As we know, punk is all about rules and regulations. So it’s crucial that we follow the Louder protocol for one of the key players in punk rock’s best known post-70s subgenre: the movement dubbed ‘grunge’ by one of its foremost influencers, Sub Pop co-founder Bruce Pavitt, who applied the term to proto-Mudhoney/Pearl Jam band, Green River.
Mudhoney’s debut EP Superfuzz Bigmuff was originally released in late 1988. Appropriately titled after the guitar distortion pedals that achieved their trademark mudbound sound, it was a landmark release of the Seattle scene. Superfuzz Bigmuff was a follow-up to the provocative post-AIDS Gen X Mudhoney single, the satirically titled Touch Me I’m Sick: an apathetic two-and-a-half-minute clatter that ushered in grunge. Although later combined with the band's gloriously shambolic first five singles then reissued in album format in 1990, the original release of Superfuzz Bigmuff as an EP means that although it’s an ideal introduction to the band, it doesn’t qualify as an album for this list. Sorry, but them's the rules.
Mudhoney, then: grunge’s The Damned to Nirvana’s Sex Pistols. It’s an enduring mystery why Kurt Cobain and co were feted as grunge superstars when Mudhoney’s tunes clearly outclassed their one-time proteges. But cult status meant longevity not celebrity for the alternative rock legends. Never standing still, their continual development during and since the grunge era forces '70s doom, garage, psyche and blues rock through a punk and hardcore mincer.
Via the faultless lineage of Black Sabbath, The Stooges, Blue Cheer, Hawkwind, Motörhead, and Bad Brains, Mudhoney took the blueprint of grunge progenitors Tales of Terror and Dinosaur Jr, doused it with ethanol, set it on fire, and shot it out of a cannon into the Pacific Northwest. Alt. rock with humourous verve rather than earnest introspection. No band’s sound summed up Pavitt’s ‘grunge’ tag – Nirvana included – better than Mudhoney, but no band once described as grunge evolved beyond it better than them.
Despite the departure of founding bassist Matt Lukin, the otherwise original line-up of Mark Arm (vocals/guitar), Steve Turner (guitar), Dan Peters (drums) – along with Guy Maddison (bass) – are still very much a going concern since their 1988 formation, and just released their 11th studio album, Plastic Eternity.
Without further ado then, here's each of those albums listed, rated and ranked in order of greatness.
