30 Years Later, Singles Is Better as a Snapshot of 1990s Grunge than as a Movie

https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/singles-30-year-anniversary/

Originally, Nirvana was supposed to contribute a song to the Singles soundtrack, just like their then-contemporaries Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Smashing Pumpkins. However, Nevermind exploded, and by then the rights to any of Nirvana’s music had become prohibitively expensive. Maybe it’s just as well: the band confessed in an MTV interview that they didn’t really like “rock n’ roll movies” and that the script could have been set anywhere.

They had a point, too. Singles was re-worked from a screenplay Cameron Crowe had written before his directorial debut classic Say Anything…, itself set in the Seattle ‘burbs. The filmmaker had been a resident for years, was a fan of groups like TAD and Mother Love Bone, and was sincerely “paying tribute to a city and a feeling,” as he told Rolling Stone. Singles got accused of being an obvious cash grab when it was finally released in theaters circa 1992, but it had actually been sitting on a studio shelf for a minute. That is, until the bands in the movie began selling millions of albums and, well, singles. Warner Brothers released the film only when they were sure the soundtrack could capitalize on the commercial success of the “Seattle sound.”