Since mid-March of the heinous year of 2020, I’ve been driving nearly every weekday with my wife and son to a home office at my in-laws’ house. As a result of this commute, we’re listening to the radio more often. When I have it tuned to the local hard rock station, songs from our high school epoch occasionally play, including classic hits from Soundgarden. When “Black Hole Sun,” “Fell on Black Days,” or “Outshined” plays, I still occasionally feel surprised to realize that I’m listening to a dead man. Chris Cornell was fifty-two when he died on May 18, 2017. He had outlived his troubled peers from that musical era, like Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, and Scott Weiland. I guess his sudden death in a hotel room in Detroit right after a show still stuns me.
I saw Soundgarden headline for Metallica at Lollapalooza in 1996. The band was promoting Down on the Upside, their final studio album before their 1997 breakup. At age seventeen, I was still in the infancy of my love for rock. I was familiar with their music—namely Superunknown—but I was incapable of grasping just how fucking awesome they were. I hadn’t lived enough, nor listened to enough other bands and musicians to understand what might and virtuosity they contained with guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron, bassist Ben Shepherd, and singer and songwriter Chris Cornell.
As I’ve become more grizzled, my appreciation for them, and Cornell, has only grown. He was one of the greatest hard rock vocalists ever. This is indisputable, which was probably only cemented by his untimely death. Through songs like Audioslave’s “Show Me How to Live” or improbable covers like Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” (sung a few days after her death), the man was a living legend.
It would be overwhelming and downright challenging to pick my top 10 favorite Chris Cornell studio album recordings, ranging from his body of work with Soundgarden, Audioslave, Temple of the Dog, or his solo career, so I’m giving myself a break and keeping it focused to one of my favorite Seattle bands.
Honorable Mentions:
Room a Thousand Years Wide
Outshined
Head Down
Limo Wreck
An Unkind
10. Jesus Christ Pose (from Badmotorfinger)
Apparently, no matter how old I get, I am still magnetically drawn to well-executed angsty music, and “Jesus Christ Pose” is just that. The chunky, driving bass propels this song but Cornell’s wailing, coupled with the busy drums and nasty guitars creates a beautiful, at times discordant jumble of sound. It’s impossible not to thrash your head to the song’s climatic chorus. Thayil is on record for saying this is still one of his favorite Soundgarden songs, which says a lot.
9. Fresh Tendrils (from Superunknown)
Superunknown has basically become one of my all-time favorite albums. If I were stranded on a remote desert island for the rest of my existence and I could only bring ten albums to keep me company, it would be pretty hard to pass on it. That’s how much I love this album (sans “Spoonman,” which I find obnoxious in part because it was played out in its heyday). Honestly, I could’ve picked my favorite ten songs from Superunknown and called it a day.
“Fresh Tendrils” is an outstanding song—and I can’t quite explain why it resonates so strongly with me. There’s something about Cornell howling “Give me little bits of more than I can take” in the chorus that feels like it’s coming from my very core whenever I hear it. His singing is astounding in this song: mighty, defiant, and urgent yet grounded and unwavering like a mountain. When I was younger, this song towards the end of Superunknown didn’t even blip on my radar, but as I got older, god, this song almost feels like a personal anthem. It’s otherworldly in how mellow yet powerful it is. It’s also Ben Shepherd’s favorite song from Superunknown, so I’m onto something.
8. Fell On Black Days (Superunknown)
I don’t like to sing along to many Soundgarden songs, but this is my favorite one to try to sing with, which gets it on this list. Probably one of the catchiest rock songs that will ever be written about severe depression. Thayil’s soaring solo accompanying Cornell’s howls at the song’s apex is pure ecstasy.
7. Superunknown (Superunknown)
This is a rocking good song. The main riff is just so tasty. Thayil’s lead fills and solo just take it to another level. “Superunknown” is at the very top of my list of songs I would want to blast if I could soar through a tunnel.
6. Overfloater (from Down on the Upside)
A gorgeous and powerful song. Singsong lyrics like “Close the door and pull the shades | And climb the walls” gives “Overfloater” a lush, lilting, airy feel. Like “Tighter & Tighter,” it is a song that slowly builds to a soaring, cathartic crescendo.
This feels like one of Cornell’s most personal songs, which is about depression, drug abuse, and shame. And those five words, “I wanna make it right,” sung again and again throughout is a raw sentiment I have often related with.
5. Tighter & Tighter (Down on the Upside)
Akin to “Fresh Tendrils,” “Tighter & Tighter” is a mellow, mid-tempo but goddamn mighty song. With the occasional piercing distorted vocals, and its lyrics (“Cause I feel I’m going | “Feel I’m slowing down”), it’s a more desperate and urgent song than “Fresh Tendrils.” And Jesus god almighty, the first 4 minutes and 48 seconds of this song feels like a slow swell up to the emotional bombastic outro chorus that gives me the chills when I’m really locked in and listening to this song. As I grow older, “Tighter and Tighter” is a song that I just feel more and more like.
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| San Francisco Bay at noon on 9/9 by Aaron Maizlish |
4. 4th of July (Superunknown)
“4th of July” is a composition Cornell wrote to imagine the catastrophic end of this world—and I have found that he succeeded. Last September, when the San Francisco Bay Area sky turned blood orange from the region’s wildfires, this song was playing in my head as we all saw a horrific, nightmare vision we had never witnessed. Whenever I come across a news headline about an ice shelf cracking or crumbling off of Antarctica, this song pops in my head. This is absolutely true. By now, I’ve conditioned myself to associate this song with such doom.
The song’s low, sludgy, and filthy opening guitar notes are simple, direct, yet so perfect (and it’s all I ever needed to hear to understand the benefits of drop D guitar tuning). Shepherd’s droning bass notes beautifully texture it. Cameron’s drum play is understated but powerful. Cornell’s singing is hauntingly pitch perfect throughout, and the final fading discordant guitar notes: there’s just no other way this song should end.
3. Rusty Cage (Badmotorfinger)
“Rusty Cage” is a rollicking ride with its frenetic opening riff and pulsating bass lines before it morphs into a ridiculously filthy and heavy song down the homestretch. Easily my favorite Soundgarden song for headbanging. And it’s a gnarly song to speed to.
2. Mailman (Superunknown)
The second Matt Cameron song on this hallowed list. (He is also responsible for writing the music for “Fresh Tendrils.”) With our country’s propensity for producing mass shootings, “Mailman”—which is about the rash of postal shootings in the 1990s—is a quintessentially American song. It’s a dark, dark song, and an excellent display of Cornell’s growth as a lyricist since Badmotorfinger. The chorus lyrics are so plain, slightly hypnotic in cadence, yet so downright chilling:
I know I’m headed for the bottom
But I’m riding you all the way
Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.
And the final verse is just a thing of beauty. Cornell’s lyrics and delivery are stunning. And this live performance manages to be significantly better than the magnificent studio version:
I don’t listen to this version often, but when I do, the hairs on my arms almost always stand endwise. I usually have to put aside whatever I’m doing to listen and watch with complete jaw-dropping awe, and I sometimes tear up because the power and beauty and genius is just so overwhelming to behold.
1. Black Hole Sun (Superunknown)
Chris Cornell said he wrote this song in fifteen minutes, which is truly remarkable. Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” is like Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing”; it’s a fantastical, gorgeous departure from the band’s previous song catalog, a composition that feels like it was beamed directly from the outermost cosmos. The verses are catchy and Beatlesque indeed while the chorus is a swirling tsunami of hypnotic might and beauty. Thayil’s searing solo manages to raise this song to a greater peak and the backing vocals (Black Hole Sun! Black Hole Sun!) feel like a chant and a plea. And Cameron's drumming is perfect throughout, especially during the song's climax when his crashing cymbals push and beckon his bandmates to new heights. Five minutes and eighteen seconds of godly magic. If I could die to a Soundgarden song, hands down, no hesitation, this is my choice.
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