When: Mid-1980s to the present, peaking in mainstream popularity in the early- to mid-1990s.

Who: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Mudhoney.

Where: Seattle, Washington and eventually MTV.

A brief history:

Grunge as a musical scene has its roots in the DIY world of hardcore punk and the slacker-type college rock of Sonic Youth. Locals attribute the development of the scene to a sort of snobbishness in American independent music at the time, with Seattle providing an example of a "secondary" city, fit to consume the trailblazing music of New York, Los Angeles and Washington D.C., but generally considered too isolated and inbred to produce interesting, original music itself. The story is the same in many scenes across America, but if Athens, Georgia, Portland, Oregon and Omaha, Nebraska proved the metropolitan indie axis wrong, it's still Seattle that trumped it completely.