Hear Me Out: The ‘Singles’ soundtrack is the best grunge album of all time
When talking about the best album that grunge has to offer, most people would bring something by the heavy hitters of the Seattle scene. If not Nirvana with Nevermind or Pearl Jam’s Ten, more hardened alternative acts would say that outfits like Mudhoney or Melvins are more deserving of the grunge accolade, making songs that were deliberately unsophisticated and putting them into a full album experience that sounded like it was coated in dirt. If there was a mathematical science for the perfect grunge album, the creator might be Cameron Crowe with the soundtrack to Singles.
Having been known as a writer for Rolling Stone before his film career, Crowe was interested in making a movie that captured the spirit of the city he saw every day. While the studio wasn’t going to go for it in the age of hair metal, they reconsidered after acts like Alice in Chains and Nirvana started to make waves on the rock scene with tracks like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.
While the movie is a relatively by-the-numbers romantic comedy akin to Say Anything, the soundtrack is an array of everything great about the alternative rock scene circa 1992. Since Crowe was known for making movies that revolved around a certain feeling, the spirit of Seattle coats every track on the album.
Starting with the moody sounds of Alice in Chains track ‘Would?’, fans are already prepared for a dour experience, with Layne Staley shrieking his lungs out about the death of Mother Love Bone singer Andy Wood. Even though the album came out years after Wood’s passing from a heroin overdose, it does find time to pay respects to the man’s talents with the song ‘Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns’.
Throughout the rest of the album, almost every single artist from the Seattle landscape turns up for a song, each delivering pitch-perfect depictions of what life in the city was like in the bullseye of its golden age. Although Soundgarden might not have had their biggest brush with fame yet, tracks like ‘Birth Ritual’ are the clearest example of them playing to their strengths, sounding like a long-forgotten Led Zeppelin cut if filtered through the instrumentation of Black Sabbath.
Outside of the other Seattle acolytes like Pearl Jam and The Screaming Trees, many of the odds and ends from the album fit like a glove as well. While Paul Westberg may have been making his first steps as a solo artist outside The Replacements, the inclusion of his songs on the record may as well be a thank you for everything he had done for the scene. Although The Replacements may have been early arrivals to the alternative movement, there’s a good chance that inclusions like Pearl Jam’s ‘State of Love and Trust’ wouldn’t exist if not for Westerberg.
Crowe also finds room for classic rock homages that fit in with the traditional grunge scene. Looking through the local talent of days gone by, the Wilson sisters from Heart turn in a pitch-perfect cover of ‘The Battle of Evermore’ as The Lovemongers, while Jimi Hendrix represents the 1960s with a version of the song ‘May This Be Love’. If Crowe had the opportunity to include The Sonics, the compilation would have all the bases of Seattle’s classic scene covered as well.
Just like all excellent grunge rock albums that came before, there’s also that trademark cynicism, with Mudhoney offering up the song ‘Overblown’ about how saturated the scene had become compared to its humble roots. While there is more than a fair bit of snide attitude, the album’s heart is still in the right place, as evidenced by Chris Cornell’s breathtaking solo track ‘Seasons’.
The only thing holding this album of grunge excellence back is the absence of Nirvana. While there had been no set reason as to why Kurt Cobain turned down being included on the soundtrack, the other familiar faces are more than enough, with even Smashing Pumpkins doing a great grunge-adjacent song with their closing track ‘Drown’.
While the 1990s marked the golden age of the movie soundtrack thanks to films like Trainspotting, Singles is probably one of the best examples of a soundtrack having an impact far greater than the movie itself. There may have been more high-profile artists that Crowe could have drawn from when putting together this compilation, but by sticking to his roots, he created an album that served not just as a reflection of the Seattle scene but also a running commentary on where the city would be going after it became the hub of alternative music.
