No one dared or wanted to admit it at the time, but nü metal and grunge had quite a bit in common.

What’s my positional framework for this claim?

I’m making this claim from just the simple heavy-rock’n’roll perspective; It’s not even necessary to have a global-southern perspective to say this.

In terms of the appearances, geographic origins, and the preferred foundational cultural elements of the bands associated with grunge in the ’90s and with nü metal in the aughts (and late ’90s), most critics I was aware of, as well as I and the other music-obsessed people around me, saw these subgenres of heavy rock as utterly distinct. Perhaps this was because I had lived and continued to live in the PNW. It’s hard to imagine a Portlander in 2005 daring to say Korn and Gas Huffer were alike in any way.

There was always SYSTEM OF A DOWN, whom no one could resist being in awe of, but they were seen as an exception. Here in the PNW, people tended to look down on nü metal. Perhaps we were still resentful that Melvins had not become a national phenomenon. (Perhaps most were glad Melvins didn’t inadvertently sell out, as all bands who happen to succeed and live long enough to enjoy it are said to have done.)

Imagine if Kurt hadn’t killed himself. But I digress.

I noticed this aural similarity most when a lesser-known band called The Union Underground became my obsession for a while in the mid-aughts. The artwork (the “aesthetic”) and the timing was pure nü metal. The sound, though, was not. If you ignored the release date and the artwork — few people can do this, it seems — it sounded like it came from the heyday of grunge. What stood out to me musically was not drop-D tuning and a scattering of hip hop elements. This was much more closely an offspring of Pixies, Melvins, and Gruntruck than of Shootyz Groove, Ice-T, and follow FOR NOW.

I’m probably an aural purist. Many more people, in my experience, view music as a broader phenomenon. They see the outfits, hairstyles, cover art, and other forms of expression and identity, including ethnicity and lifestyle, as part of what makes an artist punk and not pop, industrial and not hip hop. I’m thinking of Avril Lavigne and Consolidated, respectively. Starting with the latter, Consolidated has mostly been considered an industrial act. What they do in their music is to use samplers (I know this from meeting and talking to one of them outside the context of music) and to rap. It seems to me there’s some serious pigeonholing of hip hop by the industry (if not also the fans) when Eminem is part of it, without a doubt, but other white guys who rap about veganism, feminism, and immigration while criticizing bullying, homophobia, and mysoginy over samples are labeled industrial rockers, not hip hop MCs. If we were honest, we would at least, then, include PUBLIC ENEMY in the industrial bucket.

In the case of Avril Lavigne, I have tried to find a song of hers that sounds like punk rock to me. I haven’t found one yet. It’s the same with the “punk idol” of my generation, Billy Idol. He sneered a lot. He was in Generation X, who sang about drinking. He wore spikes and studs. …Must be punk rock!

I like several of his songs; it’s not about not liking his music. I just don’t think those songs have anything to do with the musical genre of punk rock. And it’s not that I’m a pun-rock elitist. It doesn’t all have to be Sex PisTOLS, X-Ray Spex, SUB HUM ANS, or CRASS. I’m happy to include The Stranglers, The Jam, pre-Punk punky bands like The SONICS, DEATH, MC5, and New York Dolls, and even Green Day among what I consider “punk” (though I draw the line at that blinky band).

And punk rock is an excellent example of how much lifestyle and philosophy matter. There may be a way to persuade me that I’m wrong. I realize there’s more to punk than distortion, speed, and some sort of a British working-class accent, whether real or fake. Punk is DIY. Punk is community. Punk is—at least, briefly was—nonconformity. Videos of the very early days of punk reveal people in myriad creative DIY garb well beyond safety pins, fishnets, and dyed glued hair. You see sparkly dresses and people wearing nothing but garbage bags, both fully integrated with the earliest and less conspicuous users of safety pins—out of necessity, not fashion. I don’t think “punk” was about hair color, piercings, sneers, and getting drunk (“punk in drublic” as NOFX put it). As a philosophy, it ranged through the related elements of nihilism, anarchism, pacifism, DIY, community, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, feminism, and challenging gender norms. As music genres, punk rock and its predecessors and offshoots (garage rock and glam rock for the former; hardcore punk, crust, dance punk, second- and third-wave ska, grunge, pop-punk, post-punk, goth, death rock, darkwave, industrial, and new wave for the latter) all have some connection to at least nihilism, pacifism, DIY, challenging gender norms, and anti-racism (the polar opposite being mostly marginal and a short-lived exception). The connection is sometimes textual and sometimes (as in the case of new wave and other post-punk genres) in the choice of instruments and timbres, but often simply aural: in the disaffected delivery, the dark tones, and the behind-the-beat playing (more like blues than disco).

Having said all that, did The Union Underground play grunge? I say they did, and to a notable extent. Did Billy Idol, Avril Lavigne, or Miley Cyrus make any punk rock? They probably did at some point, but I haven’t heard it yet. Are they punks? I don’t know. Since Fat Mike opened a punk museum in Vegas, it doesn’t even matter. (Who would have thought LINKIN PARK would, even accidentally, have the final word on punk!)

Anyway, what made me think of this stuff all over again was listening to VERMILIOIN PT. 2 on SlipknoT‘s awesome VOL. 3: (THE SUBLIMINAL VERSES). I don’t think that song counts as metal of any kind except probably grunge. I’m probably the only person who thinks so.