Soundtrack-Singles (1992)

 

Artist: Soundtrack (Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Chris Cornell, Paul Westerberg, The Lovemongers, Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Jimi Hendrix, Screaming Trees, Smashing Pumpkiins)

Title: Singles

Label: Epic Soundtrax

Format: CD

Cat #: EK 52476

Year of Release: 1992

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1992

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date:10/28/21

Sell Price: $3.99

Discogs Last Sold: 11/17/21 $1.99

Low:$0.99

Median: $1.99

Average: $2.12

High: $3.99

Current low price: $0.80

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 57

Have/Want: 2338/108

Where Sold: Graham, NC

Time it took to sell: 10 years

Where and When Bought: Record Club guessing Columbia House

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B

Sad To See It Go: No

I used to play a game called "blind pick" when I was bored as a kid.  I played a version of it today, throwing the last 20 titles sold that I haven't written about yet in a bag, shook it up and..voila!  The Singles Soundtrack!

This is the result of the brief era where the kids that came out of the first wave of American Hardcore got to run the levers of power in the entertainment world.  All the way down to slyly renaming Epic's Soundtrack label, named after a commercially unviable underground icon from the Swell Maps.  For 5 minutes the world was run by the dysfunctional kids that spent their spare cash on records and hung out in dive bars and rock basements drunk if not on weed and dope.  This was an artifact of my slacker g-g-generation.

My only memory of seeing this movie on videocassette around '93 was liking the Paul Westerberg song "Dyslexic Heart" that played as the credits rolled.  Had that never happened, I may never have gotten this as a freebee from Columbia House or some other record club I'd use to get bulk collection filler during lean times.

As far as soundtracks go, this is a decent assessment of the post-Nivana commercial landscape with all the heavy hitters except Nirvana.  Mostly Seattle based (Ann & Nancy Wilson's Lovemongers, Hendrix), "influential" (Westerberg from Minneapolis) or too big to leave out (Chicago's Smashing Pumpkins).  Hendrix seems tacked on here.  Why place a God among mere mortals?  I forget if "May This Be Love" made sense in the movie and don't really want to watch it again to have the dead brain cells snap to life.  Heart doing Zep fit better, they exist for that.

I completely forgot that there was a second song by Westerberg, "Waiting For Somebody" that was also in the same snappy vein.  I started to wonder if that was the song in the end credits, but I'm still pretty sure it was "Dyslexic Heart."

As for the start to finish listening experience there are hits and also rans.  Screaming Trees "Nearly Lost You" I've always found oddly beautiful and perhaps their best song after "Cold Rain."  Why I like this song so much probably has something to do with with a baritone voice rising over "heavy" long haired guitarists.  I relate, ha ha ha.  I always found the Alice In Chains opener "Would?" unexpectedly likeable throughout the years.   I guess it reminds me of someone.  Soundgarden's "Birth Ritual" is a good chugger.  While Mudhoney is the best band on here, I never really liked their societal gripe numbers like "Overblown."    Now that nobody cares about Rock Bands From Seattle, it dates poorly.

As for the rest, the sands of time make me cringe a little less at the sound of Eddie Vedder's voice and can tolerate Mother Love Bone a little more.  The Smashing Pumpkins "Drown" also sounds better than I wanted to give them credit for at the time.  

There are worse things than the better known roster of Commercial Grunge.