Best OF Grunge

"Best of Soundgarden Redux" is the customary companion album, which is released alongside each full-album cover editions of the Redux Series. Accompanying "Superunknown Redux", another 15 all-time classics and deep cuts from across the rest of the grunge gods' extensive catalogue are delivered by as many exciting acts on "Best of Soundgarden Redux".

On September 29, the band will mark 21 years since their first release ‘Swim’ with a career-spanning 41-track greatest hits package and a mini album ‘Arrow’ of nine new songs – featuring the song ‘Figure You Out’.

Arguably, Silverchair is to Pearl Jam and Nirvana what jazz great Sonny Stitt was to bebop king Charlie "Bird" Parker – a derivative disciple, but impressive nonetheless. Stitt was no innovator; he was a follower instead of a leader. But he played his Bird-minded alto sax with so much conviction that you had to applaud him. And similarly, Silverchair was far superior to most of the Nirvana and Pearl Jam disciples who flooded the market in the 1990s.

L7 had the sound, style, and tough-grrrl attitude to hit it big in the aftermath of grunge's mainstream breakthrough, but unfortunately, the band was too often hampered by uneven songwriting. The Best of L7: The Slash Years collects four songs apiece from Bricks Are Heavy, Hungry for Stink, and The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum (although, as the title suggests, there's nothing from the fine Sub Pop album Smell the Magic). It's a pretty good distillation of the cream of those records, even if there are still a few tunes on Bricks Are Heavy that could have made the cut on a less mathematically selected best-of. In fact, as L7's most pop-oriented record, Bricks Are Heavy is still a slightly more accessible introduction, since following that album, the band tended to rely more on sheer power than melody. Nevertheless, The Best of L7: The Slash Years does encapsulate what the group was all about, and it's a great way to dig deeper into their catalog without having to buy all the individual albums.

Though it may not seem like much time, the five short years during which they recorded for A&M Records marked the most consistent period of Y&T's unfortunate career. And though they would sign a new contract with Geffen thereafter, their subsequent, glam-drenched efforts would prove even less inspired. So while hardly all encompassing, Best of '81 to '85 will satisfy the curious fan better than any other package, save perhaps for their excellent live album, Open Fire. The band's drab studio technique notwithstanding, tracks like "Open Fire," "Hurricane," "Mean Streak," and "I Believe in You" make a strong, cohesive statement about the group's songwriting, if not their performance. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia

The Best of Nickelback Volume 1 is the first greatest hits album by Canadian rock band Nickelback. It was released on November 4, 2013 through Roadrunner Records (internationally) and Universal Music Canada (in Canada) to coincide with their October–November 2013 "The Hits Tour". Though frontman Chad Kroeger had previously stated in an interview that their upcoming greatest hits album would include new songs as well as previous hits, the final track listing contains only previously released material. The compilation features singles released from all but the band's first two albums; namely Silver Side Up (2001), The Long Road (2003), All the Right Reasons (2005), Dark Horse (2008), and Here and Now (2011).

The most traditional pop band of all the Welsh bands to emerge in the post-Brit-pop days of the mid-'90s, Catatonia reworked the sound of jangling late-'80s alternative rock with a punchy, amateurish indie rock attack. Comprised of vocalist Cerys Matthews, guitarist/vocalist Mark Roberts, guitarist Owen, bassist Paul Jones, and drummer Aled Richards, Catatonia formed in Cardiff, Wales in the early '90s. Matthews and Roberts used to busk together in Cardiff before officially forming the band.

Guitar virtuoso Nuno Bettencourt made his name with the eclectic pop-metal outfit Extreme during the height of the guitar-shredder era, and embarked on a solo career after the band's breakup. As a soloist, Bettencourt's most immediately recognizable influence was Eddie Van Halen, but as a songwriter, he might draw from Queen, the Beatles, Prince, and anything in between. The youngest of ten children in a musical family, Bettencourt was born Nuno Duarte Gil Mendes Bettencourt in the town of Praia da Vitoria, on the island of Terceira in the Azores (an archipelago governed by Portugal) on September 20, 1966.