the world at the time, an appreciation of classic rock was inevitably baked in. Many grunge bands made this connection explicit: Nirvana covered David Bowie on MTV Unplugged in New York. Pearl Jam made a whole album with Neil Young. Alice in Chains hired Ozzy Osbourne’s ex–bass player. With grunge bands, there was always a sense of perpetuation—they didn’t seek to kill classic rock, as the punks supposedly set out to do. (Though in the end, bands like the Clash, the Ramones, and Talking Heads wound up absorbed into classic-rock history anyway.) Grunge bands wanted to carry the torch, and in
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