Seattle / Aberdeen

Seattle and the I-5 corridor — including Aberdeen up the coast, where Melvins started. Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover slowed hardcore down until it became something else entirely: sludge, stoner, proto-grunge, whatever you want to call it. The bands that followed owe Melvins everything, Kurt Cobain included. Sub Pop in Seattle turned the whole regional sound into an international industry and then kept going long after grunge died. Not all of Seattle noise rock is grunge-adjacent — but all of it runs through Melvins first.