10 Best Grunge Albums You Need To Hear

With the 90's firmly underway, the dissolution of Mother Love Bone due to Andy Wood's death was still a fresh wound in the Seattle community. Stricken with grief, Chris Cornell tried to write songs as a way to cope with the inner turmoil of losing one of his best friends. As time went on, these songs began to stack up until he got a backlog of fantastic tunes.

Rather than making a few Soundgarden songs based on these tracks, Cornell asked former members of Mother Love Bone if they wanted to make a record with the tunes as a tribute to their late singer. After some apprehension, members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard formed Temple of the Dog with Cornell and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron as they dealt with their grief and looked for a new singer.

Upon finding Eddie Vedder, Gossard and Ament invited him to the Temple of the Dog sessions to sing on a couple tracks, which led to the three forming the crux of Pearl Jam. With Cornell and Cameron returning to their home band shortly after and Pearl Jam starting to come up the ranks, Temple of the Dog is not only a poignant tribute to Wood but one of the purest example of grunge music ever put to tape.