Music Friday: "Say Hello to Heaven," "Pushin' Forward Back," & "Hunger Strike"

I've been watching this Metal Evolution documentary by filmmaker Sam Dunn on VH1 Classic since it started. It's been interesting.

Although I wouldn't consider myself to be a heavy metal enthusiast, I certainly like and listen to a number of bands that could be considered metal or at least influenced by metal--Metallica, Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, Soundgarden, Rollins Band, Van Halen, and others. Unfortunately, many of the metal or hard rock bands I grew up with were during the audio cassette era, so when I jumped to CDs all that got lost for the most part. I didn't want to shell out more money for CDs of Pyromania by Def Leppard or Turbo by Judas Priest. By the time I was buying CDs, I was interested in different and more diverse music.

But in last week's episode of Metal Evolution, Mr. Dunn traveled to Seattle because in his genealogy of metal, he lists "Grunge Metal" as a strand.

I don't buy grunge as a strand of metal music. Most of it is/was heavy and guitar-oriented. However, it's more of what I would consider to be hard rock, which itself is a slippery concept.

Nevertheless, grunge was a needed antidote/corrective/death knell to the glut of glam metal bands that were at the forefront of the music industry in the late 80s and early 90s.

In other words, @#$% power ballads and hairspray bands.

So for this Music Friday, I offer three songs from the important Temple of the Dog collaboration, an album that came out in 1991.