Grunge became commercially successful due in part to Pearl Jam's Ten and Soundgarden's Superunknown.
Grunge . Grunge became commercially successful in the early 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 . Soundgarden . Soundgarden was the first grunge band to sign to a major label ( A&M Records in 1988 ) , though the band did not achieve commercial success until they popularized the genre in the early 1990s with Seattle contemporaries Pearl Jam , Nirvana , and Alice in Chains .