Based on a script that Cameron Crowe originally wrote in 1984, which took place in Phoenix, Arizona. After Andrew Wood, the lead singer of Seattle bands Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone, died of a drug overdose in March 1990, Crowe noticed the music community in Seattle coming together to process the loss. He rewrote his script with the incident in mind, changing its setting to Seattle, which had been the location of his previous movie, Say Anything (1989), which featured a song from Mother Love Bone in the soundtrack, "Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns" - the same song is on the 'Singles' soundtrack.
Warner Bros. attempted to turn Singles into a television series, but Cameron Crowe turned it down. Some time later, Crowe saw the news on The Hollywood Reporter that his film 'Singles' would become a TV show from David Crane and Marta Kaufman - the people who ended up doing Friends (1994). Crowe called his lawyer and tried to stop this, but NBC went ahead with the idea anyway, incorporating many of the elements of that proposed series into "Friends". Crowe told Rolling Stone in 2017 that his mother still says, "You really screwed up on Friends! All you had to do was say yes! You would be living in a castle right now!" And Crowe said, "I don't need to live in a castle! I'm happy I made the choices I made. But in my mind at least, you can partially draw a line from the genesis of Friends to our little Seattle film."
Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave saw a list of Citizen Dick song titles, all completely made up, which would appear briefly in the film and decided to pen songs to match each title. One of those songs, "Seasons", appears on the film soundtrack. Another, "Spoonman", was later recorded by Soundgarden. It became a hit in 1994 and can be heard in a rough version (perhaps a demo) in the film when an unseen person is posting Citizen Dick fliers.
Chris Cornell recommended The Smashing Pumpkins to Cameron Crowe. Crowe liked the band and asked Billy Corgan if he could send any new songs for the movie, and Corgan sent three songs. "Drown" was the last one in the demo and Crowe immediately loved it and felt like it would fit the movie. The demo was pretty similar to the finished track.
The Coryell Court Apartments, where the main characters live in the film, is located at 1820 Thomas Street in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. The building's courtyard fountain was created for the movie out of Styrofoam.
Tad Doyle: as the guy whom Janet accidentally calls and he replies "I'll be right over". Tad Doyle is the lead singer of the Seattle grunge band TAD.