A-Sides

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Garden of Sound, 2008-06-17
Soundgarden have easily succeeded with A-Sides, this is the best compilation I've found from a grunge band. With a whopping 17 songs this is worth every dollar. Adding the unreleased "Bleed Together" is a great addition and the chronological order is fascinating. You can really notice the band mature and craft better songs. You can spot their more commercially successful songs halfway through, so you get a lot of their older sound stirred in a bit. Most greatest hits lack older material from bands and strive on their most appealing songs. br / br /Highly appealing for the price. "Black Hole Sun" is a classic, but take a deeper look into songs like "Flower" or the epic "Jesus Christ Pose" (Chris Cornell hits his highest note in his career in the songs later moments!)The sound is great, the song selection offers a variety of well produced tunes to metallic throwbacks. Their is fast songs, their are slow songs, their are even punkish songs! br / br /Soundgarden are on the biggest grunge bands and remains obvious when looked upon this album!

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

One of the best singles bands of the '90s, 2008-04-03
Soundgarden may be a bit overrated, but who cares? They are cool. I'm not big on their early work, but Badmotorfinger and Superunknown were easily two of the coolest releases of the '90s, and guess what? Half this album is taken from those two releases! DUDE! These are some classic songs! I don't think ANY '90s frontman, except for maybe Eddie Veder, had more old-fashioned charisma than Chris Cornnel, and few of the guitarists could play like Kim Thayil. Just listen to "Spoonman" (which is actually very, very funky stuff, especially for a grunge band), and you'll know what I mean. It's damn intelligent, too. It's got this really tricky, really complicated rhythm. Soundgarden was charismatic AND smart - in my eyes, a great combination. And the songs here rule! The psychedelic grunge of "Black Hole Sun" is my favorite, because Cornel does some great wailing near the end, and Thayil totally rocks out. Plus their drummer, Matt Cameron, loses his mind. It's great. But hey, just about all of this is! Have you heard these songs? "Jesus Christ Pose"? "Pretty Noose"? "Rusty Cage"? "Outshined"? "Fell on Black Days"? "Burden in My Hand"? "Flower"? "Loud Love"? Whoa... it's hard-rockin', intelligent, good music! A few songs I think are greatest-hits quality are missing - "Superunknown", "Room a Thousand Years Wide", "Big Dumb Sex" ("Hey, I know what I'll do! Fork you, farg you, fjordk you!" Funny song!), "Fourth of July", "Head Down", and so on - but that can only be expected on a greatest-hits album, and besides, this is a very specific one. It's all a-sides. Good 'uns, too! Pick this up if you're a '90s rock fan. I know I am.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

The essential is there, 2008-01-30
Soundgarden was a good band but they won't make history. br /If you like grunge rock, you'll like it. br /To me, few songs are unforgettable like "Outshine", "Black old sun" or "Burden in my hand" but it takes a lot more to remains in the major league of rock music.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Futile Offerings From Clueless Executives, 2007-07-01
A best-of album from Soundgarden is like a best-of album from Led Zeppelin: it's ridiculous. In many ways Soundgarden is the Led Zeppelin of the grunge era. Both bands are about power and mystique, each offering up a relentlessly heavy edge that overshadowed their contemporaries like Manute Bol standing next to Spud Web. Also, both bands went extinct way too soon. In Soundgarden's case, they issued only five albums and two eps. While their earlier work (1985-1989) was an inchoate combination of sweaty hard rock and shifty punk music, sometime during the process of the "Louder Than Love" album (1989) the band just locked into a sound that can never be duplicated. Everything that followed this period (-1997) was simply brilliant. So, who can argue with a greatist hits collection? My main gripe is that their record label has been incredibly stingy about their treatment of Soundgarden's catalogue, not to mention the Temple of The Dog album, which should be remastered and offered with live tracks/outtakes. This is not just great music, it's music that defines an era, defines a feeling. It's the exalted prototype for an entire movement. And why is the awesome "Birth Ritual" from the Singles soundtrack or "Heretic" from Pump Up The Volume missing? Whatever bohemeth now owns Soundgarden's catalogue needs to remaster everything and release something from the live vaults. It's been a decade since this, their most recent offering, was released. Gimme a break.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Great for the casual fan, 2007-06-27
If you don't already own Superunknown, then you might as well pick up this album as opposed to buying three or four Soundgarden albums. There are some great tunes missing, but there always are. All the major hits are here.