Hype! - (Nirvana, 7 Year Bitch, Blood Circus, Dead Moon)

Description

Doug Pray's entertaining and opinionated documentary on the Seattle music scene takes the (admittedly unusual) position that the Grunge Explosion of the mid-1990s was the worst thing to happen to rock music in the Pacific Northwest. Hype! Depicts Seattle as a town where a fertile musical community with a distinctive sound and style grew largely because it was ignored by the rest of the world. Once the unexpected success of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Sound garden made Seattle the rock capital of the world, drugs took hold, opportunists scrambled for the spotlight, and cheap flannel shirts became "grunge fashion". The movie features revealing (and often hilarious) interviews with members of such groups as Mudhoney, the Mono Men, the Fastbacks, Seven Year Bitch, Tad, Girl Trouble, Gas Huffer, Dead Moon, and the Super suckers, as well as performance footage of all these bands and informed perspectives from a number of behind-the-scenes figures. It also features a technically shaky but historically priceless clip of Nirvana's first public performance of"Smells Like Teen Spirit". The world of grunge. This documentary examines the Seattle scene as it became the focus of a merging of punk rock, heavy metal, and innovation. Building from the grass roots, self-promoted and self-recorded until break-out success of bands like Nirvana brought the record industry to the Pacific Northwest, a phenomenon was born. More than just an examination of the music, this is a look at how this artistic movement became a societal and fashion trend with a major effect on American culture.