Published on Mar 16, 2006
The ’90s were defined by grunge. And if the whole
Seattle music scene has to be condensed into a package, then the
soundtrack for the movie Singles is just the right CD,
because it is the ultimate grunge album, a comprehensive lesson in
grunge for those who have never explored this music before, as well
as for those who live and breathe it.
The lineup of this record, monstrously grunge and
proudly Seattle, speaks for itself: Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains,
Chris Cornell/Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, Jimi Hendrix,
Mudhoney, The Lovemongers, and Screaming Trees, with contribution
from a couple of non-Seattle indie-superstars of the early grunge
era, Smashing Pumpkins and Paul Westerberg.
But, there’s more to this soundtrack than just its
titanic lineup. This compilation finds most of the aforementioned
grunge celebrities in their pre-stardom days. Cuts like “Breath”
and “State Of Love And Trust” by Pearl Jam, “Seasons” by Chris
Cornell and “Birth Ritual” by Soundgarden, and “Drown” by Smashing
Pumpkins showcase the raw talent in these acts during the years
when they still hadn’t made it big. These tracks show the roots of
these gigantic bands.
The Singles soundtrack was part of a period
where rock music was being discovered by a completely new
generation of listeners whose first-ever exposure to this kind of
music was either Pearl Jam or Nirvana, and introduces the genesis
of modern rock music to these new rock converts. First, it has a
track by Mother Love Bone, the band that evolved into Pearl Jam
after singer Andrew Wood died. This is followed by a cover of Led
Zeppelin’s “The Battle Of Evermore,” by The Lovemongers, a
pseudonym for the band Heart.
The most valuable lesson for fledgling rock
enthusiasts — for whom Seattle became the newfound capital of
modern rock — is a Hendrix number (“May This Be Love”), which
shows that the foundation for Seattle’s prolific rock music scene
was laid not in the ’90s, but three decades prior.
Though Singles seems a perfect grunge record
in every sense, there are two things that make it short of an
all-star “dream” album for every grunge fan: Neil Young and
Nirvana, the two names synonymous with grunge. For an album that is
almost an audio bible for grunge, the absence — for whatever
reason — of Neil Young, the godfather of grunge, and Nirvana, the
band that turned grunge from an obscure offshoot of rock to its
most loved and most popular avatar, does leave a bit of room for
discontent.
Singles is one of those soundtracks that makes the movie
secondary to it, instead of the other way around. Ask anyone who
owns this record if they have seen the movie or even know about it,
and the positive answers — with no offense to the movie — would
only come sparingly. This album is way too important to be a
supporting soundtrack for a romantic comedy flick; it chronicles
grunge history, after all. It is one the best accounts of why
Seattle is popular not just for its coffee and computers.