We're Not Who You Think We Are
Album: Superunknown
Year: 1994
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The first song tracked for Superunknown was one of the shortest songs that Soundgarden ever recorded, coming in at just 1:34, a reflection on one of their other great influences – the Ramones. That said, I’m not sure that — leather jacket iconography aside — any of the Ramones were mountain bike riders, especially since they were so associated with New York City.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2390: Soundgarden – “Kickstand”
Album: Superunknown
Year: 1994
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The first single from Superunknown, “Spoonman” was probably an indication that things were going to be slightly different on their new album: it was a supercharged slab of heavy-ass funk, full of stops and starts and asides. It also had kind of a weird origin story, as inside Seattle as you could possibly imagine.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2389: Soundgarden – “Spoonman”
Album: Superunknown
Year: 1994
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So let’s clear something up: “Black Hole Sun” — by far and away the most popular song Soundgarden ever recorded — was not a hit. Not a pop hit, anyways. Was it a rock radio hit? Absolutely: it topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock Chart and was #2 on their Alt Rock chart. Was it played on MTV? All the fucking time. Hell, it was even a pop hit in the U.K., making it to #12. Just not here in the States: despite being released as a single and everything, pop radio just didn’t bite, and it didn’t even chart.
But nearly 30 years later, it sure feels like it was a massive hit, doesn’t it?
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2388: Soundgarden – “Black Hole Sun”
Album: Superunknown
Year: 1994
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I’ll confess that I bought Superunknown as a CD — it was 1994, fer chrissakes — but had I purchased it as a vinyl, I would have come to the conclusion that side two was one of the greatest sides of music on any metal album ever.
That’s despite the fact that it only has three songs. But any side of music that leads off with “Superunknown” and ends with “Black Hole Sun” is going be a contender, especially when it has the monster deep cut “Head Down” connecting the two.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2387: Soundgarden – “Head Down”
Album: Superunknown
Year: 1994
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Superunknown is the record that changed everything for me when it came to Soundgarden.
Before it, I’d heard only a few songs on the radio or videos on MTV. Afterwards, I knew that I needed to explore their catalog to see what else I’d missed. But you know what? Let’s let 1994 Jim set the scene, here’s the opening paragraph of the review I published in Kade Magazine in July, 1994, just seconds after I moved away from Fresno.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2386: Soundgarden – “My Wave”
Album: Badmotorfinger
Year: 1991
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Even though the breakdown of Certain Songs by year don’t yet support it, it has been my long-held belief that 1991 was my favorite year for music. And specifically the three months from September – November of 1991, from when I could easily list two-dozen iconic albums in every possible genre, but instead will just list the ones that would seem to be in competition with Badmotorfinger, which came out in October: Use Your Illusion I&II, Trompe LeMonde, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Girlfriend Nevermind, Raise, Weld, Bandwagonesque, Loveless & Achtung Baby!. That’s a lot of great music (and the Red Hot Chili Peppers) in just three months!
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2385: Soundgarden – “Jesus Christ Pose”
Album: Badmotorfinger
Year: 1991
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Probably Soundgarden’s most famous song until “Black Hole Sun,” the bulldozing “Outshined” is a massive conglomeration of bad feelings and badder riffs, and one of the first times Chris Cornell wrote a set of lyrics that was wholly personal.
And things weren’t going all that well, even if his band could easily navigate the tricky 7/4 time signature that was as nearly as unsettling as the lyrics.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2384: Soundgarden – “Outshined”
Album: Badmotorfinger
Year: 1991
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Badmotorfinger is where Soundgarden started to put it all together. With departed founding bassist Hiro Yamamoto having been replaced by Ben Shepherd, Soundgarden got weirder and more focused at the same time, writing — and arranging — songs that earned titles like “Room a Thousand Years Wide” and “Mind Riot;” songs where anytime you listened hard to what any of the four players was actually doing, you’d be like “what the fuck?” while nodding along.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2383: Soundgarden – “Rusty Cage”
Album: Louder Than Love
Year: 1989
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Here’s a thing I was wrong about in the late 1980s: Soundgarden. Hoo boy, was I wrong!!!
I think that part of it was that I was pretty much convinced that the pre-punk hard rock I loved as a #teen — Zep, Sabbath, Aerosmith, Van Halen et al — had pretty much run its course. And furthermore, what had replaced it — thrash, hair metal, death metal and Van Hagar — wasn’t for me. The fact that I loved Guns n’ Roses & Living Colour and liked Jane’s Addiction felt like they were outliers, when in fact they were harbingers.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2382: Soundgarden – “Hands All Over”
Album: Ruby Vroom
Year: 1994
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Sometimes a band will release a song that is so head and shoulders above everything else that they did, it actually diminishes their other songs in my mind, regardless of how great their other songs are. And so it is with “Screenwriter’s Blues,” the staggeringly great centerpiece of Soul Coughing’s 1994 debut, Ruby Vroom.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2381: Soul Coughing – “Screenwriter’s Blues”