Nirvana, Pearl Jam and More Get ‘Grunge Lite’ Treatment

Here comes Grunge Lite, a greatest-hits collection of the current sounds of the Northwest done easy-listening style. The Seattle-based C/Z Records will release the 11-song album, with selections representing many acts from the flannel frontier, in late July.

The disc offers a disco version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”; Mudhoney‘s “Touch Me I’m Sick” done as “a perky, bubbly fiesta of fun – without the bile!” according to the liner notes; a version of Pearl Jam‘s “Evenflow”; and other treatments of assorted Seattle-ite classics from Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Seaweed, Tad and Flop.

Synthesizer maven Sara DeBell says she arranged and recorded the grunge covers because she had nothing better to do. But she also admits it’s her form of social commentary. “The same thing’s happening to [grunge] that happened to punk music and rap music,” she says. “It’s practically in commercials now.”

DeBell says she has no plans for a second volume. “It’s kind of scary that I could do easy-listening music that well,” she says. “Now I want to get as far away from it as I can.”

This story is from the August 5th, 1993 issue of Rolling Stone.