La grenade

From the White Stripes to his time in the solo wilderness, Jack White has been foretelling the doom of a clapped-out rock'n'roll. The genius with a thousand projects has a new prophecy: rock is coming back. While we await its return, here's a look back at the White phenomenon.

Around thirty years ago, Seattle became the epicenter of the rock scene, largely thanks to grunge music. The grungy, ‘I don’t care’ attitude rose from the ashes of punk, heavy metal and alt-rock, and instantaneously went from an underground movement to a worldwide success. Perhaps too quickly embraced by the very system it rebuffed, it almost became a caricature of itself by the end of the 1990s. Let’s look back at ten albums that defined the genre.

“If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I'm getting rid of grunge.” It was with this sentence from Damon Albarn in 1993 that England invaded the stage previously dominated by Nirvana and Seattle grunge. Britpop is deeply linked to politics and local identity and emerged just as Tony Blair and New Labour were entering the scene. English romanticism was once again becoming attractive compared to the American identity, which was considered too hollow in the UK. Make way for “Cool Britannia”.