Ten years after crawling from the muck and mire of the Seattle grunge scene, Soundgarden's farewell compilation hits all the high points of an impressive career. Nirvana may have taken grunge public, but Soundgarden got there first. Starting with the grinding of SCREAMING LIFE's "Nothing To Say," A-SIDES demonstrates the band's evolution from muscular musical brutes to a unit whose might was tailored by an innovative use of hooks and melodicism.
Soundgarden was an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1984 by singer and rhythm guitarist Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil (both of whom are the only members to appear in every incarnation of the band), and bassist Hiro Yamamoto. Matt Cameron became the band's full-time drummer in 1986, while bassist Ben Shepherd became a permanent replacement for Yamamoto in 1990. The band dissolved in 1997 and re-formed in 2010. Following Cornell's suicide in 2017 and a year of uncertainty of the band's future, Thayil declared in an October 2018 interview with Seattle Times that they would not continue as Soundgarden; they did, however, reunite in January 2019 for a one-off concert in tribute to Cornell.