Many of their Seattle peers ended up disgraced, drunk, or dead, so it's a testament to the strength of the record industry in the early 1990s that selling a couple hundred thousand albums cast as grunge's hard luck story. Boost Microphone Gain Software. Featured on the definitive Singles soundtrack, evergreen psych-rock jam 'Nearly Lost You' smeared its wah-wah guitar solos and the alluring dusk of Mark Lanegan's vocals all over MTV.

But the band couldn't capitalize: Sweet Oblivion had already been out for months, and its ensuing tour resulted in more turmoil than triumph. Four years later, Dust was a very strong follow-up whose staunch classic rock sound made it a critical hit and a commercial non-starter on alt-rock radio.

A happy ending was the last thing anyone would have predicted for the Screaming Trees. From Washington State, recording for the likes of SST and Sub Pop before a step up to the major labels, theirs was the familiar grunge narrative of a band cursed by drug addiction and bad luck, only without the pay-off of commercial success. In 1996, the band recorded their finest album, Dust, but by then they were in poor shape. One journalist’s meeting with Mark Lanegan at this time consisted of accompanying the singer on a trip to pawn musical equipment in order to buy drugs.