Temple Of The Dog
Temple Of The Dog

First of all, I want to clarify one thing: to me, grunge doesn't exist, even though I wrote that this album is grunge; in fact, I never managed to understand what connects bands like Melvins and Pearl Jam, or Alice in Chains and Screaming Trees.

It's evident that flannel shirts aren't enough... okay, they’re all bands from the same city, but what does that have to do with the music? The fact that Soundgarden is from Seattle just like Mudhoney doesn't mean they make similar music. Every Seattle band has its own style, which is often light-years different from that of another band that might be playing in the rehearsal room across the street. So what is grunge?
It's the enthusiasm, it's the buzz of that city, it's the desire to make honest, direct, and angry music, and it's the fact that it always rains in Seattle, so kids do nothing but play in garages, and eventually, the results show. But the reality is that, in my opinion, a musical genre called grunge never existed.

It took journalists’ ignorance (a bit of ripped jeans and long hair) to immediately hype up the musical trend, and thus grunge was born, completely made up. The fact that this genre is more about honesty and enthusiasm in the approach to music rather than a true musical style is confirmed by one reality: the best things from the Seattle scene came not from the official bands but from the so-called "supergroups". After each band, indeed, had developed its own personal way of doing "grunge," they moved on to side projects, bands exchanged musicians in the friendly and "comradely" atmosphere that helped label this phenomenon as "grunge," and thus the real masterpieces were born, like Mad Season or Temple of the Dog.
The latter is often referred to as "Soundgarden and Pearl Jam together," which is absolutely not true.

The lineup includes the two guitarists from the hallucinogenic jam (Gossard and McCready) plus the bassist Jeff Ament and Eddie Vedder along with Chris Cornell and the magnificent drummer Matt Cameron from Soundgarden; however, practically all the songs were written by Cornell, so it doesn’t make sense to talk about a supergroup. The reality is that this is one of the most sincere and moving albums in music history: dedicated to the late Andrew Wood (Cornell’s roommate, also a singer, who died of an overdose), it is entirely inspired by the death of his friend, and is poignant and heartfelt from the first to the last note.
The first two tracks, "Say Hello 2 Heaven" and "Reach Down" are already simply masterpieces, sweet and wonderful, managing both to move and to highlight the technical skills of the group; the second track lasts a full eleven minutes but never bores, instead keeps you on the edge of your seat until the end; the lyrics are of simple but disarming beauty, further highlighting how it's Cornell pulling the strings.

Vedder is clearly present in the beautiful "Hunger Strike", another splendid piece with incredible vocal intertwining, but he is always and however in the background (in fact, many Pj fans were angry with this project because they thought it was a commercial maneuver to give more visibility to the San Diego singer, nothing could be further from the truth). Temple of the Dog also manages to write hard-hitting and intense tracks that are nonetheless touching, in the lyrics and approach, as in "Pushing Forward Back", but sadness and loss are the main themes of the album, returning with "Wooden Jesus" and "Times of Trouble", among the best episodes.
This is an album that hasn't received the attention it deserves (just like "Above" by Mad Season) but grows with every listen due to all the emotions behind it that are impossible to ignore. In this album, there is nothing that is not perfect and exactly in its place, everything is as it should be because behind every note is the feeling and suffering for the loss, there is honesty, and this cannot help but influence the music.

Temple of the Dog dedicated an absolute masterpiece to the passing of their friend, and on par with Buckley, Drake, Reed... all the greatest, the "indispensable” ones, they have shown that music has nothing to do with technique or compositional talent, but what can elevate music to Art is only the emotion and sincerity with which it’s made. Sorry for the excessive length.