10 Perfect Grunge Rock Albums Of The 90s
4. Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog
Out of all of the OG bands that were there at the inception of grunge, every one of them seemed to be informed by Mother Love Bone. As far as star power was concerned, Andy Wood was the breakout star of Seattle, being as much informed by people like Freddie Mercury as the standard grunge precursors. Though he was never able to see what grunge would look like once it hit the mainstream, he did get one hell of a sendoff with Temple of the Dog.
After Andy died of a heroin overdose in 1990, Chris Cornell gathered some of the remaining members of Mother Love Bone to create a tribute record, with the name of the band taken from one of Andy's old songs. Compared to the rest of the grunge albums on this list, this feels almost like a funeral dirge for a fallen friend, with songs like Say Hello to Heaven and Times of Trouble having a haunting quality to them.
What really sent things over the top though was Hunger Strike, when the former Love Bone members auditioned an up and comer out of California named Eddie Vedder, who duetted with Cornell and would go on to form a pretty decent band of his own. Though that's a story for another entry, Temple of the Dog marks a turning point where grunge started becoming legendary.