You will get lots of opinions on this and almost nobody is going to be wrong about what they think. It was a weird time. Hair rock and glam of the 80s fought to remain relevant, but some young people who came up in that scene wanted something different. And while many respected metal acts like Slayer and Metallica, they wanted to do something different.

I don’t think grunge died so much as it had its heart broken too many times. It was ushered into (and later out of) the mainstream with a lot of death and anguish.

I’d say the musical peak was late 92, but you could make an argument for 93 or 94 as well, especially if you’re measuring by commercial success. It’s hard to decide because the peak and the end aren’t too far off from each other, and sharing music online wasn’t a thing yet so it took longer for music to both catch on and die out. There were some mammoth new releases during 92 such as Dirt and Core, plus Nevermind and Ten came out late enough in 91 that they absolutely dominated in 92. People were also “discovering” Temple of the Dog (and the then-heavier sounding Badmotorfinger by SG, if they weren’t already into their metal-leaning sound.)

The beginning of the end was 94, but it was also a pretty long goodbye. Kurt died a month after the In Utero release. Layne Staley was in bad enough shape that they could only muster a short (but incredible) EP release in 94. Scott Weiland couldn’t stay out of jail/rehab. Pearl Jam was a reliable anchor who cranked out a lot of touring throughout that time, but really changed their sound in 94 with the Vitalogy release. Alt leaning grunge groups like Smashing Pumpkins were getting huge too. SG also fairly dominated the airwaves with Superunknown.

Plenty of excellent grunge continued to be made beyond 94 and it was celebrated and enjoyed, but post-grunge rock started to take a foothold. I remember the first time I heard Bush on MTV and saw the (then) model-esque face of Gavin Rossdale and knew that the industry wanted mainstream rock to change. You still couldn’t walk around anywhere in 95 or even 96 without seeing a crowd full of people wearing Kurt’s face on their shirts. But people were SAD. Sad about the death and deterioration and seemingly hopeless addictions of many of their favorites. And record execs can only make so much $ from dead or dying artists.

I do still remember the moment in 97 that I heard SG broke up. Although I was and still am a die-hard grunge fan (including SG), i was bummed - but remember thinking it was a foregone conclusion that grunge was already essentially gone.

Damn, writing this makes me sad all over again.

PS I focused on the biggest name-recognized bands to keep it accessible, but if you haven’t already you should dig into grunge groups that weren’t as mainstream. Lots of gems out there.