How Soundgarden’s “Louder Than Love” Paved the Way for Grunge’s Success

by Andy Miller & Ethan Lambert | September 5, 2024

Written for Today in Music History

Nirvana gets all the glory for propelling grunge to the mainstream, but Soundgarden was the real trailblazer.

Exactly 35 years ago today, on September 5, 1989, Louder Than Love was released, making it the first grunge album to receive a major label release, effectively paving the way for the genre's future success.

In the 1980s, over-the-top hair metal bands reigned supreme, with their glossy production dominating the airwaves. It was like watching a bunch of peacocks strutting around with guitars. But beneath this polished veneer, a storm was brewing in the gloomy streets of Seattle. Young bands were cooking up something so authentic, so visceral, it could only have come from the rain-soaked soul of the Pacific Northwest.

They called it “grunge” because, well, it was dirty. It was messy. It was real.

It took the sheen of hair metal and smashed it to pieces. The sound was a glorious fusion of punk's snarling attitude and metal's bone-crushing power. These guys cranked up the feedback, threw in some distortion, and didn't give a damn if it sounded pretty.

The lyrics weren't about partying with groupies. They were about real, relatable issues: depression, feeling like an outcast, the crushing weight of societal expectations. It wasn't pretty, but it was honest, and a whole generation of disaffected kids finally had someone speaking their language. This was therapy for Gen X.

Sub Pop, a small, independent Seattle label, was the first to slap "grunge" on their marketing materials. Their black and white logo became synonymous with no-frills music that prioritized substance over style. The label became the breeding ground for half of grunge's “big four” – Nirvana and Soundgarden. Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam rounded out the group.

Soundgarden was the granddaddy of the "big four," forming back in '84.

After releasing two EPs, Screaming Life and Fopp, Soundgarden secured a deal with the legendary punk label SST Records. The independent label was home to Minutemen, Meat Puppets, and Saint Vitus – all early influences for Soundgarden. On Halloween of ‘88, Soundgarden released their debut album, Ultramega OK. The label’s punk influences permeated every track.

Soundgarden then took a massive leap, leaving SST to become the first of their peers to sign with a major label, A&M Records, which had supported legends like The Carpenters, Janet Jackson, and The Police since ‘62.

Of course, this pissed off a bunch of people. The underground scene felt betrayed, believing Soundgarden had sold out. Guitarist Kim Thayil addressed it years later in an interview with Louder Sound: “Some of our peers thought, ‘Are they going to be corporate sell-outs?’ I don't know if it was a combination of jealousy or resentment or a feeling of betrayal.”

But Soundgarden's decision to sign with A&M wasn't selling out – it was scaling up. They took the raw energy of their Sub Pop and SST days and amplified it with A&M's resources. The label hooked them up with Terry Date, who'd already made a name for himself producing for Metal Church and Dream Theater. Date sculpted that raw energy into something that hit even harder. The result was Louder Than Love, the first grunge record to crash the major label party.

The iconic black-and-white photo of frontman Chris Cornell on the album cover evokes the feeling of an underground punk band, not some sanitized corporate product. Despite the major label representation, Louder Than Love remained truly uncompromising in its sound. Instead of losing their edge, Soundgarden sharpened it.

For a sophomore album, Louder Than Love was pretty damn impressive.

Thayil once told Spin that the band's mission was to sound like “Black Sabbath without the parts that suck.” You can hear it plain as day, along with serious Zeppelin vibes. They often sounded like a palatable version of the Melvins – another influential Washington band that shaped both grunge and sludge metal.

The album's opener, “Ugly Truth,” smashed together Sabbath's gut-punching riffs with Sonic Youth's chaotic noise. Thayil's dissonant guitar screams, Matt Cameron's thunderous drums, Hiro Yamamoto's crawling bass, and Cornell's Ozzy-esque wails were the perfect recipe for rock's next big genre. You can hear echoes of it all over Nirvana's “In Bloom.”

Throughout the record, Thayil's drop D riffs are massive. They even inspired Metallica's Kirk Hammett to write “Enter Sandman.” In 2008, Hammett told Rolling Stone, “I was trying to capture [Soundgarden's] attitude toward big, heavy riffs.”

Thayil wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, cranking up the feedback and embracing the chaos. He didn't care about what was “correct” – if it sounded heavy and wild, it was in. In a 2012 interview with Premier Guitar, Thayil reflected on the band’s dirty sound: “We’ve always embraced feedback, starting in the early days of the band—I used to record with Hiro’s backup Ampeg B-15 bass amp. I would dial out most of the low end and put in quite a bit of high end with an Ibanez Tube Screamer and a chorus to get a brighter, more guitar-y sound. When we jammed with other people or they would show us stuff, so many things were undesirable, considered noise, and deemed incorrect. But we keep the incorrect things—they sound heavy, chaotic, powerful, and wild. I always have and always will push the band in that direction.”

Cornell's vocals on Louder Than Love are a force of nature. You can hear the seeds of what would influence a whole generation of rock vocalists, including Eddie Vedder. Small details like Cornell's ad-libs on “Gun” were the precursor to Vedder's own on hits like “Even Flow.” Vedder even acknowledged Cornell once as "the best singer that we've got on the planet."

But Cornell wasn't just a pretty voice. The dude could write. Louder Than Love marked the point at which Cornell began to assume the dominant songwriting role in the band, writing seven of the album’s tracks all by himself. But not everyone was thrilled with the new direction. Yamamoto bailed just before the album dropped. He would go on to form the three-piece grunge outfit Truly (Fast Stories…From Kid Coma) before going back to school to become a chemist.

With Louder Than Love, Soundgarden proved they were ready for the big leagues. No wonder Guns N' Roses immediately snatched them up for a tour. Interestingly, GNR later covered the album’s “Big Dumb Sex,” a brilliant parody of glam metal's excesses and macho stereotypes. Ironically, GNR missed the point entirely. Upon release, Louder Than Love peaked just outside the Billboard 200's Top 100. Most music fans weren't ready, needing a few years to catch up with Soundgarden's vision.

That moment arrived in 1991, a year after Nirvana followed Soundgarden's lead by signing with a major label, DGC Records. With new drummer Dave Grohl in the mix, Nirvana released Nevermind, sparking a cultural reset. The day after “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit MTV, everyone was raiding thrift stores for flannel shirts, ripped jeans, and combat boots. Grunge went from a local Seattle thing to a global craze overnight. There was no turning back.

The meteoric rise of grunge created an undeniable paradox.

Grunge artists fought against the commercialized machine but ended up becoming a part of the very thing they hated. Kurt Cobain was quoted saying, “Famous is the last thing I wanted to be.” In 1993, Nirvana released In Utero, an album meant to revolt against the fame they received from Nevermind. Nevertheless, it still topped the charts, going 5x platinum in the U.S.

In April 1994, Cobain was found dead in his home due to a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. Many attributed his death to his immense success. Cobain wasn't the only casualty. Eight years to the day of Cobain's death, Layne Staley, lead singer of Alice In Chains, died of a heroin overdose. Cornell took his own life 15 years later after a long battle with his own demons.

Cobain's death marked the end of grunge's peak.

The industry co-opted the genre, the very movement it once defied. Bands like Creed and Nickelback emerged as carefully crafted products designed to capitalize on a proven formula. In the end, grunge became a marketing gimmick. The rebellion was packaged, branded, and sold to the masses.

Grunge left a massive footprint all over music and culture that has persisted in the decades since. When post-grunge and rap-rock took off in the late '90s, it was on the coattails of grunge. The genre upended the music industry, toppling the reign of the old guard and redefining what it meant to be a rock star. Established artists across all genres had to scramble to keep up. In 2012, Jay-Z acknowledged how grunge stalled the rise of hip-hop for years. Soundcloud era rappers are still cribbing from the grunge playbook.

While Nirvana may have taken grunge to impossible heights, they stood on the shoulders of Soundgarden, who saw where music was heading and got there first. Louder Than Love foresaw the genre’s explosion with remarkable precision, capturing the essence of what would soon define mainstream grunge. Without Soundgarden's leap to a major label, the Seattle sound might not have taken off. Soundgarden got so damn good that Louder Than Love is often overshadowed by the band’s later work. But make no mistake, that album was the spark that ignited this all.