"Singles" 19th Anniversary

 This the season for all these anniversaries, right? Singles is 19 years old today. After a long delay, the film was finally released theatrically on September 18, 1992. It’s a pretty good time to reflect back with the release of Pearl Jam Twenty this week.





 The movie directed by Cameron Crowe is a romantic comedy movie about six of Seattle's young people, most of whom live in the same apartment building and whose lives revolve around the city's ever-expanding music scene. The inter-related stories about each character's progress through the singles scene are intriguing and often very funny.

Janet Livermore (Bridget Fonda) and Cliff Poncier (Matt Dillon)

The Plot

 Janet Livermore (Bridget Fonda) works as a waitress in Seattle fawning over an aspiring musician, Cliff Poncier (Matt Dillon). She’s 23 and she wants to go to school for architecture one of these days. And she loves grunge music and the guys who make it. Janet is one of the characters in Cameron Crowe’s 1992 ode to mid-twenties malaise, centered around the strain of modern dating: Singles.The central story focuses on Steve Dunne (Campbell Scott) and Linda Powell (Kyra Sedgwick) who, after meeting at an Alice in Chains concert, fall in love and deal with the highs and lows of being in a relationship and dealing with the commitment that entails. This movie is basically like Friends before Friends was Friends.

Steve Dunne (Campbell Scott) and Linda Powell (Kyra Sedgwick)

The Music

 The film itself showcased not only the cream of the crop when it came to the grunge music the bands were producing, but also showed off their acting skills as they played characters and had cameos in the movie with bands such as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains all making an appearance. Chris Cornell also took up the role of writing the songs for Cliff's band Citizen Dick, again showcasing the talent that was emerging in the 90s.

Cliff Poncier's band Citizen Dick

Testament to the popularity of the genre of music used, the Singles soundtrack became a bestseller three months before the movie opened. The only band noticeably lacking was Nirvana, whose anthem Smell's Like Teen Spirit had to be taken off the soundtrack as their success meant the song had become far too expensive to use. On a side note, apparently Kurt Cobain hated the movie, so it was probably best his song was omitted.

Cameron Crowe and Matt Dillom with Chris Cornell (Soundgarden), Jeff Ament (Pearl Jam) and Layne Staley (Alice In Chains)

 Recently, Cameron Crowe are set rumours on to put out a new Singles Blu-ray with lots of cool audio and video extras, but the work on that continues.

Extra

Singles Deleted Scenes
Singles Production Notes
Singles Rolling Stones Diary for Difficult Short

Tags: Alice In Chains, Blog, Cameron Crowe, Chris Cornell, Film, Pearl Jam, Singles