Lamestains
Grunge, Sub Pop and the Music of the Loser
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Reaktion Books
Published:1st Oct '23
Should be back in stock very soon
This book is a critical history of Sub Pop, the Seattle independent rock label that launched the careers of countless influential ‘grunge’ bands in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It focuses in particular on the languages and personas of the ‘loser’, a term that encompassed the label’s founders and personnel, its flagship bands (including Mudhoney, TAD and Nirvana) and the avid vinyl-collecting fans it rapidly amassed.
The ‘loser’ became (and remains) the key Sub Pop identity, but it also grounded the label in the overt masculinity, sexism and performed transgression of rock history. Rather than the usual reading of grunge as an alternative to the mainstream, Lamestains reveals a more equivocal and complicated relationship that Sub Pop exploited with great success.
Attfield analyzes the indie Sub Pop record label, which helped launch Northwest grunge music. He begins with Bruce Pavitt’s 1980 Subterranean Pop fanzine and moves to the origins of the label with the compilations of the 1986 Sub Pop 100 and the 1988 Sub Pop 200. Viewing the label as both a brilliant marketing tool and a crass, misogynistic, and unabashedly commercial venture, the author chronicles the selling of Sub Pop’s regional punk/metal by using the antihero, anti-corporate, tongue-in-cheek caricature of the bands as primitive losers. The label reinforced this with album inserts, Charles Peterson’s blurry photos, Lame Fest concerts, the limited-edition, colored-vinyl Singles Club, and even "secret" messages hand-etched in records. He critically discusses songs by the fuzzy Mudhoney, the sludgy, pile-driven Tad, and the punk/pop sound of early Nirvana. The book ends with Sub Pop’s 25th-anniversary celebrations. . . . A solid analysis. * Library Journal *
The impact of Sub Pop Records on the music industry isn’t in doubt. What Nicholas Attfield does in this brilliant, impeccably researched and beautifully written book is to illuminate the label’s cultural identity and aesthetic, through a deep dive into its origins, politics and relationship with the mainstream. The result is one of the best and most thought-provoking books I’ve ever read about a record label. * David Barker, University of Derby *
At the heart of Lamestains – Nicholas Attfield's overview of grunge and the contradictions surrounding its formation and popularity – lies a core truth: rock sells individuality and exclusivity to anyone and everyone. To the author's credit, he never shies away from this paradox, instead using it as the jumping off point for a deep dive into a world of distortion, divergence and musical deconstruction. A thoroughly engaging read that is at once heady, harrowing and way insightful. Yes, I recommend it. * Everett True, author of Nirvana: The True Story and Live Through This: American Rock Music in the Nineties *
ISBN: 9781789147063
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
304 pages