FEATURE:
Childhood Treasures: Albums That Impacted Me
Soundgarden – Superunknown
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IT is not directly related…
PHOTO CREDIT: A&M Records
but Metallica have announced they are releasing an album of Soundgarden covers. They are doing it as a tribute to the band’s leader, Chris Cornell, who sadly died in 2017. It is clear that there was a lot of love for Cornell and respect for what he did as a musician, singer and songwriter. The reason that I am bringing up Soundgarden is that their 1994 album, Superunknown, was a very important one for me during childhood. The first experience I had of the band Seattle band was seeing the video for Black Hole Sun. The third single from the album, it was released on 14th May, 1994. I was instantly struck by the weird imagery and darkness of the video! I love the song, of course, and then found my way to Superunknown. In 1994, Grunge had been around for a while. Nirvana released the iconic Nevermind in 1994. Of course, in 1994, Kurt Cobain died (on 5th April) One can hear some darkness and depression from that fact on Superunknown. The Nirvana’s frontman’s death rocked the world of music and definitely had an impact. Not that the Soundgarden masterpiece is synonymous with depression. I found out more about Nirvana and Grunge by listening to Soundgarden – I was aware of Nirvana in the early-1990s but I had not truly immersed myself. At seventy minutes and fifteen tracks, one might feel Superunknown is too long and would be unfocused.
There is so much variation and interesting songwriting throughout. Most tracks are written by Chris Cornell, though the rest of the band - Kim Thayil – lead guitar, Ben Shepherd – bass, drums and percussion, backing vocals, lead vocals and guitar and Matt Cameron – drums, percussion, Mellotron, pots and pans - contribute. The band are so compelling and astonishing throughout the album. No wonder it affected me! I was listening to some heavier music in 1994, though I was definitely more aware of Britpop and what was coming from the U.K. An album like Superunknown was something very different. It opened my eyes to new genres and avenues. I was a fan of Soundgarden the moment I heard their fourth studio album. For the band, it was definitely their most solid, ambitious and memorable outing to that point – and I am not sure they topped an album that is among the finest of the ‘90s. I am going to finish off by sourcing two positive reviews for the mighty Superunknown. This is what AllMusic wrote in their review:
“Soundgarden's finest hour, Superunknown is a sprawling, 70-minute magnum opus that pushes beyond any previous boundaries. Soundgarden had always loved replicating Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath riffs, but Superunknown's debt is more to mid-period Zep's layered arrangements and sweeping epics. Their earlier punk influences are rarely detectable, replaced by surprisingly effective appropriations of pop and psychedelia. Badmotorfinger boasted more than its fair share of indelible riffs, but here the main hooks reside mostly in Chris Cornell's vocals; accordingly, he's mixed right up front, floating over the band instead of cutting through it.
The rest of the production is just as crisp, with the band achieving a huge, robust sound that makes even the heaviest songs sound deceptively bright. But the most important reason Superunknown is such a rich listen is twofold: the band's embrace of psychedelia, and their rapidly progressing mastery of songcraft. Soundgarden had always been a little mind-bending, but the full-on experiments with psychedelia give them a much wider sonic palette, paving the way for less metallic sounds and instruments, more detailed arrangements, and a bridge into pop (which made the eerie ballad "Black Hole Sun" an inescapable hit). That blossoming melodic skill is apparent on most of the record, not just the poppier songs and Cornell-penned hits; though a couple of drummer Matt Cameron's contributions are pretty undistinguished, they're easy to overlook, given the overall consistency. The focused songwriting allows the band to stretch material out for grander effect, without sinking into the pointlessly drawn-out muck that cluttered their early records. The dissonance and odd time signatures are still in force, though not as jarring or immediately obvious, which means that the album reveals more subtleties with each listen. It's obvious that Superunknown was consciously styled as a masterwork, and it fulfills every ambition”.
The second review is from Pitchfork. I don’t think there is anyone that can say a bad word about an album that is so impressive and full of highlights. From the big-hitters like The Day I Tried to Live, Fell on Black Days, Spoonman and Black Hole Sun to songs like Limo Wreck, 4th of July and My Wave, it is an astonishing album that really affected me aged eleven in 1994:
“Upon its release on March 8, 1994, Superunknown wasn’t just a highly anticipated album from a critically acclaimed rock band—its multi-platinum success and Grammy wins practically felt predestined. This was Soundgarden’s long overdue turn to come out on top. Though they were the first late-’80s Seattle-scene spawn to sign to a major label, and dutifully embarked upon traditional career-building exercises like opening stadium tours for Guns N' Roses, they would be soundly leapfrogged on the charts by their Emerald City peers in Nirvana and Pearl Jam; by comparison, Soundgarden’s metallic sonatas were seemingly too knotty (and naughty) to inspire the same magnitude of crossover success. Sure, 1991’s Badmotorfinger landed a bare-chested Chris Cornell on the cover of SPIN, and an MTV ban of the allegedly blasphemous “Jesus Christ Pose” video brought the band more attention than if the station had actually aired it, but Soundgarden appeared destined to be the perennial bronze medalists in the Grunger Games.
By early 1994, however, the playing field had changed considerably: Though Pearl Jam were still the most popular rock band in America, they were actively trying to be the least visible one, declaring a moratorium on videos and interviews in an orchestrated (and ultimately successful) campaign to kill their own hype. Nirvana, likewise, were in the midst of a similar retreat, and though their story had yet to reach its tragic conclusion, ominous warning signs were in the air. But as a band that enjoyed a steadier ascent than their flannelled friends—and whose records got progressively better after jumping to a major—Soundgarden didn’t seem so conflicted about success. Their response to the Seattle-scene media storm wasn’t to try to avoid it, but transcend it, and embrace the opportunity to, for a moment, become the biggest band in the land.
Usually, it’s a bad sign when the wild-child frontman of your favorite group cuts his hair and starts wearing shirts. But the clean-cut Cornell that emerged with Superunknown was emblematic of the album’s mission to deliver maximal effect with minimal histrionics. With its despairing worldview, gold-plated production, and CD-stuffing 71-minute running time, Superunknown is a quintessential ’90s artifact. But thanks to its still-formidable high-wire balance of hooks and heft, the album nonetheless represents, some 20 years later, the platonic ideal of what a mainstream hard rock record should be. And even if that’s an ideal to which few contemporary bands aspire (aside from, say, Queens of the Stone Age), Superunknown remains a useful model for any left-of-center artist hoping to achieve accessibility without sacrificing identity.
For Soundgarden, the push toward pop was the result of incremental evolutions rather than a spectacular leap. Where Badmotorfinger introduced flashes of psychedelia and paisley-patterned melody amid Kim Thayil’s pulverizing riffage, on Superunknown, these elements become featured attractions. The once-oblique John Lennon references gave way to unabashed homage—centerpiece power ballad “Black Hole Sun” is pretty much “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” turned upside down and dropped in a heap of soot and coal. That song counts as Superunknown’s most wanton act of subversion—setting its apocalyptic imagery to a tune so pretty, even Paul Anka can dig it—but if that element of surprise has been diluted by two decades of perpetual rock-radio rotation, the album boasts a wealth of less celebrated deep cuts (the queasy psych-folk of “Head Down,” the dread-ridden doom of “4th of July”) that retain a palpable sense of unease.
Even the album’s eternal fist-pump anthems—“The Day I Tried to Live”, “Fell on Black Days”, “My Wave”—are infected with misanthropy and malaise, making Superunknown the rare arena-rock album that makes just as much sense in blacked-out bedroom. (And yet, despite the junkie intimations of its title, “Spoonman” is really just about a man who plays with spoons.) That said, if you don’t hate the world now quite as much as did when you were 18, you may find yourself skipping over the leaden likes of “Mailman” and “Limo Wreck,” while developing a newfound appreciation for how bassist Ben Shepherd’s India-inspired oddity, “Half”, injects a welcome dose of absurdity into the mix”.
Twenty-seven years later, Superunknown is still one of my favourite albums. It is an amazing work that struck me hard when I was a teen. From Soundgarden, I explored Heavy Metal. Grunge and Alternative music a lot more. It is tragic that Chris Cornell is no longer with us to see how Superunknown continues to influence people. His genius runs right through the album. A lot of albums arrived in my childhood that were instrumental and shaped me. There is no doubting the fact that Soundgarden’s Superunknown is…
ONE of the most important.