It has been said that the last great music scene was Seattle in the early 90s, before, during, and after the Grunge movement exploded onto the charts. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden had an old soul with a new sound.

Washington State had long been disregarded by the cultural centres of California and the East Coast as the land of lumberjacks, farmers, and dock workers. Before Nirvana hit the charts, there was no Seattle sound. David Lynch’s Twin Peaks series, aired in 1990/1991, illustrates the way that Washington State was perceived by the rest of the country. Many out-of-town characters either love Twin Peaks for its old-fashioned Americana, or hate it for its small town, country feel.

Grunge music is, in essence, American country-folk music, with significant levels of distortion added to it. Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell was heavily inspired by The Beatles, Pearl Jam loved the storytelling aspects of The Who’s music, and they brought the energy of these English bands into their music. However, their music does not sound like The Beatles, or The Who.

Instead, a closer relative to the mixture of country-folk music, heavy distortion, and intelligent, poetic lyrics, is the music of Canadian musician Neil Young. Neil Young released what music historians, as well as Grunge musicians themselves, have recognized as the original Grunge album, ‘Rust Never Sleeps’, in 1979, more than a decade before Grunge even existed as a genre.

Here are two examples of the close relationship of respect and awe that Grunge musicians have with Neil Young:

1. Pearl Jam played as Neil Young’s backup band in his 1994 album “Mirror Ball”, which they regarded as an honour, and,

2. Kurt Cobain’s suicide note ended with a lyric from ‘Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)’ [off the “Rust Never Sleeps” album] :

It’s better to burn out, than to fade away

Neil Young is not the only influence on the genre, but he holds an undeniable position of influence in it’s development, and on the life of one it’s most talented and troubled artists.

(In the Nirvana track “Pennyroyal Tea”, Kurt Cobain references another Canadian artist by saying ‘give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally’.)

There are many examples of Canadian music influencing American musicians. For example, Toronto progressive rock band Rush’s album “2112”, is marked as a seminal album by Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, among others, as a modern musical masterpiece, with a story set in a dystopian society, an intergalactic war, a human struggle for freedom, and a personal story of despair and hope, which takes up one half of the vinyl record. Billy Corgan shared in an interview how as a teenager, he used to be able to play the entire 20-odd minutes of the piece on his guitar, from memory.

Canadian musicians, such as Jazz Pianist Oscar Peterson, Folk-Rock outfit The Band, and Alternative-Rock group The Pursuit of Happiness, are often seen as pioneers, creating a unique sound later developed in their respective genres. Bob Dylan’s adoption of electric instruments coincided with his hiring of the artists who would go on to become The Band, as his backup band, in 1965. Electric Jazz pioneer Herbie Hancock understood the Piano as an instrument, and the experimentation one could do with the instrument, from his familiarity with Oscar Peterson’s music. The Pursuit of Happiness’ album ‘Love Junk’, released 1988, was an alternative rock album that preceded and influenced the alt-rock Grunge explosion of the early 1990s, which Nirvana producer Butch Vig listened to regularly during the recording of ‘Nevermind’.

In 2013, Rap star Kanye West started using auto-tune in his music, a method of modifying one’s voice with different effects. This was seen as revolutionary, because Hip-Hop has such a focus on the voice of the artist. But Rap music did not use auto-tune until after Drake and Abel Tesfaye (who performs as ‘The Weeknd’), both born and raised in Toronto, started releasing their own version of ‘street music’, between 2010 and 2012, dealing with drugs, sex, violence, and money, that was melodic rather than jarring. Today, it’s very common for popular music to use voice effects throughout a track, in hip hop, rock, alternative, and pop, but it was not a standard industry technique until after Canadian musicians were recording music that way.

In his 1991 album, “The Future”, Leonard Cohen sings in the title track ‘all the lousy little poets gather round, trying to sound like Charlie Manson’, years before Marilyn Manson ever released an album. It’s unclear whether Brian Warner, who performs under the name Marilyn Manson, ever heard this song, or whether it influenced the stage name he performs under. However, in his 2020 album “We Are Chaos”, Manson quotes Leonard Cohen, a line from Cohen’s song “Anthem” that goes

‘there are cracks in everything, that’s how the light gets in’.

Which is an example not only of musical influence, but, in a way that contrasts Neil Young’s relationship with Kurt Cobain, personal influence, between a Canadian artist’s unique expression and an American who is hungering for a change in their life.

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Addendum: Contrast Between Canadian and American Lyricism

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There is more than just the music to consider here. Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’ album, released in 2013, contains the controversial track ‘I Am A God’, in which he states his own will and power is absolute, that what he sees as right, is right. The Weeknd’s song ‘Heaven or Las Vegas’, released a year earlier, on his debut album ‘Trilogy’, contains the line:

They say they want Heaven/ They say they want God

I say, this is Heaven/ I say, I am God

Kanye, as outspoken as he is, did not claim to be God, even poetically, until 6 albums and a full decade into his career, and according to the lyrics of the song, it is his fame, and popularity, and his status as a billionaire, that gives him that authority. These lyrics were released on The Weeknd’s first album.