I didn't think that Stereogum article was all that. Read more like someone who know a good amount, but tried to write as if they knew more than they actually did. Just one example: even if you weren't sure that Vasoline's main riff was a series of hammer-ons, which it isn't, you could look at the video embedded in the page and realize Dean picks each note. Another: Sex Type Thing isn't despicably rapey. It's anti-rape.
The writing wasn't bad, but I think I could have written a better article about Purple.
I don't care too much about the lack of a Purple reissue, I doubt there's much bonus stuff there. It just would have been nice to at least see the band maybe share some rare stuff to commemorate the occasion.
Core is something that would have been worth a reissue had they included Unplugged on DVD/CD and the Mighty Joe Young demos. Without those though I wouldn't have bought it. The only reissue I've ever bought was Pearl Jam's since it included their Unplugged session and unreleased tracks/demos.
There are literally no extra songs from the Purple sessions, that's true. But they've had an entire pro-shot concert from that era, already mixed by Brendan O'Brien, just sitting in their closet for the last 20 years. With the current theme bands are taking of releasing old shows with reissues, I had hoped just a tiny bit that they would think about releasing that concert along side a remaster of Purple.
I remember reading probably in the No. 4 era that the guys said they never have b-sides. The songs they work on end up on the album.
But then later it came out that most of the music for Hollywood Bitch came from the Purple era. Dare if You Dare was from the Talk Show era, which means it was part of the batch of songs written in the Tiny Music era. Saturdays became Glide.
So I think there actually ARE things they could release. Not to mention they could release stuff that the four guys played on in the Mighty Joe Young days. They could include MTV Unplugged audio in the quality that Crackerman and Andy Warhol were released on the Vasoline single. They have footage.
Plus, Soundgarden released a lot of demo and early versions of songs from Superunknown, as well as rehearsals. I would love that stuff, and I am sure it all exists.
They obviously have lots of home video footage of the Tiny Music sessions, as well as the SLDD sessions. I'd bet there is some for Purple and Core too, as we saw on the Thank You DVD.
