Superunknown is a hard rock masterpiece, merging disparate elements of grunge, heavy metal, alternative rock, and punk into a vicious pistol whip of a record. There simply was no band better at combining elements of the snakelike grooves of Black Sabbath, the electric vocal hooks of AC/DC, and the raw primal energy of Nirvana. Simply put, Superunknown is the defining sound of hard rock and throughout its 70 minute run-time aptly demonstrates everything the genre is truly capable of.
There’s a few reasons for that, and I think it’s only fair to start with the late Chris Cornell. As I’ve stated before Cornell is by far my favorite rock singer of all-time, whose raw power and natural vocal ability is simply unmatched throughout history.
With all due respect to Robert Plant, Axl Rose and Bon Scott, Chris Cornell is the GOAT of pure rock-and-roll vocalists. In fact, I would argue it’s not even very close. Along with his incredible four-octave range, Cornell’s ability to hit that distorted gravel scream in an explosive chorus after an intimate verse delivered in his low register gives me goosebumps. The emotional range he encompasses was (and still is!) simply unprecedented– there was no one better at hitting you like a ton of bricks and making you feel what he was feeling than Cornell.
– 1/17/23: Audioslave Audioslave
With Cornell as your frontman it would be easy to overlook the contributions of the rest of the band, but with Soundgarden it’s impossible. Guitarist Tim Thayil is one of the defining musicians of the 90’s grunge and heavy metal scene, possessing an innate ability to create swirling dissonant waves of distortion that draw you in immediately. Thayil’s magic is not only in his proficient ability but also his incredible ear for sounds– the distortion and delay he leverages are obvious, but underneath those sounds are note choices that are quite peculiar in Western Music, especially of the rock variety. Thayil brings in elements of psychedelia, Indian Raga, world-music, and pentatonic scales to craft some of the most moving and interesting sonic choices in rock, and does so with unusual tunings– there’s your (now) standard drop D tuning in many songs, a relative novelty at the time, but he also expands into even more peculiar tunings throughout the album– there’s stuff like EEBBBB on “My Wave” which honestly even as a guitar player doesn’t even make sense to my brain. The crazy thing about this whole approach is that if you were to play Superunknown straight through with one guitar you would, quite literally, have to change the tuning after every single song. Put another way, there are no back-to-back tracks that have the same guitar tuning. That’s wild and pretty much proves what a savant Thayil is on the six-string.
If that wasn’t enough, Thayil layers all those sounds on top of a rhythm section led by Matt Cameron (drums) and Ben Shepherd (bass) that delights in atypical time signatures. Superunknown features songs in 4/4, 6/4, 15/8, 7/8, 5/4 and beyond. For the layman, that basically means that your classic 4/4 (which is feature in pretty much every pop song on planet earth) is basically thrown out the window and is why when listening to a Soundgarden album there is often moments where you can’t pick up where one section ends and the next begins. Combined with all the dissonant sonic elements from the guitars and you have a perfect recipe for an uneasy and blissfully disorienting listening experience. And when you layer on Cornell’s gritty vocals and lyrical content dealing with heavy subjects like drug usage, isolation, loss, fear, and hope, you get a perfectly constructed rock album.
When the world looks back 50 years from now on the defining sound of rock we’ll remember Soundgarden fondly. Superunknown is the best of what hard rock can be.
Standout Songs: “Black Hole Sun”, “Superunknown”, “Mailman”, “Fell On Black Days”, “Limo Wreck”, “Spoonman”, “Let Me Drown”
