In the late 1980s, a handful of Seattle-area bands, by taking post-punk music back in the direction of traditional hard rock, laid the foundation for what became known as
grunge
—a genre that would become a major force in pop music in the early 1990s.
The roots of grunge lie in the recordings of Green River , an early 1980s Seattle-based band, whose songs fused hardcore punk with heavy metal—the quintessential grunge sound. The band split up after a couple of...