title: Opium

text: Poppy seeds are a common and flavorsome topping for breads and cakes. One gram of poppy seeds contains up to 33 micrograms of morphine and 14 micrograms of codeine, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the United States formerly mandated that all drug screening laboratories use a standard cutoff of 300 nanograms per milliliter in urine samples. A single poppy seed roll (0.76 grams of seeds) usually did not produce a positive drug test, but a positive result was observed from eating two rolls. A slice of poppy seed cake containing nearly five grams of seeds per slice produced positive results for 24 hours. Such results are viewed as false positive indications of drug use and were the basis of a legal defense. On November 30, 1998, the standard cutoff was increased to 2000 nanograms (two micrograms) per milliliter. Confirmation by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry will distinguish amongst opium and variants including poppy seeds, heroin, and morphine and codeine pharmaceuticals by measuring the morphine:codeine ratio and looking for the presence of noscapine and acetylcodeine, the latter of which is only found in illicitly produced heroin, and heroin metabolites such as 6-monoacetylmorphine.


title: Opium

text: When grown for opium production, the skin of the ripening pods of these poppies is scored by a sharp blade at a time carefully chosen so that rain, wind, and dew cannot spoil the exudation of white, milky latex, usually in the afternoon. Incisions are made while the pods are still raw, with no more than a slight yellow tint, and must be shallow to avoid penetrating hollow inner chambers or "loculi" while cutting into the lactiferous vessels. In the Indian Subcontinent, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Iran, the special tool used to make the incisions is called a "nushtar" or "nishtar" (from Persian, meaning a lancet) and carries three or four blades three millimeters apart, which are scored upward along the pod. Incisions are made three or four times at intervals of two to three days, and each time the "poppy tears", which dry to a sticky brown resin, are collected the following morning. One acre harvested in this way can produce three to five kilograms of raw opium. In the Soviet Union, pods were typically scored horizontally, and opium was collected three times, or else one or two collections were followed by isolation of opiates from the ripe capsules. Oil poppies, an alternative strain of "P. somniferum", were also used for production of opiates from their capsules and stems. A traditional Chinese method of harvesting opium latex involved cutting off the heads and piercing them with a coarse needle then collecting the dried opium 24 to 48 hours later.


title: Opium

text: Raw opium may be sold to a merchant or broker on the black market, but it usually does not travel far from the field before it is refined into morphine base, because pungent, jelly-like raw opium is bulkier and harder to smuggle. Crude laboratories in the field are capable of refining opium into morphine base by a simple acid-base extraction. A sticky, brown paste, morphine base is pressed into bricks and sun-dried, and can either be smoked, prepared into other forms or processed into heroin.


title: Opium

text: Other methods of preparation (besides smoking), include processing into regular opium tincture ("tinctura opii"), laudanum, paregoric ("tinctura opii camphorata"), herbal wine (e.g., "vinum opii"), opium powder ("pulvis opii"), opium sirup ("sirupus opii") and opium extract ("extractum opii"). Vinum opii is made by combining sugar, white wine, cinnamon, and cloves. Opium syrup is made by combining 97.5 part sugar syrup with 2.5 parts opium extract. Opium extract ("extractum opii") finally can be made by macerating raw opium with water. To make opium extract, 20 parts water are combined with 1 part raw opium which has been boiled for 5 minutes (the latter to ease mixing).


title: Opium

text: Heroin is widely preferred because of increased potency. One study in postaddicts found heroin to be approximately 2.2 times more potent than morphine by weight with a similar duration; at these relative quantities, they could distinguish the drugs subjectively but had no preference. Heroin was also found to be twice as potent as morphine in surgical anesthesia. Morphine is converted into heroin by a simple chemical reaction with acetic anhydride, followed by purification. Especially in Mexican production, opium may be converted directly to "black tar heroin" in a simplified procedure. This form predominates in the U.S. west of the Mississippi. Relative to other preparations of heroin, it has been associated with a dramatically decreased rate of HIV transmission among intravenous drug users (4 percent in Los Angeles vs. 40 percent in New York) due to technical requirements of injection, although it is also associated with greater risk of venous sclerosis and necrotizing fasciitis.


title: Opium

text: Afghanistan is currently the primary producer of the drug. After regularly producing 70 percent of the world's opium, Afghanistan decreased production to 74 tons per year under a ban by the Taliban in 2000, a move which cut production by 94 percent. A year later, after American and British troops invaded Afghanistan, removed the Taliban and installed the interim government, the land under cultivation leapt back to , with Afghanistan supplanting Burma to become the world's largest opium producer once more. Opium production in that country has increased rapidly since, reaching an all-time high in 2006. According to DEA statistics, Afghanistan's production of oven-dried opium increased to 1,278 tons in 2002, more than doubled by 2003, and nearly doubled again during 2004. In late 2004, the U.S. government estimated that 206,000 hectares were under poppy cultivation, 4.5 percent of the country's total cropland, and produced 4,200 metric tons of opium, 76 percent of the world's supply, yielding 60 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product. In 2006, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimated production to have risen 59 percent to in cultivation, yielding 6,100 tons of opium, 82 percent of the world's supply. The value of the resulting heroin was estimated at , of which Afghan farmers were estimated to have received in revenue. For farmers, the crop can be up to ten times more profitable than wheat. The price of opium is around per kilo. Opium production has led to rising tensions in Afghan villages. Though direct conflict has yet to occur, the opinions of the new class of young rich men involved in the opium trade are at odds with those of the traditional village leaders.


title: Opium

text: An increasingly large fraction of opium is processed into morphine base and heroin in drug labs in Afghanistan. Despite an international set of chemical controls designed to restrict availability of acetic anhydride, it enters the country, perhaps through its Central Asian neighbors which do not participate. A counternarcotics law passed in December 2005 requires Afghanistan to develop registries or regulations for tracking, storing, and owning acetic anhydride.


title: Opium

text: Besides Afghanistan, smaller quantities of opium are produced in Pakistan, the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia (particularly Burma), Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico.


title: Opium

text: Chinese production mainly trades with and profits from North America. In 2002, they were seeking to expand through eastern United States. In the post 9/11 era, trading between borders became difficult and because new international laws were set into place, the opium trade became more diffused. Power shifted from remote to high-end smugglers and opium traders. Outsourcing became a huge factor for survival for many smugglers and opium farmers.


title: Opium

text: Legal opium production is allowed under the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and other international drug treaties, subject to strict supervision by the law enforcement agencies of individual countries. The leading legal production method is the Robertson-Gregory process, whereby the entire poppy, excluding roots and leaves, is mashed and stewed in dilute acid solutions. The alkaloids are then recovered via acid-base extraction and purified. The exact date of its discovery is unknown, but it was described by Wurtz in his "Dictionnaire de chimie pure et appliquée" published in 1868.


title: Opium

text: Legal opium production in India is much more traditional. As of 2008, opium was collected by farmers who were licensed to grow of opium poppies, who to maintain their licences needed to sell 56 kilograms of unadulterated raw opium paste. The price of opium paste is fixed by the government according to the quality and quantity tendered. The average is around 1500 rupees () per kilogram. Some additional money is made by drying the poppy heads and collecting poppy seeds, and a small fraction of opium beyond the quota may be consumed locally or diverted to the black market. The opium paste is dried and processed into government opium and alkaloid factories before it is packed into cases of 60 kilograms for export. Purification of chemical constituents is done in India for domestic production, but typically done abroad by foreign importers.


title: Opium

text: Legal opium importation from India and Turkey is conducted by Mallinckrodt, Noramco, Abbott Laboratories, Purdue Pharma, and Cody Laboratories Inc. in the United States, and legal opium production is conducted by GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Johnson Matthey, and Mayne in Tasmania, Australia; Sanofi Aventis in France; Shionogi Pharmaceutical in Japan; and MacFarlan Smith in the United Kingdom. The UN treaty requires that every country submit annual reports to the International Narcotics Control Board, stating that year's actual consumption of many classes of controlled drugs as well as opioids and projecting required quantities for the next year. This is to allow trends in consumption to be monitored and production quotas allotted.


title: Opium

text: In 2005, the European Senlis Council began developing a programme which hopes to solve the problems caused by the large quantity of opium produced illegally in Afghanistan, most of which is converted to heroin and smuggled for sale in Europe and the United States. This proposal is to license Afghan farmers to produce opium for the world pharmaceutical market, and thereby solve another problem, that of chronic underuse of potent analgesics where required within developing nations. Part of the proposal is to overcome the "80–20 rule" that requires the U.S. to purchase 80 percent of its legal opium from India and Turkey to include Afghanistan, by establishing a second-tier system of supply control that complements the current INCB regulated supply and demand system by providing poppy-based medicines to countries who cannot meet their demand under the current regulations. Senlis arranged a conference in Kabul that brought drug policy experts from around the world to meet with Afghan government officials to discuss internal security, corruption issues, and legal issues within Afghanistan.


title: Opium

text: In June 2007, the Council launched a "Poppy for Medicines" project that provides a technical blueprint for the implementation of an integrated control system within Afghan village-based poppy for medicine projects: the idea promotes the economic diversification by redirecting proceeds from the legal cultivation of poppy and production of poppy-based medicines. There has been criticism of the Senlis report findings by Macfarlan Smith, who argue that though they produce morphine in Europe, they were never asked to contribute to the report.


title: Opium

text: In late 2006, the British government permitted the pharmaceutical company MacFarlan Smith (a Johnson Matthey company) to cultivate opium poppies in England for medicinal reasons, after Macfarlan Smith's primary source, India, decided to increase the price of export opium latex. This move is well received by British farmers, with a major opium poppy field located in Didcot, England. The British government has contradicted the Home Office's suggestion that opium cultivation can be legalized in Afghanistan for exports to the United Kingdom, helping lower poverty and internal fighting while helping the NHS to meet the high demand for morphine and heroin. Opium poppy cultivation in the United Kingdom does not need a licence, but a licence is required for those wishing to extract opium for medicinal products.


title: Opium

text: In the industrialized world, the United States is the world's biggest consumer of prescription opioids, with Italy one of the lowest because of tighter regulations on prescribing narcotics for pain relief. Most opium imported into the United States is broken down into its alkaloid constituents, and whether legal or illegal, most current drug use occurs with processed derivatives such as heroin rather than with unrefined opium.


title: Opium

text: Intravenous injection of opiates is most used: by comparison with injection, "dragon chasing" (heating of heroin on a piece of foil), and madak and "ack ack" (smoking of cigarettes containing tobacco mixed with heroin powder) are only 40 percent and 20 percent efficient, respectively. One study of British heroin addicts found a 12-fold excess mortality ratio (1.8 percent of the group dying per year). Most heroin deaths result not from overdose "per se", but combination with other depressant drugs such as alcohol or benzodiazepines.


title: Opium

text: The smoking of opium does not involve the burning of the material as might be imagined. Rather, the prepared opium is indirectly heated to temperatures at which the active alkaloids, chiefly morphine, are vaporized. In the past, smokers would use a specially designed opium pipe which had a removable knob-like pipe-bowl of fired earthenware attached by a metal fitting to a long, cylindrical stem. A small "pill" of opium about the size of a pea would be placed on the pipe-bowl, which was then heated by holding it over an opium lamp, a special oil lamp with a distinct funnel-like chimney to channel heat into a small area. The smoker would lie on his or her side in order to guide the pipe-bowl and the tiny pill of opium over the stream of heat rising from the chimney of the oil lamp and inhale the vaporized opium fumes as needed. Several pills of opium were smoked at a single session depending on the smoker's tolerance to the drug. The effects could last up to twelve hours.


title: Opium

text: In Eastern culture, opium is more commonly used in the form of paregoric to treat diarrhea. This is a weaker solution than laudanum, an alcoholic tincture which was prevalently used as a pain medication and sleeping aid. Tincture of opium has been prescribed for, among other things, severe diarrhea. Taken thirty minutes prior to meals, it significantly slows intestinal motility, giving the intestines greater time to absorb fluid in the stool.


title: Opium

text: Despite the historically negative view of opium as a cause of addiction, the use of morphine and other derivatives isolated from opium in the treatment of chronic pain has been reestablished. If given in controlled doses, modern opiates can be an effective treatment for neuropathic pain and other forms of chronic pain.


title: Opium

text: Opium contains two main groups of alkaloids. Phenanthrenes such as morphine, codeine, and thebaine are the main psychoactive constituents. Isoquinolines such as papaverine and noscapine have no significant central nervous system effects. Morphine is the most prevalent and important alkaloid in opium, consisting of 10–16 percent of the total, and is responsible for most of its harmful effects such as lung edema, respiratory difficulties, coma, or cardiac or respiratory collapse. Morphine binds to and activates mu opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, stomach and intestine. Regular use can lead to drug tolerance or physical dependence. Chronic opium addicts in 1906 China or modern-day Iran consume an average of eight grams of opium daily.


title: Opium

text: Both analgesia and drug addiction are functions of the mu opioid receptor, the class of opioid receptor first identified as responsive to morphine. Tolerance is associated with the superactivation of the receptor, which may be affected by the degree of endocytosis caused by the opioid administered, and leads to a superactivation of cyclic AMP signaling. Long-term use of morphine in palliative care and the management of chronic pain always entails a risk that the patient develops tolerance or physical dependence. There are many kinds of rehabilitation treatment, including pharmacologically based treatments with naltrexone, methadone, or ibogaine.


title: Opium

text: In 2021, the International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded that opium is a Group 1 (sufficient evidence) human carcinogen, causing cancers of the larynx, lung, and urinary bladder.


title: Opium

text: Some slang terms for opium include: "Big O", "Shanghai Sally", "dope", "hop", "midnight oil", "O.P.", and "tar". "Dope" and "tar" can also refer to heroin. The traditional opium pipe is known as a "dream stick." The term "dope" entered the English language in the early nineteenth century, originally referring to viscous liquids, particularly sauces or gravy.  It has been used to refer to opiates since at least 1888, and this usage arose because opium, when prepared for smoking, is viscous.


title: Deer

text: Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer (caribou), white-tailed deer, the roe deer, and the moose. Male deer of all species (except the water deer), as well as female reindeer, grow and shed new antlers each year. In this they differ from permanently horned antelope, which are part of a different family (Bovidae) within the same order of even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla).


title: Deer

text: The musk deer (Moschidae) of Asia and chevrotains (Tragulidae) of tropical African and Asian forests are separate families that are also in the ruminant clade Ruminantia; they are not especially closely related to Cervidae.


title: Deer

text: Deer appear in art from Paleolithic cave paintings onwards, and they have played a role in mythology, religion, and literature throughout history, as well as in heraldry, such as red deer that appear in the coat of arms of Åland. Their economic importance includes the use of their meat as venison, their skins as soft, strong buckskin, and their antlers as handles for knives. Deer hunting has been a popular activity since the Middle Ages and remains a resource for many families today.


title: Deer

text: The word "deer" was originally broad in meaning, becoming more specific with time. Old English "dēor" and Middle English "der" meant a wild animal of any kind. Cognates of Old English "dēor" in other dead Germanic languages have the general sense of "animal", such as Old High German "tior", Old Norse "djur" or "dȳr", Gothic "dius", Old Saxon "dier", and Old Frisian "diar". This general sense gave way to the modern English sense by the end of the Middle English period, around 1500. All modern Germanic languages save English and Scots retain the more general sense: for example, German "Tier" and Norwegian "dyr" mean "animal".


title: Deer

text: For many types of deer in modern English usage, the male is a "buck" and the female a "doe", but the terms vary with dialect, and according to the size of the species. The male red deer is a "stag", while for other large species the male is a "bull", the female a "cow", as in cattle. In older usage, the male of any species is a "hart", especially if over five years old, and the female is a "hind", especially if three or more years old. The young of small species is a "fawn" and of large species a "calf"; a very small young may be a "kid". A castrated male is a "havier". A group of any species is a "herd". The adjective of relation is ""; like the family name "Cervidae", this is from , meaning "stag" or "deer".


title: Deer

text: Deer live in a variety of biomes, ranging from tundra to the tropical rainforest. While often associated with forests, many deer are ecotone species that live in transitional areas between forests and thickets (for cover) and prairie and savanna (open space). The majority of large deer species inhabit temperate mixed deciduous forest, mountain mixed coniferous forest, tropical seasonal/dry forest, and savanna habitats around the world. Clearing open areas within forests to some extent may actually benefit deer populations by exposing the understory and allowing the types of grasses, weeds, and herbs to grow that deer like to eat. Access to adjacent croplands may also benefit deer. Adequate forest or brush cover must still be provided for populations to grow and thrive.


title: Deer

text: Deer are widely distributed, with indigenous representatives in all continents except Antarctica and Australia, though Africa has only one native deer, the Barbary stag, a subspecies of red deer that is confined to the Atlas Mountains in the northwest of the continent. Another extinct species of deer, "Megaceroides algericus," was present in North Africa until 6000 years ago. Fallow deer have been introduced to South Africa. Small species of brocket deer and pudús of Central and South America, and muntjacs of Asia generally occupy dense forests and are less often seen in open spaces, with the possible exception of the Indian muntjac. There are also several species of deer that are highly specialized and live almost exclusively in mountains, grasslands, swamps, and "wet" savannas, or riparian corridors surrounded by deserts. Some deer have a circumpolar distribution in both North America and Eurasia. Examples include the caribou that live in Arctic tundra and taiga (boreal forests) and moose that inhabit taiga and adjacent areas. Huemul deer (taruca and Chilean huemul) of South America's Andes fill the ecological niches of the ibex and wild goat, with the fawns behaving more like goat kids.


title: Deer

text: The highest concentration of large deer species in temperate North America lies in the Canadian Rocky Mountain and Columbia Mountain regions between Alberta and British Columbia where all five North American deer species (white-tailed deer, mule deer, caribou, elk, and moose) can be found. This region has several clusters of national parks including Mount Revelstoke National Park, Glacier National Park (Canada), Yoho National Park, and Kootenay National Park on the British Columbia side, and Banff National Park, Jasper National Park, and Glacier National Park (U.S.) on the Alberta and Montana sides. Mountain slope habitats vary from moist coniferous/mixed forested habitats to dry subalpine/pine forests with alpine meadows higher up. The foothills and river valleys between the mountain ranges provide a mosaic of cropland and deciduous parklands. The rare woodland caribou have the most restricted range living at higher altitudes in the subalpine meadows and alpine tundra areas of some of the mountain ranges. Elk and mule deer both migrate between the alpine meadows and lower coniferous forests and tend to be most common in this region. Elk also inhabit river valley bottomlands, which they share with White-tailed deer. The White-tailed deer have recently expanded their range within the foothills and river valley bottoms of the Canadian Rockies owing to conversion of land to cropland and the clearing of coniferous forests allowing more deciduous vegetation to grow up the mountain slopes. They also live in the aspen parklands north of Calgary and Edmonton, where they share habitat with the moose. The adjacent Great Plains grassland habitats are left to herds of elk, American bison, and pronghorn.


title: Deer

text: The Eurasian Continent (including the Indian Subcontinent) boasts the most species of deer in the world, with most species being found in Asia. Europe, in comparison, has lower diversity in plant and animal species. Many national parks and protected reserves in Europe have populations of red deer, roe deer, and fallow deer. These species have long been associated with the continent of Europe, but also inhabit Asia Minor, the Caucasus Mountains, and Northwestern Iran. "European" fallow deer historically lived over much of Europe during the Ice Ages, but afterwards became restricted primarily to the Anatolian Peninsula, in present-day Turkey.


title: Deer

text: Present-day fallow deer populations in Europe are a result of historic man-made introductions of this species, first to the Mediterranean regions of Europe, then eventually to the rest of Europe. They were initially park animals that later escaped and reestablished themselves in the wild. Historically, Europe's deer species shared their deciduous forest habitat with other herbivores, such as the extinct tarpan (forest horse), extinct aurochs (forest ox), and the endangered wisent (European bison). Good places to see deer in Europe include the Scottish Highlands, the Austrian Alps, the wetlands between Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, and some National Parks, including Doñana National Park in Spain, the Veluwe in the Netherlands, the Ardennes in Belgium, and Białowieża National Park in Poland. Spain, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus Mountains have forest areas that are not only home to sizable deer populations but also other animals that were once abundant such as the wisent, Eurasian lynx, Iberian lynx, wolves, and brown bears.


title: Deer

text: The highest concentration of large deer species in temperate Asia occurs in the mixed deciduous forests, mountain coniferous forests, and taiga bordering North Korea, Manchuria (Northeastern China), and the Ussuri Region (Russia). These are among some of the richest deciduous and coniferous forests in the world where one can find Siberian roe deer, sika deer, elk, and moose. Asian caribou occupy the northern fringes of this region along the Sino-Russian border.


title: Deer

text: Deer such as the sika deer, Thorold's deer, Central Asian red deer, and elk have historically been farmed for their antlers by Han Chinese, Turkic peoples, Tungusic peoples, Mongolians, and Koreans. Like the Sami people of Finland and Scandinavia, the Tungusic peoples, Mongolians, and Turkic peoples of Southern Siberia, Northern Mongolia, and the Ussuri Region have also taken to raising semi-domesticated herds of Asian caribou.


title: Deer

text: The highest concentration of large deer species in the tropics occurs in Southern Asia in India's Indo-Gangetic Plain Region and Nepal's Terai Region. These fertile plains consist of tropical seasonal moist deciduous, dry deciduous forests, and both dry and wet savannas that are home to chital, hog deer, barasingha, Indian sambar, and Indian muntjac. Grazing species such as the endangered barasingha and very common chital are gregarious and live in large herds. Indian sambar can be gregarious but are usually solitary or live in smaller herds. Hog deer are solitary and have lower densities than Indian muntjac. Deer can be seen in several national parks in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka of which Kanha National Park, Dudhwa National Park, and Chitwan National Park are most famous. Sri Lanka's Wilpattu National Park and Yala National Park have large herds of Indian sambar and chital. The Indian sambar are more gregarious in Sri Lanka than other parts of their range and tend to form larger herds than elsewhere.


title: Deer

text: The Chao Praya River Valley of Thailand was once primarily tropical seasonal moist deciduous forest and wet savanna that hosted populations of hog deer, the now-extinct Schomburgk's deer, Eld's deer, Indian sambar, and Indian muntjac. Both the hog deer and Eld's deer are rare, whereas Indian sambar and Indian muntjac thrive in protected national parks, such as Khao Yai. Many of these South Asian and Southeast Asian deer species also share their habitat with other herbivores, such as Asian elephants, the various Asian rhinoceros species, various antelope species (such as nilgai, four-horned antelope, blackbuck, and Indian gazelle in India), and wild oxen (such as wild Asian water buffalo, gaur, banteng, and kouprey). One way that different herbivores can survive together in a given area is for each species to have different food preferences, although there may be some overlap.


title: Deer

text: As a result of acclimatisation society releases in the 19th century, Australia has six introduced species of deer that have established sustainable wild populations. They are fallow deer, red deer, sambar, hog deer, rusa, and chital. Red deer were introduced into New Zealand in 1851 from English and Scottish stock. Many have been domesticated in deer farms since the late 1960s and are common farm animals there now. Seven other species of deer were introduced into New Zealand but none are as widespread as red deer.


title: Deer

text: Deer constitute the second most diverse family of artiodactyla after bovids. Though of a similar build, deer are strongly distinguished from antelopes by their antlers, which are temporary and regularly regrown unlike the permanent horns of bovids. Characteristics typical of deer include long, powerful legs, a diminutive tail and long ears. Deer exhibit a broad variation in physical proportions. The largest extant deer is the moose, which is nearly tall and weighs up to . The elk stands at the shoulder and weighs . The northern pudu is the smallest deer in the world; it reaches merely at the shoulder and weighs . The southern pudu is only slightly taller and heavier. Sexual dimorphism is quite pronounced – in most species males tend to be larger than females, and, except for the reindeer, only males possess antlers.


title: Deer

text: Coat colour generally varies between red and brown, though it can be as dark as chocolate brown in the tufted deer or have a grayish tinge as in elk. Different species of brocket deer vary from gray to reddish brown in coat colour. Several species such as the chital, the fallow deer and the sika deer feature white spots on a brown coat. Coat of reindeer shows notable geographical variation. Deer undergo two moults in a year; for instance, in red deer the red, thin-haired summer coat is gradually replaced by the dense, greyish brown winter coat in autumn, which in turn gives way to the summer coat in the following spring. Moulting is affected by the photoperiod.


title: Deer

text: Deer are also excellent jumpers and swimmers. Deer are ruminants, or cud-chewers, and have a four-chambered stomach. Some deer, such as those on the island of Rùm, do consume meat when it is available.


title: Deer

text: Nearly all deer have a facial gland in front of each eye. The gland contains a strongly scented pheromone, used to mark its home range. Bucks of a wide range of species open these glands wide when angry or excited. All deer have a liver without a gallbladder. Deer also have a tapetum lucidum, which gives them sufficiently good night vision.


title: Deer

text: All male deer possess antlers, with the exception of the water deer, in which males have long tusk-like canines that reach below the lower jaw. Females generally lack antlers, though female reindeer bear antlers smaller and less branched than those of the males. Occasionally females in other species may develop antlers, especially in telemetacarpal deer such as European roe deer, red deer, white-tailed deer and mule deer and less often in plesiometacarpal deer. A study of antlered female white-tailed deer noted that antlers tend to be small and malformed, and are shed frequently around the time of parturition.


title: Deer

text: The fallow deer and the various subspecies of the reindeer have the largest as well as the heaviest antlers, both in absolute terms as well as in proportion to body mass (an average of eight grams per kilogram of body mass); the tufted deer, on the other hand, has the smallest antlers of all deer, while the pudú has the lightest antlers with respect to body mass (0.6 g per kilogram of body mass). The structure of antlers show considerable variation; while fallow deer and elk antlers are palmate (with a broad central portion), white-tailed deer antlers include a series of tines sprouting upward from a forward-curving main beam, and those of the pudú are mere spikes. Antler development begins from the pedicel, a bony structure that appears on the top of the skull by the time the animal is a year old. The pedicel gives rise to a spiky antler the following year, that is replaced by a branched antler in the third year. This process of losing a set of antlers to develop a larger and more branched set continues for the rest of the life. The antlers emerge as soft tissues (known as velvet antlers) and progressively harden into bony structures (known as hard antlers), following mineralisation and blockage of blood vessels in the tissue, from the tip to the base.


title: Deer

text: Antlers might be one of the most exaggerated male secondary sexual characteristics, and are intended primarily for reproductive success through sexual selection and for combat. The tines (forks) on the antlers create grooves that allow another male's antlers to lock into place. This allows the males to wrestle without risking injury to the face. Antlers are correlated to an individual's position in the social hierarchy and its behaviour. For instance, the heavier the antlers, the higher the individual's status in the social hierarchy, and the greater the delay in shedding the antlers; males with larger antlers tend to be more aggressive and dominant over others. Antlers can be an honest signal of genetic quality; males with larger antlers relative to body size tend to have increased resistance to pathogens and higher reproductive capacity.


title: Deer

text: Homology of tines, that is, the branching structure of antlers among species, have been discussed before the 1900s. Recently, a new method to describe the branching structure of antlers and determining homology of tines was developed.


title: Deer

text: Most deer bear 32 teeth; the corresponding dental formula is: . The elk and the reindeer may be exceptions, as they may retain their upper canines and thus have 34 teeth (dental formula: ). The Chinese water deer, tufted deer, and muntjac have enlarged upper canine teeth forming sharp tusks, while other species often lack upper canines altogether. The cheek teeth of deer have crescent ridges of enamel, which enable them to grind a wide variety of vegetation. The teeth of deer are adapted to feeding on vegetation, and like other ruminants, they lack upper incisors, instead having a tough pad at the front of their upper jaw.


title: Deer

text: Deer are browsers, and feed primarily on foliage of grasses, sedges, forbs, shrubs and trees, secondarily on lichens in northern latitudes during winter. They have small, unspecialized stomachs by ruminant standards, and high nutrition requirements. Rather than eating and digesting vast quantities of low-grade fibrous food as, for example, sheep and cattle do, deer select easily digestible shoots, young leaves, fresh grasses, soft twigs, fruit, fungi, and lichens. The low-fibered food, after minimal fermentation and shredding, passes rapidly through the alimentary canal. The deer require a large amount of minerals such as calcium and phosphate in order to support antler growth, and this further necessitates a nutrient-rich diet. There are some reports of deer engaging in carnivorous activity, such as eating dead alewives along lakeshores or depredating the nests of northern bobwhites.


title: Deer

text: Nearly all cervids are so-called uniparental species: the young, known in most species as fawns, are only cared for by the mother, most often called a doe. A doe generally has one or two fawns at a time (triplets, while not unknown, are uncommon). Mating season typically begins in later August and lasts until December. Some species mate until early March. The gestation period is anywhere up to ten months for the European roe deer. Most fawns are born with their fur covered with white spots, though in many species they lose these spots by the end of their first winter. In the first twenty minutes of a fawn's life, the fawn begins to take its first steps. Its mother licks it clean until it is almost free of scent, so predators will not find it. Its mother leaves often to graze, and the fawn does not like to be left behind. Sometimes its mother must gently push it down with her foot. The fawn stays hidden in the grass for one week until it is strong enough to walk with its mother. The fawn and its mother stay together for about one year. A male usually leaves and never sees his mother again, but females sometimes come back with their own fawns and form small herds.


title: Deer

text: In some areas of the UK, deer (especially fallow deer due to their gregarious behaviour) have been implicated as a possible reservoir for transmission of bovine tuberculosis, a disease which in the UK in 2005 cost £90 million in attempts to eradicate. In New Zealand, deer are thought to be important as vectors picking up "M. bovis" in areas where brushtail possums "Trichosurus vulpecula" are infected, and transferring it to previously uninfected possums when their carcasses are scavenged elsewhere. The white-tailed deer "Odocoileus virginianus" has been confirmed as the sole maintenance host in the Michigan outbreak of bovine tuberculosis which remains a significant barrier to the US nationwide eradication of the disease in livestock. Moose and deer can carry rabies.


title: Deer

text: Docile moose may suffer from brain worm, a helminth which drills holes through the brain in its search for a suitable place to lay its eggs. A government biologist states that "They move around looking for the right spot and never really find it." Deer appear to be immune to this parasite; it passes through the digestive system and is excreted in the feces. The parasite is not screened by the moose intestine, and passes into the brain where damage is done that is externally apparent, both in behaviour and in gait.


title: Deer

text: Deer, elk and moose in North America may suffer from chronic wasting disease, which was identified at a Colorado laboratory in the 1960s and is believed to be a prion disease. Out of an abundance of caution hunters are advised to avoid contact with specified risk material (SRM) such as the brain, spinal column or lymph nodes. Deboning the meat when butchering and sanitizing the knives and other tools used to butcher are amongst other government recommendations.


title: Deer

text: Deer are believed to have evolved from antlerless, tusked ancestors that resembled modern duikers and diminutive deer in the early Eocene, and gradually developed into the first antlered cervoids (the superfamily of cervids and related extinct families) in the Miocene. Eventually, with the development of antlers, the tusks as well as the upper incisors disappeared. Thus, evolution of deer took nearly 30 million years. Biologist Valerius Geist suggests evolution to have occurred in stages. There are not many prominent fossils to trace this evolution, but only fragments of skeletons and antlers that might be easily confused with false antlers of non-cervid species.


title: Deer

text: The ruminants, ancestors of the Cervidae, are believed to have evolved from "Diacodexis", the earliest known artiodactyl (even-toed ungulate), 50–55 Mya in the Eocene. "Diacodexis", nearly the size of a rabbit, featured the talus bone characteristic of all modern even-toed ungulates. This ancestor and its relatives occurred throughout North America and Eurasia, but were on the decline by at least 46 Mya. Analysis of a nearly complete skeleton of "Diacodexis" discovered in 1982 gave rise to speculation that this ancestor could be closer to the non-ruminants than the ruminants. "Andromeryx" is another prominent prehistoric ruminant, but appears to be closer to the tragulids.


title: Deer

text: The formation of the Himalayas and the Alps brought about significant geographic changes. This was the chief reason behind the extensive diversification of deer-like forms and the emergence of cervids from the Oligocene to the early Pliocene. The latter half of the Oligocene (28–34 Mya) saw the appearance of the European "Eumeryx" and the North American "Leptomeryx". The latter resembled modern-day bovids and cervids in dental morphology (for instance, it had brachyodont molars), while the former was more advanced. Other deer-like forms included the North American "Blastomeryx" and the European "Dremotherium"; these sabre-toothed animals are believed to have been the direct ancestors of all modern antlered deer, though they themselves lacked antlers. Another contemporaneous form was the four-horned protoceratid "Protoceras", that was replaced by "Syndyoceras" in the Miocene; these animals were unique in having a horn on the nose. Late Eocene fossils dated approximately 35 million years ago, which were found in North America, show that "Syndyoceras" had bony skull outgrowths that resembled non-deciduous antlers.


title: Deer

text: Fossil evidence suggests that the earliest members of the superfamily Cervoidea appeared in Eurasia in the Miocene. "Dicrocerus", "Euprox" and "Heteroprox" were probably the first antlered cervids. "Dicrocerus" featured single-forked antlers that were shed regularly. "Stephanocemas" had more developed and diffuse ("crowned") antlers. "Procervulus" (Palaeomerycidae) also possessed antlers that were not shed. Contemporary forms such as the merycodontines eventually gave rise to the modern pronghorn.


title: Deer

text: The Cervinae emerged as the first group of extant cervids around 7–9 Mya, during the late Miocene in central Asia. The tribe Muntiacini made its appearance as † "Muntiacus leilaoensis" around 7–8 Mya; The early muntjacs varied in size–as small as hares or as large as fallow deer. They had tusks for fighting and antlers for defence. Capreolinae followed soon after; Alceini appeared 6.4–8.4 Mya. Around this period, the Tethys Ocean disappeared to give way to vast stretches of grassland; these provided the deer with abundant protein-rich vegetation that led to the development of ornamental antlers and allowed populations to flourish and colonise areas. As antlers had become pronounced, the canines were either lost or became poorly represented (as in elk), probably because diet was no longer browse-dominated and antlers were better display organs. In muntjac and tufted deer, the antlers as well as the canines are small. The tragulids possess long canines to this day.


title: Deer

text: With the onset of the Pliocene, the global climate became cooler. A fall in the sea-level led to massive glaciation; consequently, grasslands abounded in nutritious forage. Thus a new spurt in deer populations ensued. The oldest member of Cervini, † "Cervocerus novorossiae", appeared around the transition from Miocene to Pliocene (4.2–6 Mya) in Eurasia; cervine fossils from early Pliocene to as late as the Pleistocene have been excavated in China and the Himalayas. While "Cervus" and "Dama" appeared nearly 3 Mya, "Axis" emerged during the late Pliocene–Pleistocene. The tribes Capreolini and Rangiferini appeared around 4–7 Mya.


title: Deer

text: Around 5 Mya, the rangiferina † "Bretzia" and † "Eocoileus" were the first cervids to reach North America. This implies the Bering Strait could be crossed during the late Miocene–Pliocene; this appears highly probable as the camelids migrated into Asia from North America around the same time. Deer invaded South America in the late Pliocene (2.5–3 Mya) as part of the Great American Interchange, thanks to the recently formed Isthmus of Panama, and emerged successful due to the small number of competing ruminants in the continent.


title: Deer

text: Large deer with impressive antlers evolved during the early Pleistocene, probably as a result of abundant resources to drive evolution. The early Pleistocene cervid † "Eucladoceros" was comparable in size to the modern elk. † "Megaloceros" (Pliocene–Pleistocene) featured the Irish elk ("M. giganteus"), one of the largest known cervids. The Irish elk reached at the shoulder and had heavy antlers that spanned from tip to tip. These large animals are thought to have faced extinction due to conflict between sexual selection for large antlers and body and natural selection for a smaller form. Meanwhile, the moose and reindeer radiated into North America from Siberia.


title: Deer

text: Deer constitute the artiodactyl family Cervidae. This family was first described by German zoologist Georg August Goldfuss in "Handbuch der Zoologie" (1820). Three subfamilies were recognised: Capreolinae (first described by the English zoologist Joshua Brookes in 1828), Cervinae (described by Goldfuss) and Hydropotinae (first described by French zoologist Édouard Louis Trouessart in 1898).


title: Deer

text: Other attempts at the classification of deer have been based on morphological and genetic differences. The Anglo-Irish naturalist Victor Brooke suggested in 1878 that deer could be bifurcated into two classes on the according to the features of the second and fifth metacarpal bones of their forelimbs: Plesiometacarpalia (most Old World deer) and Telemetacarpalia (most New World deer). He treated the musk deer as a cervid, placing it under Telemetacarpalia. While the telemetacarpal deer showed only those elements located far from the joint, the plesiometacarpal deer retained the elements closer to the joint as well. Differentiation on the basis of diploid number of chromosomes in the late 20th century has been flawed by several inconsistencies.


title: Deer

text: In 1987, the zoologists Colin Groves and Peter Grubb identified three subfamilies: Cervinae, Hydropotinae and Odocoileinae; they noted that the hydropotines lack antlers, and the other two subfamilies differ in their skeletal morphology. They reverted from this classification in 2000.


title: Deer

text: Molecular phylogenetic analyses since the latter half of the 2000s all show that "hydropotes" is a sister taxon of "Capreolus", and “Hydropotinae” became outdated subfamily.


title: Deer

text: Until 2003, it was understood that the family Moschidae (musk deer) was sister to Cervidae. Then a phylogenetic study by Alexandre Hassanin (of National Museum of Natural History, France) and colleagues, based on mitochondrial and nuclear analyses, revealed that Moschidae and Bovidae form a clade sister to Cervidae. According to the study, Cervidae diverged from the Bovidae-Moschidae clade 27 to 28 million years ago. The following cladogram is based on the 2003 study.


title: Deer

text: A 2006 phylogenetic study of the internal relationships in Cervidae by Clément Gilbert and colleagues divided the family into two major clades: Capreolinae (telemetacarpal or New World deer) and Cervinae (plesiometacarpal or Old World deer). Studies in the late 20th century suggested a similar bifurcation in the family. This as well as previous studies support monophyly in Cervinae, while Capreolinae appears paraphyletic. The 2006 study identified two lineages in Cervinae, Cervini (comprising the genera "Axis", "Cervus", "Dama" and "Rucervus") and Muntiacini ("Muntiacus" and "Elaphodus"). Capreolinae featured three lineages, Alceini ("Alces" species), Capreolini ("Capreolus" and the subfamily Hydropotinae) and Rangiferini ("Blastocerus", "Hippocamelus", "Mazama", "Odocoileus", "Pudu" and "Rangifer" species). The following cladogram is based on the 2006 study.


title: Deer

text: Deer were an important source of food for early hominids. In China, "Homo erectus" fed upon the sika deer, while the red deer was hunted in Germany. In the Upper Palaeolithic, the reindeer was the staple food for Cro-Magnon people, while the cave paintings at Lascaux in southwestern France include some 90 images of stags. In China, deer continued to be a main source of food for millennia even after people began farming, and it is possible that sika and other deer benefited from the frequently abandoned field sites.


title: Deer

text: Deer had a central role in the ancient art, culture and mythology of the Hittites, the ancient Egyptians, the Celts, the ancient Greeks, the Asians and several others. For instance, the Stag Hunt Mosaic of ancient Pella, under the Kingdom of Macedonia (4th century BC), possibly depicts Alexander the Great hunting a deer with Hephaestion. In Japanese Shintoism, the sika deer is believed to be a messenger to the gods. In China, deer are associated with great medicinal significance; deer penis is thought by some in China to have aphrodisiac properties. Spotted deer are believed in China to accompany the god of longevity. Deer was the principal sacrificial animal for the Huichal Indians of Mexico. In medieval Europe, deer appeared in hunting scenes and coats-of-arms. Deer are depicted in many materials by various pre-Hispanic civilizations in the Andes.


title: Deer

text: The common male first name "Oscar" is taken from the Irish Language, where it is derived from two elements: the first, "os", means "deer"; the second element, "cara", means "friend". The name is borne by a famous hero of Irish mythology—Oscar, grandson of Fionn Mac Cumhail. The name was popularised in the 18th century by James Macpherson, creator of 'Ossianic poetry'.


title: Deer

text: Deer have been an integral part of fables and other literary works since the inception of writing. Stags were used as symbols in the latter Sumerian writings. For instance, the boat of Sumerian god Enki is named the "Stag of Azbu". There are several mentions of the animal in the Rigveda as well as the Bible. In the Indian epic Ramayana, Sita is lured by a golden deer which Rama tries to catch. In the absence of both Rama and Lakshman, Ravana kidnaps Sita. Many of the allegorical Aesop's fables, such as "The Stag at the Pool", "The One-Eyed Doe" and "The Stag and a Lion", personify deer to give moral lessons. For instance, "The Sick Stag" gives the message that uncaring friends can do more harm than good. The Yaqui deer song accompanies the deer dance which is performed by a pascola [from the Spanish 'pascua', Easter] dancer (also known as a deer dancer). Pascolas would perform at religious and social functions many times of the year, especially during Lent and Easter.


title: Deer

text: In one of Rudolf Erich Raspe's 1785 stories of "Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia", the baron encounters a stag while eating cherries and, without ammunition, fires the cherry-pits at the stag with his musket, but it escapes. The next year, the baron encounters a stag with a cherry tree growing from its head; presumably this is the animal he had shot at the previous year. In Christmas lore (such as in the narrative poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas"), reindeer are often depicted pulling the sleigh of Santa Claus. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1938 novel "The Yearling" was about a boy's relationship with a baby deer. The fiction book "Fire Bringer" is about a young fawn who goes on a quest to save the Herla, the deer kind. In the 1942 Walt Disney Pictures film, "Bambi" is a white-tailed deer, while in Felix Salten's original 1923 book "Bambi, a Life in the Woods", he is a roe deer. In C. S. Lewis's 1950 fantasy novel "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" the adult Pevensies, now kings and queens of Narnia, chase the White Stag on a hunt, as the Stag is said to grant its captor a wish. The hunt is key in returning the Pevensies to their home in England. In the 1979 book "The Animals of Farthing Wood", The Great White Stag is the leader of all the animals.


title: Deer

text: Deer of various types appear frequently in European heraldry. In the British armory, the term "stag" is typically used to refer to antlered male red deer, while "buck" indicates an antlered male fallow deer. Stags and bucks appear in a number of attitudes, referred to as "lodged" when the deer is lying down, "trippant" when it has one leg raised, "courant" when it is running, "springing" when in the act of leaping, "statant" when it is standing with all hooves on the ground and looking ahead, and "at gaze" when otherwise statant but looking at the viewer. Stags' heads are also frequently used; these are typically portrayed without an attached neck and as facing the viewer, in which case they are termed "caboshed".


title: Deer

text: Examples of deer in coats of arms can be found in the arms of Hertfordshire, England, and its county town of Hertford; both are examples of canting arms. A deer appears on the arms of the Israeli Postal Authority. Coats of arms featuring deer include those of Dotternhausen, Thierachern, Friolzheim, Bauen, Albstadt, and Dassel in Germany; of the Earls Bathurst in England; of Balakhna, Russia; of Åland, Finland; of Gjemnes, Hitra, Hjartdal, Rendalen and Voss in Norway; of Jelenia Góra, Poland; of Umeå, Sweden; of Queensland, Australia; of Cervera, Catalonia; of Northern Ireland; and of Chile.


title: Deer

text: Other types of deer used in heraldry include the hind, portrayed much like the stag or buck but without antlers, as well as the reindeer and winged stags. Winged stags are used as supporters in the arms of the de Carteret family. The sea-stag, possessing the antlers, head, forelegs and upper body of a stag and the tail of a mermaid, is often found in German heraldry.


title: Deer

text: Deer have long had economic significance to humans. Deer meat, known as venison, is highly nutritious. Due to the inherently wild nature and diet of deer, venison is most often obtained through deer hunting. In the United States, it is produced in small amounts compared to beef, but still represents a significant trade. Deer hunting is a popular activity in the U.S. that can provide the hunter's family with high quality meat and generates revenue for states and the federal government from the sales of licenses, permits and tags. The 2006 survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that license sales generate approximately $700 million annually. This revenue generally goes to support conservation efforts in the states where the licenses are purchased. Overall, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that big game hunting for deer and elk generates approximately $11.8 billion annually in hunting-related travel, equipment and related expenditures. Conservation laws prevent the sale of unlicensed wild game meat, although it may be donated.


title: Deer

text: Deer have often been bred in captivity as ornaments for parks, but only in the case of reindeer has thorough domestication succeeded. By 2012, some 25,000 tons of red deer were raised on farms in North America. The Sami of Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula of Russia and other nomadic peoples of northern Asia use reindeer for food, clothing, and transport. Others are bred for hunting are selected based on the size of the antlers. The major deer-producing countries are New Zealand, the market leader, with Ireland, Great Britain and Germany. The trade earns over $100 million annually for these countries.


title: Deer

text: Automobile collisions with deer can impose a significant cost on the economy. In the U.S., about 1.5 million deer-vehicle collisions occur each year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Those accidents cause about 150 human deaths and $1.1 billion in property damage annually. In Scotland, several roads including the A82, the A87 and the A835 have had significant enough problems with "deer vehicle collisions" (DVCs) that sets of vehicle activated automatic warning signs have been installed along these roads.


title: Deer

text: The skins make a peculiarly strong, soft leather, known as buckskin. There is nothing special about skins with the fur still on since the hair is brittle and soon falls off. The hooves and antlers are used for ornamental purposes, especially the antlers of the roe deer, which are utilized for making umbrella handles, and for similar purposes; elk antlers is often employed in making knife handles. Among the Inuit, the traditional "ulu" women's knife was made with an antler or ivory handle. In China, a traditional chinese medicine is made from stag antler, and the antlers of certain species are eaten when "in the velvet". Antlers can also be boiled down to release the protein gelatin, which is used as a topical treatment for skin irritation and is also used in cooking.


title: Deer

text: Since the early 20th century, deer have become commonly thought of as pests in New Zealand due to a lack of predators on the island causing population numbers to increase and begin encroaching on more populated areas. They compete with livestock for resources, as well as cause excess erosion and wreak havoc on wild plant species and agriculture alike. They can also have an effect on the conservation efforts of other plant and animal species, as they can critically offset the balance within an environment by drastically depleting diversity within forests.


title: Grunge

text: Grunge (sometimes referred to as the Seattle sound) is an alternative rock genre and subculture that emerged during the in the American Pacific Northwest state of Washington, particularly in Seattle and nearby towns. Grunge fuses elements of punk rock and heavy metal, but without punk's structure and speed. The genre featured the distorted electric guitar sound used in both genres, although some bands performed with more emphasis on one or the other. Like these genres, grunge typically uses electric guitar, bass guitar, drums and vocals. Grunge also incorporates influences from indie rock bands such as Sonic Youth. Lyrics are typically angst-filled and introspective, often addressing themes such as social alienation, self-doubt, abuse, neglect, betrayal, social and emotional isolation, addiction, psychological trauma and a desire for freedom.


title: Grunge

text: The early grunge movement revolved around Seattle's independent record label Sub Pop and the region's underground music scene. The owners of Sub Pop marketed the style shrewdly, encouraging the media to describe it as "grunge"; the style became known as a hybrid of punk and metal. By the early 1990s, its popularity had spread, with grunge bands appearing in California, then emerging in other parts of the United States and in Australia, building strong followings and signing major record deals. Grunge was commercially successful in the early-to-mid-1990s due to releases such as Nirvana's "Nevermind", Pearl Jam's "Ten", Soundgarden's "Superunknown", Alice in Chains' "Dirt", and Stone Temple Pilots' "Core". The success of these bands boosted the popularity of alternative rock and made grunge the most popular form of rock music at the time.


title: Grunge

text: Several factors contributed to grunge's decline in prominence. During the , many grunge bands broke up or became less visible. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, labeled by "Time" as "the John Lennon of the swinging Northwest", struggled with an addiction to heroin before his death in 1994. Although most grunge bands had disbanded or faded from view by the late 1990s, they influenced modern rock music, as their lyrics brought socially conscious issues into pop culture and added introspection and an exploration of what it means to be true to oneself. Grunge was also an influence on later genres such as post-grunge.


title: Grunge

text: The word "grunge" is American slang for "someone or something that is repugnant" and also for "dirt". The word was first recorded as being applied to Seattle musicians in July 1987 when Bruce Pavitt described Green River's "Dry as a Bone" EP in a Sub Pop record company catalogue as "gritty vocals, roaring Marshall amps, ultra-loose GRUNGE that destroyed the morals of a generation". Although the word "grunge" has been used to describe bands since the 1960s, this was the first association of grunge with the grinding, sludgy sound of Seattle. It is expensive and time-consuming to get a recording to sound clean, so for those northwestern bands just starting out it was cheaper for them to leave the sound dirty and just turn up their volume. This dirty sound, due to low budgets, unfamiliarity with recording, and a lack of professionalism may be the origin of the term "grunge".


title: Grunge

text: The "Seattle scene" refers to that city's alternative music movement that was linked to the University of Washington and the Evergreen State College. Evergreen is a progressive college which does not use a conventional grading system and has its own radio station, KAOS. Seattle's remoteness from Los Angeles led to a perceived purity of its music. The music of these bands, many of which had recorded with Seattle's independent record label Sub Pop, became labeled as "grunge". Nirvana's frontman Kurt Cobain, in one of his final interviews, credited Jonathan Poneman, cofounder of Sub Pop, with coining the term "grunge" to describe the music.


title: Grunge

text: The term "Seattle sound" became a marketing ploy for the music industry. In September 1991, the Nirvana album "Nevermind" was released, bringing mainstream attention to the music of Seattle. Cobain loathed the word "grunge" and despised the new scene that was developing, feeling that record companies were signing old "cock-rock" bands who were pretending to be grunge and claiming to be from Seattle.


title: Grunge

text: Some bands associated with the genre, such as Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, have not been receptive to the label, preferring instead to be referred to as "rock and roll" bands. Ben Shepherd from Soundgarden stated that he "hates the word" grunge and hates "being associated with it." Seattle musician Jeff Stetson states that when he visited Seattle in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a touring musician, the local musicians did not refer to themselves as "grunge" performers or their style as "grunge" and they were not flattered that their music was being called "grunge".


title: Grunge

text: "Rolling Stone" noted the genre's lack of a clear definition. Robert Loss acknowledges the challenges of defining "grunge"; stating that while he can recount stories about grunge, they do not serve to provide a useful definition. Roy Shuker states that the term "obscured a variety of styles." Stetson states that grunge was not a movement, "monolithic musical genre", or a way to react to 1980s-era metal pop; he calls the term a misnomer mostly based on hype. Stetson states that prominent bands considered to be grunge (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney and Hammerbox) all sound different. Mark Yarm, author of "Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge", pointed out vast differences between grunge bands, with some being punk and others being metal-based.


title: Grunge

text: In 1984, the punk rock band Black Flag toured small towns across the US to bring punk to the more remote parts of the country. By this time, their music had become slow and sludgy, less like the Sex Pistols and more like Black Sabbath. Krist Novoselic, later the bass player with Nirvana, recalled going with the Melvins to see one of these shows, after which Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne began writing "slow and heavy riffs" to form a dirge-like music that was the beginning of northwest grunge. The Melvins were the most influential of the early grunge bands. Sub Pop producer Jack Endino described grunge as "seventies-influenced, slowed-down punk music".


title: Grunge

text: Leighton Beezer, who played with Mark Arm and Steve Turner in the Thrown Ups, state that when he heard Green River play "Come On Down", he realized that they were playing punk rock backwards. He noted that the diminished fifth note was used by Black Sabbath to produce an ominous feeling but it is not used in punk rock. In the 1996 grunge film documentary "Hype!", Beezer demonstrated on guitar the difference between punk and grunge. First he played the riff from "Rockaway Beach" by the Ramones that ascends the neck of the guitar, then "Come On Down" by Green River that descends the neck. The two pieces are only a few notes apart but sound unalike. He took the same rhythm with the same chord, however descending the neck made it sound darker, and therefore grunge. Early grunge bands would also copy a riff from metal and slow it down, play it backwards, distort it and bury it in feedback, then shout lyrics with little melody over the top of it.


title: Grunge

text: Grunge fuses elements of punk rock (specifically American hardcore punk such as Black Flag) and heavy metal (especially traditional, earlier heavy metal groups such as Black Sabbath), although some bands performed with more emphasis on one or the other. Alex DiBlasi feels that indie rock was a third key source, with the most important influence coming from Sonic Youth's "free-form" noise. Grunge shares with punk a raw, lo fi sound and similar lyrical concerns, and it also used punk's haphazard and untrained approach to playing and performing. However, grunge was "deeper and darker"-sounding than punk rock and it decreased the "adrenaline"-fueled tempos of punk to a slow, "sludgy" speed, and used more dissonant harmonies. Seattle music journalist Charles R. Cross defines "grunge" as distortion-filled, down-tuned and riff-based rock that uses loud electric guitar feedback and heavy, "ponderous" basslines to support its song melodies. Robert Loss calls grunge a melding of "violence and speed, muscularity and melody", where there is space for all people, including women musicians. "VH1" writer Dan Tucker feels that different grunge bands were influenced by different genres; that while Nirvana drew on punk, Pearl Jam was influenced by classic rock, and that "sludgy, dark, heavy bands" such as Soundgarden and Alice in Chains had a sinister metal tone.


title: Grunge

text: Grunge music has what has been called an "ugly" aesthetic, both in the roar of the distorted electric guitars and in the darker lyrical topics. This approach was chosen both to counter the "slick" elegant sound of the then-predominant mainstream rock and because grunge artists wanted to mirror the "ugliness" they saw around them and shine a light on unseen "depths and depravity" of the real world. Some key individuals in the development of the grunge sound, including Sub Pop producer Jack Endino and the Melvins, described grunge's incorporation of heavy rock influences such as Kiss as "musical provocation". Grunge artists considered these bands "cheesy" but nonetheless enjoyed them; Buzz Osborne of the Melvins described it as an attempt to see what ridiculous things bands could do and get away with. In the early 1990s, Nirvana's signature "stop-start" song format and alternating between soft and loud sections became a genre convention.


title: Grunge

text: Grunge is generally characterized by a sludgy electric guitar sound with a thick middle register and rolled-off treble tone and a high level of distortion and fuzz, typically created with small 1970s-style stompbox pedals, with some guitarists chaining several fuzz pedals together and plugging them into a tube amplifier and speaker cabinet. Grunge guitarists use very loud Marshall guitar amplifiers and some used powerful Mesa-Boogie amplifiers, including Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl (the latter in early, grunge-oriented Foo Fighters songs). Grunge has been called the rock genre with the most "lugubrious sound"; the use of heavy distortion and loud amps has been compared to a massive "buildup of sonic fog". or even dismissed as "noise" by one critic. As with metal and punk, a key part of grunge's sound is very distorted power chords played on the electric guitar.


title: Grunge

text: Whereas metal guitarists' overdriven sound generally comes from a combination of overdriven amplifiers and distortion pedals, grunge guitarists typically got all of their "dirty" sound from overdrive and fuzz pedals, with the amp just used to make the sound louder. Grunge guitarists tended to use the Fender Twin Reverb and the Fender Champion 100 combo amps (Cobain used both of these amps). The use of pedals by grunge guitarists was a move away from the expensive, studio-grade rackmount effects units used in other rock genres. The positive way that grunge bands viewed stompbox pedals can be seen in Mudhoney's use of the name of two overdrive pedals, the Univox Super-Fuzz and the Big Muff, in the title of their "debut EP "Superfuzz Bigmuff"". In the song "Mudride", the band's guitars were said to have "growled malevolently" through its "Cro-magnon slog".


title: Grunge

text: Other key pedals used by grunge bands included four brands of distortion pedals (the Big Muff, DOD and Boss DS-2 and Boss DS-1 distortion pedals) and the Small Clone chorus effect, used by Kurt Cobain on "Come As You Are" and by the Screaming Trees on "Nearly Lost You". The DS-1 (later DS-2) distortion pedal played a key role in Cobain's switching from quiet to loud and back to quiet approach to songwriting. The use of small pedals by grunge guitarists helped to start off the revival of interest in boutique, hand-soldered, 1970s-style analog pedals. The other effect that grunge guitarists used was one of the most low-tech effects devices, the wah-wah pedal. Both "[Kim] Thayil and Alice in Chains' Jerry Cantrell ... were great advocates of the wah wah pedal." Wah was also used by the Screaming Trees, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Dinosaur Jr.


title: Grunge

text: Grunge guitarists played loud, with Kurt Cobain's early guitar sound coming from an unusual set-up of four 800 watt PA system power amplifiers. Guitar feedback effects, in which a highly amplified electric guitar is held in front of its speaker, were used to create high-pitched, sustained sounds that are not possible with regular guitar technique. Grunge guitarists were influenced by the raw, primitive sound of punk, and they favored "... energy and lack of finesse over technique and precision"; key guitar influences included the Sex Pistols, the Dead Boys, Celtic Frost, King's X, Voivod, Neil Young ("Rust Never Sleeps", side two), the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Black Flag and the Melvins. Grunge guitarists often downtuned their instruments for a lower, heavier sound. Soundgarden's guitarist, Kim Thayil, did not use a regular guitar amplifier; instead, he used a bass combo amp equipped with a 15-inch speaker as he played low riffs, and the bass amp gave him a deeper tone.


title: Grunge

text: Grunge guitarists "flatly rejected" the virtuoso "shredding" guitar solos that had become the centerpiece of heavy metal songs, instead opting for melodic, blues-inspired solos – focusing "on the song, not the guitar solo". Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains stated that solos should be to serve the song, rather than to show off a guitarist's technical skill. In place of the strutting guitar heroes of metal, grunge had "guitar anti-heroes" like Cobain, who showed little interest in mastering the instrument.


title: Grunge

text: In Will Byers' article "Grunge committed a crime against music—it killed the guitar solo", in "The Guardian", he states that while the guitar solo managed to survive through the punk rock era, it was weakened by grunge. He states that when Kurt Cobain played guitar solos that were a restatement of the main vocal melody, fans realized that they did not need to be a Jimi Hendrix-level virtuoso to play the instrument; he says this approach helped to make music feel accessible by fans in a way not seen since the 1960s folk music movement. The producer of Nirvana's "Nevermind", Butch Vig, stated that this album and Nirvana "killed the guitar solo". Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil stated he feels in part to be responsible for the "death of the guitar solo"; he said that his punk rocker aspects made him feel that he did not want to solo, so in the 1980s, he preferred to make noise and do feedback during the guitar solo. Baeble Music calls the grunge guitar solos of the 1990s "..raw", "sloppy" and "basic".


title: Grunge

text: Not all sources support the "grunge killed the guitar solo" argument. Sean Gonzalez states that Pearl Jam has plentiful examples of guitar solos. Michael Azerrad praises the guitar playing of Mudhoney's Steve Turner, calling him the "... Eric Clapton of grunge", a reference to the British blues guitarist who "Time" magazine has named as number five in their list of "The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players". Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready has been praised for his blues-influenced, rapid licks. The Smashing Pumpkins' guitarist Billy Corgan has been called the "... arena rock genius of the '90s" for pioneering guitar playing techniques and showing through his playing skill that grunge guitarists do not have to be sloppy players to rebel against mainstream music. Thayil stated that when other major grunge bands, such as Nirvana, were reducing their guitar solos, Soundgarden responded by bringing back the solos.


title: Grunge

text: The early Seattle grunge album "Skin Yard" recorded in 1987 by the band of the same name included fuzz bass (overdriven bass guitar) played by Jack Endino and Daniel House. Some grunge bassists, such as Ben Shepherd, layered power chords with distorted low-end density by adding a fifth and an octave-higher note to a bass note.


title: Grunge

text: An example of the powerful, loud bass amplifier systems used in grunge is Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez's setup. He uses four powerful Ampeg SVT-2 PRO tube amplifier heads, two of them plugged into four 1x18" subwoofer cabinets for the low register, and the other two plugged into two 8x10" cabinets. Krist Novoselic and Jeff Ament are also known for using Ampeg SVT tube amplifiers. Ben Shepherd uses a 300 watt all-tube Ampeg SVT-VR amp and a 600 watt Mesa/Boogie Carbine M6 amplifier. Ament uses four 6x10" speaker cabinets.


title: Grunge

text: In contrast to the "massive drum kits" used in 1980s pop metal, grunge drummers used relatively smaller drum kits. One example is the drumkit used by Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron's set-up. He uses a six-piece kit (this way of describing drumkits counts only the wooden drums, and does not count the cymbals), including a "12x8-inch rack tom; 13x9-inch rack tom; 16x14-inch floor tom; 18x16-inch floor tom; 24x14-inch bass drum" and a snare drum and, for cymbals, Zildjian instruments, including "... 14-inch K Light [Hi-]hats; 17-inch K Custom Dark crash [cymbal] and 18-inch K Crash Ride; 19-inch Projection crash; a 20-inch Rezo crash; ... and a ... 22-inch A Medium ride [cymbal]".


title: Grunge

text: A second example is Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl's set-up during 1990 and 1991. He used a four-piece Tama drumset, with an 8" × 14" birch snare drum, a 14" × 15" rack tom, a 16" × 18" floor tom and a 16" × 24" bass drum (this kit "... was demolished at the Cabaret Metro, Chicago, 10/12/91"). Like Matt Cameron, Dave Grohl used Zildjian cymbals. Grohl used the company's A Series Medium cymbals, including an 18" and a 20" crash cymbal, a 22" ride cymbal and a pair of 15" hi-hat cymbals.


title: Grunge

text: Although keyboards are generally not used in grunge, Seattle band Gorilla created controversy by breaking the "guitars only" approach and using a 1960s-style Vox organ in their group.


title: Grunge

text: In 2002, Pearl Jam added a keyboard player, Kenneth "Boom" Gaspar, who played piano, Hammond organ and other keyboards; the addition of a keyboardist to the band would have been "inconceivable" in the band's "grungy" early years, but it shows how a group's sound can change over time.


title: Grunge

text: The grunge singing style was similar to the "outburst" of loud, heavily distorted electric guitar in tone and delivery; Kurt Cobain used a "gruff, slurred articulation and gritty timbre" and Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam made use of a "wide, powerful vibrato" to show his "depth of expression." In general, grunge singers used a "deeper vocal style" which matched the lower-sounding, downtuned guitars and the darker-themed lyrical messages used in the style. Grunge singers used "gravelly, raspy" vocals, "... growls, moans, screams and mumbles" and "plaintive groans"; this range of singing styles was used to communicate the "varied emotions" of the lyrics. Cobain's reaction to the "bad times" and discontent of the era was that he screamed his lyrics. In general, grunge songs were sung "simply, often somewhat unintelligibly"; the virtuoso "operatics of hair-metal were shunned." Grunge singing has been characterized as "borderline out-of-tune vocals".


title: Grunge

text: Grunge lyrics are typically dark, nihilistic, wretched, angst-filled and anguished, often addressing themes such as social alienation, self-doubt, abuse, assault, neglect, betrayal, social isolation/emotional isolation, psychological trauma and a desire for freedom. An article by MIT states that grunge "lyrics [were] obsessed with disenfranchisement" and described a mood of "resigned despair". Catherine Strong states that grunge songs were usually about "negative experiences or feelings", with the main themes being alienation and depression, but with an "ironic sneer." Grunge artists expressed "strong feelings" in their lyrics about "societal ills", including a "desire to 'crucify the insincere, an approach which fans appreciated for its authenticity. Grunge lyrics have been criticized as "... violent and often obscene." In 1996, conservative columnist Rich Lowry wrote an essay criticizing grunge, entitled "Heroin, Our Hero"; he called it a music that is mostly... shorn of ideals and the impulse for political action".


title: Grunge

text: A number of factors influenced the focus on such subject matter. Many grunge musicians displayed a general disenchantment with the state of society, as well as a discomfort with social prejudices. Grunge lyrics contained "... explicit political messages and ... questioning about ... society and how it might be changed ...". While grunge lyrics were less overtly political than punk songs, grunge songs still indicated a concern for social issues, particularly those affecting young people. The main themes in grunge were "tolerance of difference", "support of women", "mistrust of authority" and "cynicism towards big corporations." Grunge song themes bear similarities to those addressed by punk rock musicians. In 1992, music critic Simon Reynolds said that "there's a feeling of burnout in the culture at large. Kids are depressed about the future". The topics of grunge lyrics–homelessness, suicide, rape, "broken homes, drug addiction and self-loathing"–contrasted sharply to the glam metal lyrics of Poison, which described "life in the fast lane", partying and hedonism.


title: Grunge

text: Grunge lyrics developed as part of "Generation X malaise", reflecting that demographic's feelings of "disillusionment and uselessness". Grunge songs about love were usually about "... failed, boring, doomed or destructive relationships." (e.g., "Black" by Pearl Jam). The Alice in Chains songs "Sickman", "Junkhead", "God Smack" and "Hate to Feel" have references to heroin. Grunge lyrics tended to be more introspective and aimed to enable the listener to see into "hidden" personal issues and examine the "depravity" of the world. This approach can be seen in Mudhoney's song "Touch Me I'm Sick", which includes lyrics with "deranged imagery" which depict a "broken world and a fragmented self-image"; the song includes the lines "I feel bad, and I've felt worse" and "I won't live long and I'm full of rot". Nirvana's song "Lithium", from their 1991 album "Nevermind", is about a "... man who finds faith after his girlfriend's suicide"; it depicts "... irony and ugliness" as a way of dealing with these "dark issues".


title: Grunge

text: Like punk, grunge's sound came from a lo fi (low fidelity) recording and production approach. Before the arrival of major labels, early grunge albums were recorded using low-budget analogue studios: "Nirvana's first album "Bleach", was recorded for $606.17 in 1989." Sub Pop recorded most of their music at a "... low-rent studio named Reciprocal", where producer Jack Endino created the grunge genre's aesthetic, a "raw and unpolished sound with distortion, but usually without any added studio effects". Endino is known for his stripped-down recording practices and his dislike of 'over-producing' music with effects and remastering. His work on Soundgarden's "Screaming Life" and Nirvana's "Bleach" as well as for the bands Green River, Screaming Trees, L7, the Gits, Hole, 7 Year Bitch, and Tad helped to define the grunge sound. An example of the lower cost production approach is Mudhoney; even after the band signed to Warner Music, "[t]rue to [the band's] indie roots ... [they are] ... probably one of the few bands that would have to fight [their label] to record for a lower budget rather than a higher one."


title: Grunge

text: Steve Albini was another important influence on the grunge sound. Albini prefers to be called a "recording engineer", because he believes that putting record producers in charge of recording sessions often destroys the band's real sound, while the role of the recording engineer is to capture the actual sound of the musicians, not to threaten the artists' control over their creative product. Albini's recordings have been analyzed by writers such as Michael Azerrad, who stated that Albini's "recordings were both very basic and very exacting: like Endino, Albini used few special effects; got an aggressive, often violent guitar sound; and made sure the rhythm section slammed as one."


title: Grunge

text: Nirvana's "In Utero" is a typical example of Albini's recording approach. He preferred to have the entire band play live in the studio, rather than use mainstream rock's approach of recording each instrument on a separate track at different times, and then mixing them using multi-track recording. While multitracking results in a more polished product, it does not capture the "live" sound of the band playing together. Albini used a range of different microphones for the vocals and instruments. Like most metal and punk recording engineers, he mics the guitar amp speakers and bass amp speakers to capture each performer's unique tone.


title: Grunge

text: Grunge concerts were known for being straightforward, high-energy performances. Grunge shows were "... celebrations, parties [and] carnivals" where the audience expressed its spirit by stagediving, moshing and thrashing. Simon Reynolds states that in "... some of the most masculine forms of rock —thrash metal, grunge, moshing becomes a form of surrogate combat" in which "male bodies" can contact in the "sweat-and-bloodbath" of the moshpit. As with punk shows, grunge "... performances were about frontmen who screamed and jumped around on stage and musicians who thrashed wildly on their instruments." While grunge lyrical themes focused on "angst and rage", the audience at shows were positive and created a "life-affirming" attitude. Grunge bands rejected the complex and high budget presentations of many mainstream musical genres, including the use of complex digitally controlled light arrays, pyrotechnics, and other visual effects then popular in "hair metal" shows. Grunge performers viewed these elements unrelated to playing the music. Stage acting and "onstage theatrics" were generally avoided.


title: Grunge

text: Instead the bands presented themselves as no different from minor local bands. Jack Endino said in the 1996 documentary "Hype!" that Seattle bands were inconsistent live performers, since their primary objective was not to be entertainers, but simply to "rock out". Grunge bands gave enthusiastic performances; they would thrash their long hair during shows as "a symbolic weapon" for releasing "pent-up aggression" (Dave Grohl was particularly noted for his "head flips"). One of the philosophies of the grunge scene was authenticity. Dave Rimmer writes that with the revival of punk ideals of stripped-down music in the early 1990s, "for Cobain, and lots of kids like him, rock & roll ... threw down a dare: Can you be pure enough, day after day, year after year, to prove your authenticity, to live up to the music ... And if you can't, can you live with being a poseur, a phony, a sellout?"


title: Grunge

text: commonly worn by grunge musicians in Washington were a "mundane everyday style", in which they would wear the same clothes on stage that they wore at home. This Pacific Northwest "slacker style" or "slouch look" contrasted sharply with the "wild" mohawks, leather jackets and chains worn by punks. This everyday clothing approach was used by grunge musicians because authenticity was a key principle in the Seattle scene. The grunge look typically consisted of second-hand clothes or thrift store items and the typical outdoor clothing (most notably flannel shirts) of the region, as well as a generally unkempt appearance and long hair. For grunge singers, long hair was used "as a mask to conceal the face" so they can "expres[s their] innermost thoughts"; Cobain is a notable example. Male grunge musicians were "... unkempt ... [and] ... unshaven [,] with ... tousled hair" that was often unwashed, greasy and "... matted [into a] sheep-dog mop".


title: Grunge

text: The lumberjack attire was a common sight in the thrift stores near Seattle for the low prices that musicians could afford. Grunge style consisted of ripped jeans, thermal underwear, Doc Martens boots or combat boots (often unlaced), band T-shirts, oversized knit sweaters, long and droopy skirts, ripped tights, Birkenstocks, hiking boots, and eco-friendly clothing made from recycled textiles or fair trade organic cotton. As well, since women in the grunge scene wore the "... same plaid [shirt]s, boots, and short cropped heads as their male counterparts", women showed "... that they are not defined by their sex appeal."


title: Grunge

text: "Grunge ... became an anti-consumerist movement where the less you spent on clothes, the more 'coolness' you had." The style did not evolve out of a conscious attempt to create an appealing fashion; music journalist Charles R. Cross said, "[Nirvana frontman] Kurt Cobain was just too lazy to shampoo", and Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman said, "This [clothing] is cheap, it's durable, and it's kind of timeless. It also runs against the grain of the whole flashy aesthetic that existed in the 80s." The flannel and "... cracked leatherette coats" in the grunge scene were part "... of the Pacific Northwest's thrift-shop esthetic. Grunge fashion was very much an anti-fashion response and a non-conformist move against the "manufactured image", often pushing musicians to dress in authentic ways and to not glamorize themselves. At the same time, Sub-Pop utilized the 'grunge look' in their marketing of their bands. In an interview with VH1, photographer Charles Peterson commented that members from grunge band Tad "were given blue collar identities that weren't entirely earned. Bruce (Pavitt) really got him to dress up in flannel and a real chain saw and really play up this image of a mountain man and it worked."


title: Grunge

text: "Dazed" magazine called Courtney Love one of "ten women who defined the 1990s" from a style perspective: the "... image of Courtney Love's too-short baby doll dress, tattered fur coat and shock of platinum hair", a look dubbed "kinderwhore", "... topped with a tiara, of course – is seared on the memory of anyone who lived through the decade." The kinderwhore look consisted of torn, ripped tight or low-cut babydoll and Peter-Pan-collared dresses, slips, heavy makeup with dark eyeliner, barrettes, and leather boots or Mary–Jane shoes. Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland was the first to define it, while Courtney Love of Hole was the first to popularize it. Love has claimed that she took the style from Divinyls frontwoman Christina Amphlett. The look became very popular in 1994.


title: Grunge

text: "Vogue" stated in 2014 that "Cobain pulled liberally from both ends of a woman's and a man's wardrobe, and his Seattle thrift-store look ran the gamut of masculine lumberjack workwear and 40s-by-way-of-70s feminine dresses. It was completely counter to the shellacked, flashy aesthetic of the 1980s in every way. In disheveled jeans and floral frocks, he softened the tough exterior of the archetypal rebel from the inside out, and set the ball in motion for a radical, millennial idea of androgyny." Cobain's way of dressing "was the antithesis of the macho American man", because he "... made it cooler to look slouchy and loose, no matter if you were a boy or a girl." Music and culture writer Julianne Escobedo Shepherd wrote that with Cobain's style of dress "Not only did he make it okay to be a freak, he made it desirable."


title: Grunge

text: Grunge music hit the mainstream in the early 1990s with Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Nirvana being signed to major record labels. Grunge fashion began to break into mainstream fashion in mid-1992 for both sexes and peaked in late 1993 and early 1994. As it picked up momentum, the grunge tag was being used by shops selling expensive flannelette shirts to cash in on the trend. Ironically, the non-conformist look suddenly became a mainstream trend. In the fashion world, Marc Jacobs presented a show for Perry Ellis in 1992 (the Spring 1993 Collection,) featuring grunge-inspired clothing mixed with high-end fabrics. Jacobs found inspiration in the "realism" of grunge streetwear; he mixed it with the luxury of fashion by sending models down the catwalk in beanies, floral dresses and silk flannel shirts. This did, however, not sit well with the brand owners and Jacobs was dismissed. Other designers like Anna Sui, also drew inspiration from grunge during the spring/summer 1993 season.


title: Grunge

text: In the same year, "Vogue" did a spread called "Grunge & Glory" with fashion photographer Steven Meisel who shot supermodels Kristen McMenamy, Naomi Campbell, and Nadja Auermann in a savanna landscape wearing grunge-styled clothing. This shoot made McMenamy the face for grunge, as she had her eyebrows shaved and her hair cropped short. Designers like Christian Lacroix, Donna Karen and Karl Lagerfeld incorporated the grunge influence into their looks. In 1993, James Truman, editor of "Details", said: "to me the thing about grunge is it's not anti-fashion, it's unfashion. Punk was anti-fashion. It made a statement. Grunge is about not making a statement, which is why it's crazy for it to become a fashion statement." The unkempt fashion sense defined the look of the "slacker generation", who "skipped school, smoked pot ... [and] cigarettes and listened to music" hoping to become a rock star one day.


title: Grunge

text: Even though the grunge movement died down in 1994 after the death of Kurt Cobain, designers have continued to draw inspiration from the movement from time to time. Grunge appeared as a trend again in 2008, and for Fall/Winter 2013, Hedi Slimane at Yves Saint Laurent brought back grunge to the runway. With Courtney Love as his muse for the collection, she reportedly loved the collection. "No offense to MJ [Marc Jacobs] but he never got it right," Courtney said. "This is what it really was. Hedi knows his shit. He got it accurate, and MJ and Anna [Sui] did not." Both Cobain and Love apparently burnt the Perry Ellis collection they received from Marc Jacobs back in 1993. In 2016, grunge inspired an upscale "reinvention" of the style by A$AP Rocky, Rihanna and Kanye West. However, "dressing grunge is no longer a badge of authenticity, though: the signifiers of rebellion (Dr Martens boots, plaid shirts) are omnipotent on the high street", says Lynette Nylander, deputy editor of "i-D magazine".


title: Grunge

text: Many music subcultures are associated with particular drugs, such as the hippie counterculture and reggae, both of which are associated with marijuana and psychedelics. In the 1990s, the media focused on the use of heroin by musicians in the Seattle grunge scene, with a 1992 "New York Times" article listing the city's "three principal drugs" as "espresso, beer and heroin" and a 1996 article calling Seattle's grunge scene the "... subculture that has most strongly embraced heroin". Tim Jonze from "The Guardian" states that "... heroin had blighted the [grunge] scene ever since its inception in the mid-80s" and he argues that the "... involvement of heroin mirrors the self-hating, nihilistic aspect to the music"; in addition to the heroin deaths, Jonze points out that Stone Temple Pilots' Scott Weiland, as well as Courtney Love, Mark Lanegan, Jimmy Chamberlin and Evan Dando "... all had their run-ins with the drug, but lived to tell the tale." A 2014 book stated that whereas in the 1980s, people used the "stimulant" cocaine to socialize and "... celebrate good times", in the 1990s grunge scene, the "depressant" heroin was used to "retreat" into a "cocoon" and be "... sheltered from a harsh and unforgiving world which offered ... few prospects for ... change or hope." Justin Henderson states that all of the "downer" opiates, including "heroin, morphine, etorphine, codeine, opium, [and] hydrocodone ... seemed to be the habit of choice for many a grunger".


title: Grunge

text: The title of Nirvana's debut album "Bleach" was inspired by a harm reduction poster aimed at heroin injection users, which stated "Bleach your works [e.g., syringe and needle] before you get stoned". The poster was released by the U.S. State Health Department which was trying to reduce AIDS transmission caused through sharing used needles. Alice in Chains' song "God Smack" includes the line "stick your arm for some real fun", a reference to injecting heroin. Seattle musicians known to use heroin included Cobain, who was using "heroin when he shot himself in the head"; "Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone [who] overdosed on heroin in 1990"; "Stefanie Sargent of 7 Year Bitch [who] died of an overdose of the same opiate in 1992 ... [and] Layne Staley of Alice in Chains [who] publicly detailed his battles with heroin ...". Mike Starr of Alice in Chains and Jonathan Melvoin from the Smashing Pumpkins also died from heroin. After Cobain's death, his "... widow, singer Courtney Love, characterized Seattle as a drug mecca, where heroin is easier to get than in San Francisco or Los Angeles."


title: Grunge

text: However, Daniel House, who owned C/Z Records, disputed these perceptions in 1994. House stated that there was "... no more (heroin) here [in Seattle] than anyplace else"; he stated that the "heroin is not a big part of the [Seattle music] culture", and that "marijuana and alcohol ... are far more prevalent". Jeff Gilbert, one of the editors of "Guitar World" magazine, stated in 1994 that the media association of the Seattle grunge scene with heroin was "really overblown"; instead, he says that Seattle musicians were "... all a bunch of potheads." Gil Troy's history of America in the 1990s states that in the Seattle grunge scene, the "... drug of choice switched from upscale cocaine [of the 1980s] to blue-collar marijuana." "Rolling Stone" magazine reported that members of Seattle's grunge scene were "coffee-crazed" by day on espresso and "... by night, they quaff[ed] oceans of beer – jolted by Java and looped with liquor, no wonder the [grunge] music sounds like it does." "Some [Seattle] scene veterans maintain that MDA", a drug related to Ecstasy, "was a vital contributor to grunge", because it gave users a "body high" (in contrast to marijuana's "head high") that made them appreciate "bass-heavy grooves". Pat Long's " History of the NME" states that scene members involved with the Sub Pop label would have multi-day MDMA parties in the woods, which shows that what Long calls Ecstasy's "warm glow" had an impact even in the wet, grey and isolated Pacific Northwest region.


title: Grunge

text: Regarding graphic design and images, a common feature of grunge bands was the use of "lo-fi" (low fidelity) and deliberately unconventional album covers, for example presenting intentionally murky or miscolored photography, collage or distressed lettering. Early grunge "[a]lbum covers and concert flyers appeared Xeroxed not in allegiance to some DIY aesthetic" but because of "economic necessity", as "bands had so little money". This was already a common feature of punk rock design, but could be extended in the grunge period due to the increasing use of Macintosh computers for desktop publishing and digital image processing. The style was sometimes called 'grunge typography' when used outside music. A famous example of 'grunge'-style experimental design was "Ray Gun" magazine, art directed by David Carson.


title: Grunge

text: Carson developed a technique of "ripping, shredding and remaking letters" and using "overprinted, disharmonious letters" and experimental design approaches, including "deliberate 'mistakes' in alignment". Carson's art used "... messy and chaotic design" and he did not "..respect any rule of composition", using an "..experimental, personal and intuitive" approach. Another "grunge graphic designer" was Elliott Earls, who used "distorted ... older typefaces" and "aggressively illegible" type which adopted the "unkempt expressiveness" of the "grunge [music] aesthetic"; this radical, anti-establishment approach in graphic design was influenced by the 1910s-era avant-garde Dada movement. Hat Nguyen's Droplet, Harriet Goren's Morire and Eric Lin's Tema Canante were all "signature grunge fonts." Sven Lennartz states that grunge design images have a "realistic, genuine look" which is created by adding simulated torn paper, dog-eared corners, creases, yellowed scotch tape, coffee cup stains, hand-drawn images and handwritten words, typically over a "dirty" background texture which is done with dull, subdued colors.


title: Grunge

text: A key figure in creating the "look" of the grunge scene for outsiders was music photographer Charles Peterson. Peterson's black and white, uncropped, and sometimes blurry shots of the underground Pacific Northwest music scene's members playing and jamming, wearing their characteristic everyday clothes, were used by Sub Pop to promote its Seattle bands.