“There is a paper to be written about the geography of rock,” wrote John Peel in January 1989. “Why Liverpool? Why Manchester? Why not Birmingham? And why Seattle? And why, while we’re at it, now? A 1981 compilation christened Seattle Syndrome dropped no hint that anything even remotely interesting would ever happen in Washington’s largest city. Yet increasingly, the name Seattle has popped up whenever music lovers of a certain age gather together to speak of non-chart pop. And as oten as these folk have said ‘Seattle’, they have said ‘Sub Pop’.”
This, the first major endorsement of what was to become grunge, ended with an uncharacteristically giant prediction. Although Sub Pop had only released a handful of 12-inches, “It is going to take something special,” Peel promised, “to stop Sub Pop 200 being the set of recordings by which others are judged for some time. he distant roar is the sound of queues forming. he God thing is coming.”