Soundgarden Announce Very Special New 2018 Release

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Soundgarden have confirmed that they will reissue their A-Sides Greatest Hits collection on Record Store Day on April 21st. It is a vinyl release, and will be limited to 5,000 copies.

Soundgarden first released A-Sides in 1997 following their breakup. Kim Thayil said in a February 1998 interview with Guitar World, “I think [the songs] accurately reflect the history of Soundgarden as a marketable commodity. And they reflect the songs that we wrote which were popular with the radio stations that played them, to the record company that sold them, to the fans that bought them. There are a few songs that are missing from the list and I think if the band itself did a retrospective it might be a little less appealing.”

He also said, “We verbalized many years ago that we didn’t want to bend for the marketplace. Our business was to always do what we liked and have the market bend to us. It was just a matter of time. You know what the bitch about the Seventies was? Fucking baby-boomers and 40-nothings. The eighties sucked way worse than the Seventies. The Seventies had Richard Hell & The Voidoids, The Stooges, the Sex Pistols. The coolest thing in the Eighties, in terms of mainstream rock and roll, was the Police.

They were cool musicians. All the great stuff in the Eighties was the underground stuff and metal, from Metallica to Husker Du, to the Butthole Surfers to Black Flag, Big Black to Sonic Youth, Soundgarden to Tad. What was on the radio just sucked. I did not listen to the radio or watch TV during that time at all. If you look at major label music or radio of the Eighties, it was embarrassing. You had these stupid little New Wave flock of haircut bands. Then you had the clown-at-my-birhtday-party-shit that passed as metal. It was the Partridge Family with fuzzy guitars, and it stunk. I’m glad we killed that stuff. Us, and a lot of other Seattle bands that put a dagger into the heart of Hollywood rock.”

90’s Soundgarden photographer Kevin Westenberg posted on Instagram in January:

“SOUNDGARDEN are currently in the process of releasing the first material since Chris’s untimely passing. Turns out that the initial greatest hits collection, ‘A-Sides’ was never released on vinyl. Now that vinyl is “back”, this album on vinyl will soon be re-released. Of course this makes perfect sense especially for sound quality. Release date TBC.

Sourcing new unseen photos and refining the older photos in the original package is now under way with various images being looked at for inclusion. I went through a period 20-25 years ago where I felt that with certain artists, a black background was the purest form of expression. In my mind it was also representative of the anti-white background. This represented the opposite of commerciality, which also allowed visual focus on the artists face, expression and enhanced the dark mood of the era. The void and black space always meant more to me in my earlier works, than the parts of the photo one could see.

If there was ever a subject that would fit this prerequisite, it was Soundgarden and my vision of what Soundgarden was for me as a band. This set up was also part of the 18 hour marathon shoot at the Ok Hotel for the DOWN ON THE UPSIDE campaign. Good Times. Photo: Kevin Westenberg. #kevinwestenberg #realfilmrealwestenberg #soundgarden #chriscornell #benshepherd #kimthayil #mattcameron #hiroyamamoto #grunge #metal #love #throwback #instagram #badmotorfinger #ultramegaok #superunknown #downontheupside #asides #filmsnotdead #bw #blackandwhite #classic #goodtimes”