Soundgarden - Louder Than Love

Louder Than Love is the second studio album by Soundgarden, released on September 5, 1989 through A&M Records. After touring behind their first full-length, Ultramega OK, the band signed to a major label and began work on their debut for A&M, recording at London Bridge Studios in Seattle with producer Terry Date, who at the time was better known for engineering local metal acts than what would soon become known as grunge.

The album leans into a metal-tinged version of the Soundgarden sound, with several tracks built on unorthodox, shifting time signatures that set the band apart from both the metal scene Date came from and the more straightforward punk energy of their Seattle peers. Lead single "Loud Love" later found a second life soundtracking a memorable scene in Wayne's World, while "Hands All Over" pushed the band's lyrical content into territory blunt enough, particularly a line referencing violence against a mother, to cause real retail and distribution headaches at the time, on top of the Parental Advisory sticker already placed on the packaging.

Louder Than Love became Soundgarden's first album to chart on the Billboard 200, notably the first grunge record ever to do so, even if it only reached number 108. It also marks the last Soundgarden album to feature original bassist Hiro Yamamoto, closing out an era of the band's earliest lineup right as the sound they helped pioneer was about to break into the mainstream.

The band supported the record with tours across North America and Europe, cementing their reputation as one of the most promising acts coming out of Seattle's still-underground scene.