Soundgarden

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  • Superunknown (20th Anniversary)
    Superunknown (20th Anniversary)
    Superunknown (20th Anniversary)

    If 1991’s Badmotorfinger was the album on which Soundgarden distilled the aggressive aspects of their musical personality into one breathless record, Superunknown was the LP on which they expanded their horizons to explore more nuanced influences. Which isn’t to say the album is devoid of energy—witness the churning riff of “My Wave”, the raucous punk of “Kickstand” and the pummelling rhythms of “Spoonman”. But such moments are tempered by the more subtle approach of “Like Suicide”, the downbeat “Fell On Black Days” and the melancholy psychedelia of “Black Hole Sun”. The genesis of the album’s first single, “Spoonman”, can be traced back to the set of Cameron Crowe’s 1992 film Singles, in which Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell had a cameo as a member of fictional band Citizen Dick. Helping Crowe with set design was Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament (also a member of the made-up group), who designed a demo cassette for Citizen Dick complete with five imaginary song titles—one of which was “Spoonman”. Spotting the cover, Cornell decided to go home and write and record songs to accompany each title, committing “Spoonman” to tape with an acoustic guitar and banging pots and pans. Years later when Soundgarden started compiling songs for Superunknown, guitarist Kim Thayil said they should include that track. (Cornell is on record stating that though sonically the finished version is very different to his demo, the arrangement and lyrics are close.) Having experimented with more autobiographical lyrics on Badmotorfinger, Cornell continued down that route on Superunknown, with “4th of July” chronicling an acid trip, and “Fell On Black Days” his experiences with depression. The unlikely inspiration for “Like Suicide” came in the shape of a bird that flew into the window of his Seattle home, breaking its neck in the process. After putting the bird out of its misery, Cornell wrote the song in tribute to the creature. Recording sessions at Seattle’s Bad Animals Studio were reportedly fractious, with the band’s desire to record quickly at odds with producer Michael Beinhorn’s penchant for repeat takes and attention to detail. The final product, however, speaks for itself, masterfully capturing the quartet’s more refined songwriting without compromising their artistic expression (the seven-minute “Like Suicide”, the six-minute dirge of “Head Down”) and fondness for the esoteric (the psychedelic wig-out of “Half”). In the months leading up to the release of Superunknown, Seattle peers such as Pearl Jam (Vs), Nirvana (In Utero) and Alice In Chains (Jar of Flies) all debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts. Superunknown achieved the same feat and remains a landmark release—not only for the band, but for the alt-rock genre.

  • Badmotorfinger (25th Anniversary / Remastered 2016)
    Badmotorfinger (25th Anniversary / Remastered 2016)
    Badmotorfinger (25th Anniversary / Remastered 2016)

    In Badmotorfinger, Soundgarden created their first classic album. While their 1988 debut, Ultramega OK, and 1989 follow-up Louder Than Love earmarked them as leaders in a new generation of artists emerging from the Pacific Northwest of the United States, their third LP saw them mine a creative seam that lay somewhere between metal, punk, hard rock and jazz, without belonging solely to any of those genres—a sound that was familiar yet at the same time uniquely their own. There had been two major changes in the Soundgarden camp since the release of Louder Than Love–the first was the arrival of bassist Ben Shepherd, who replaced co-founder Hiro Yamamoto, bringing to the band an edgy punk-rock spirit, a fiery creative streak and, perhaps most importantly, a new songwriting voice. The second major development was that for the first time in their career, the songs they were writing had not been tested and honed in front of crowds, but were instead crafted and recorded in the rehearsal room and studio. While vocalist/guitarist Chris Cornell was the primary songwriter, each member played a more pronounced creative role than before—drummer Matt Cameron penned “Drawing Flies” and “Room A Thousand Years Wide”, while guitarist Kim Thayil wrote the lyrics for the latter. The only song featuring a credit for all four members was the chaotic “Jesus Christ Pose”, a seething commentary on media and religion, its title inspired by a photo Cornell saw of Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell lying on a bed with his arms outstretched. Songwriting inspiration came from myriad places. Cornell wrote “Mind Riot” after a conversation with Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament, who remarked that writing a song with every guitar string tuned to E would be a silly pursuit—a challenge Cornell gleefully accepted. For rumbling opener “Rusty Cage”, the singer/guitarist wanted to pen a hillbilly/Black Sabbath crossover. (Outlaw country legend Johnny Cash would later put his spin on the song for his 1996 album Unchained, his foreboding baritone somehow making it even heavier.) “Room A Thousand Years Wide” and “Drawing Flies”, meanwhile, featured the caterwauling saxophone of Scott Granlund, introducing a new, at-times abrasive, sonic element to Soundgarden’s arsenal. Reuniting with Louder Than Love producer Terry Date and recording in Studio D in Sausalito, the album takes its name from a mash-up of the band Badfinger (one of Thayil’s favourites) and the Montrose song “Bad Motor Scooter”, which Thayil heard while jamming with a friend. Given that one potential album title was I’m Okay – Urinal Cake?, when Thayil suggested the new monicker it was instantly accepted. When Badmotorfinger was launched into the world it came on the cusp of a seismic change in music. Released within weeks of Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten, Soundgarden were a leading light in a scene that was set to banish the then-ubiquitous hair metal in favour of a more daring and artistic sound, one rooted in reality rather than the larger-than-life, party-every-day showmanship of Poison and Warrant. Badmotorfinger was the perfect album for the time.

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About Soundgarden

One of the defining acts of the ’90s alt-rock boom, the Seattle quartet Soundgarden blended the Zeppelin-esque grandeur of Chris Cornell’s soaring vocals and Kim Thayil’s guitar pyrotechnics with sludge-coated rhythms to great success. Formed in 1984, the band first appeared on the 1986 compilation Deep Six, a snapshot of its home city’s then-nascent rock scene. The local label Sub Pop released their bleakly paranoid debut single, “Hunted Down”; that was followed by two EPs, Screaming Life and Fopp. Soundgarden’s first full-length, Ultramega OK, came out in 1988 on the famed indie-rock label SST, and the video for lead single “Flower” garnered attention from MTV’s late-night rock shows. The band’s major-label debut, Louder Than Love, was released a year later, highlighted by the cavernous environmental plea “Hands All Over” and the piercing “Loud Love”. Bassist Hiro Yamamoto was replaced by Ben Shepherd for the recording of Soundgarden’s third full-length, 1991’s Badmotorfinger, which proved an alt-rock-mainstream breakthrough, with the bludgeoning “Jesus Christ Pose” and the chugging “Outshined” serving as standard-bearers for grunge. Superunknown, released in 1994, further propelled Soundgarden into the mainstream on the strength of the swaggering “Spoonman” and the psychedelia-tinged “Black Hole Sun”, and 1996’s Down on the Upside expanded the band’s sonic palette. Soundgarden went on hiatus in 1997, with Cornell starting Audioslave and Matt Cameron joining Pearl Jam, and they returned in 2010, releasing their final album, King Animal, in 2012. The band toured until Cornell’s death in 2017 and played their final show, a tribute to Cornell with an all-star cast of vocalists, in 2019.

ORIGIN
Seattle, WA, United States
FORMED
1984
GENRE
Hard Rock

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