For Fans of Grunge

Every grunge record has a claim on greatness but Soundgarden's 1994 double album sits at a level the others only approach. Chris Cornell's vocal range is deployed against arrangements that swing from doom-metal sludge to near-psychedelic balladry within the same side of the record. The rhythm section of Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd plays with a mathematical density that rewards repeated listening. Black Hole Sun is the radio hit but Limo Wreck, The Day I Tried to Live, and Mailman are where the record becomes genuinely strange and irreplaceable.

Cameron Crowe's 1992 film is loose and affectionate and frequently dismissed as too light for the scene it depicts. That reading misses the point. Singles does not pretend the music was tragic. It captures the specific Seattle moment when twenty-something musicians were figuring out what they wanted and the city was the right size and the clubs were cheap enough to experiment. Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains appear as themselves. The soundtrack alone is a time capsule. The film earns its place as the era's most accurate social document.

Tim Schafer's 2009 game is nominally about heavy metal but grunge fans will find its DNA running through it: the suspicion of corporate rock, the elevation of authenticity, the idea that the music is a force with real power in the world. It builds a full mythology around recorded sound and guitar distortion. The open-world sequences where you simply drive across the landscape with the soundtrack roaring are a better tribute to what loud guitar music feels like than most documentaries manage.