Grunge Bakgrounds

The history of the Screaming Trees goes back to 1985 when brothers Van Conner on bass and Gary Lee Conner on guitar teamed up singer Mark Lanegan in rural logging town Ellensburg, Washington State in 1985. After recording a handful of EPs and LPs for various US indie labels, including SST and Sub Pop, they signed to Sony imprint Epic Records for 1991’s “Uncle Anaesthesia”, co-produced with Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell.

Primal Rock Therapy was the only studio album by Seattle grunge band Blood Circus. Sub Pop originally released it as an EP in 1989, but it was reissued in 1992 with seven extra tracks, including the band's first non-album single and five unreleased tracks from 1989. It was produced by legendary grunge producer and Skin Yard guitarist Jack Endino. Although Blood Circus were one of the original bands on the grunge scene in the late 1980s, and Primal Rock Therapy has since been recognized for its historic status as one of the first grunge albums ever released, at the time of the album's release it was panned by critics and became one of the poorest-selling albums ever released on Sub Pop.

The romantic comedy Singles, in part a homage to director Cameron Crowe's hometown of Seattle, was released at exactly the right time (summer 1992). Nirvana's Nevermind had symbolically knocked Michael Jackson off the top of the album charts at the beginning of the year, and the underground buzz about Seattle bands like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam was beginning to find its way past circles of indie aficionados and open-minded hard rock fans and into the mainstream. Singles helped crystallize the idea of the "Seattle scene" in the mainstream public's mind, and it was also one of the first big-selling '90s movie soundtracks (it went platinum and reached the Top Ten) to feature largely new work from contemporary artists. The soundtrack's strength was the way it was so firmly rooted in place – where future soundtrack extravaganzas simply contrived to gather as many big-name acts as possible, Singles focused specifically on Seattle-area music (quite logically, given the film's plot and setting), which gave the album the feel of a cohesive document.