Singles (1992)

''Singles,'' the movie opening in mid-September, is director Cameron Crowe's ''Melrose Place''-meets-Puget Sound tale of kids in love in Seattle. The soundtrack's heart is an impressive sampler of the town's best-known sludge slatherers -- Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden -- howling winningly at their respective moons. The standouts are Pearl Jam's lava-flow-like ''Breath'' and Mother Love Bone's embarrassingly titled but dynamic ''Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns.'' But the album has a surprising depth that (one assumes) former rock critic Crowe brought to it. The inclusion of ''Overblown,'' for example, a nasty put-down of Seattle hype from hometowners Mudhoney, is a nice touch, as are appearances by two acts that originally put Seattle on the hard-rock map: Jimi Hendrix and Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. For your $14.99, though, you get stuff from points east as well: two, count 'em, two solo pop shots from ex-Replacement Paul Westerberg, and a long and languid guitar workout called ''Drown,'' by the Smashing Pumpkins. For a soundtrack collection, ''Singles'' is unusually cohesive and coherent.