. The people directly involved with the music scene, however, hated the term. Former Rocket writer and Sub Pop staffer Jeff Gilbert said the word was like “talking to someone with bad breath: you could put up with it, you still wanted to distance yourself.” Ben Shepherd of Soundgarden put it a little more succinctly: “Grunge was a fucking word used in TV commercials about scum on your shower curtains.” Stone Gossard told an interviewer in the 90s that he refused to even say the word.