Sub Pop: 20 years in the Making

Me Gusta Grunge
On a road trip down the Baja Peninsula, I struck up a spanglish-ridden conversation with a man vacationing from Mexico City. We were two vacationers, one drinking Sol and the other chastising him for doing so. “Sol is shet,” he spat several times as I sipped and watched the sun trickled down toward the Sea of Cortez. Once he found out I was from Seattle, though, his bleary eyes and derisive demeanor brightened. “From Seattle? Seattle es me corazón!” We went on to drunkenly partake in a celebration of our mutual affection for grunge; his love patently abundant and mine inferred. “Kurt Cobain, si, me gusta,” I conceded, “me favorito.” Thank god for cognates, I thought to myself. 

While my flannel has long disappeared and my hair is styled far more subdued than my early 90’s looks, Seattleites like myself are assumed to have an affinity for the grunge bands that put us on the map. Sub Pop, much the same way, will forever be remembered as the label that put out Nirvana’s Bleach. It’s worth mentioning that that album is still Sub Pop’s only platinum-selling album. But as the date seemingly pulled from a hat to mark their 20th anniversary approaches, Sub Pop is doing everything they can to celebrate their past forays into fuzz boxes and stage diving while they highlight their current catalogue of premier indie acts. 

Subterranean Pop
The seed for Sub Pop as we know it was planted by Bruce Pavitt in a fanzine released in 1979 named Subterranean Pop. In 1986, after a series of cassette compilations under the same name, Pavitt released a compilation entitled Sub Pop 100, and the next year Green River’s Dry as a Bone EP. By 1988, Pavitt befriended Jonathan Poneman and the two put out Soundgarden’s debut EP, Screaming Life. This release now serves as a golden stake of sorts, simultaneously marking the beginning of grunge as international phenomenon and Sub Pop’s start as a legitimate record label.

In the years that followed, Sub Pop become to Seattle what Sun Records had been to Nashville in the 50’s—an epicenter of a burgeoning “new” sound. Nirvana signed on, Mudhoney and Soundgarden released what became modern classics, MTV took notice, and suddenly the Seattle sound was the hot ticket. Knees of jeans tore at an alarming rate. Moshing was invented to keep parents nervous.

Trying Times
Then, almost inexplicably, the label nearly folded. With the bulk of Sub Pop’s superstars leaving for major label deals, Bruce Pavitt’s departure, gross financial blunders, and a pending eviction from their long-time office, the Sub Pop sun was setting over a Seattle skyline whose grungy film didn’t glisten like it did when Cornell and Cobain were pie-eyed newcomers. So Poneman did the smartest thing he could have—focused on the music. The label took up office space near Seattle Center and began to sign artists of a different swath, ushering in a new batch of artists that meshed with pop sensibilities of the city and elsewhere. A telling example comes in the form of Ben Gibbard and Jenny Lewis’ techno-pop musings as the Postal Service. Give Up, their debut, is quietly inching toward becoming Sub Pop’s second record to go platinum, a far cry from Nirvana’s headbanging milestone.