page_title: Arts in Seattle
section_title: Popular music today
hierarchical_section_title: Arts in Seattle / Arts in Seattle today / Performing arts / Popular music today
caption_attribution_description: Chris Ballew from w:Presidents of the United States of America playing at the w:KeyArena 2005.
context_page_description: Seattle is a significant center for the painting, sculpture, textile and studio glass, alternative, urban art, lowbrow and performing arts. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, are comparably distinguished. On at least two occasions, Seattle's local popular music scene has burst into the national and even international consciousness, first with a major contribution to garage rock in the mid-1960s, and later as the home of grunge rock in the early 1990s. The city has about twenty live theater venues, and Pioneer Square is one of the country's most prominent art gallery districts.
context_section_description: In popular music, Seattle is often thought of as the home of grunge rock, but it is also home to such varied musicians as avant-garde jazz musicians Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, hot Jazz band leader Glenn Crytzer, rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot, smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G, and such poppier rock bands as Goodness and The Presidents of the United States of America. Such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Duff McKagan, Nikki Sixx, and Quincy Jones spent their formative years in Seattle. Ann and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart, often attributed to Seattle, were actually from the neighboring suburb of Bellevue, as was progressive metal band Queensrÿche.
  Seattle hosts a diverse and influential alternative music scene. The Seattle-based record label Sub Pop was the first to sign Nirvana, and also signed such non-grunge bands as The Postal Service and The Shins. Other Seattle-area bands of note include Pearl Jam, Sunn O))), Acceptance, Aiden, Alien Crime Syndicate, Antlers, Ayron Jones and The Way, The Beautiful Mothers, the Blakes, The Blood Brothers, Blue Scholars, The Catheters, Charlie Drown, Common Heroes, Dangermart, Daphne Loves Derby (Kent), Death Cab for Cutie (Bellingham), Daylight Basement, The Divorce, Dog Bone Sanctuary, Dolour, Drop Six, Drown Mary, Harvey Danger, Fleet Foxes, Foo Fighters, Gatsby's American Dream, Maktub, Metal Church, Minus the Bear, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Modest Mouse (Issaquah), Mudhoney, The Murder City Devils, MxPx (Bremerton), The Myriad, Pedro the Lion, Point One, Ruby Doe, Schoolyard Heroes, Screaming Trees (originally from Ellensburg), Second Coming, Sky Cries Mary, Sleater-Kinney (Olympia), Slicing Grandpa, Smoosh, Soundgarden, Sunny Day Real Estate, Super Deluxe, Supersuckers, Sweet 75, Trial, Turn to Fall, United State of Electronica, Utterance, Vendetta Red, Vexed, Vindaloo, Visqueen, Zeke and The Zero Points.
  The Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle Center is one of the few major institutions anywhere specifically devoted to popular music. Although EMP has scaled back its live music programming from the level of its first few years, every April since 2002 it has hosted the three-day Pop Conference, which brings together a few hundred people for a unique conference that presents the perspectives of academics, writers, artists, and fans.
caption: Chris Ballew of The Presidents of the United States of America, 2005
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