Soundgarden’s Swan Song, One Album Too Early
In 1989, I was lucky enough to discover Soundgarden two years before the grunge revolution. I read a rave about Louder Than Love in what was at that time my musical bible: Circus magazine. After a steady stream of Anthrax, Metallica, and Megadeth, I was floored at how heavy a band could be by playing so slow.
Two years later, I was somewhat disappointed by Badmotorfinger, partly because the sound wasn’t as raw as Louder Than Love, and partly because a lot of the kids at my high school were discovering a secret that I was in on two years before. By 1994, I was so steeped in playing “spot the sellout” that I couldn’t listen to their blockbuster Superunknown due to the incessant rotation of “Black Hole Sun”.
Years pass. People mature. And occasionally, you find yourself ready to pop in a CD that you may not have given much of a chance when it first came out. Sure, “Spoonman” still justifies the skip, but what floored me was the quality of the “deep tracks”, specifically the seven-minute closer “Like Suicide”.
If any song in Soundgarden’s arsenal showed how indispensible each member was, it was on this slow-burner of a closer. In the span of seven minutes, bassist Ben Sheppard starts the song with a bubbling bass line, leading into Kim Thayil’s warning siren-like guitar riff. Thayil and Sheppard keep the tension building while Chris Cornell goes from gentle croon, to rawk wail, to unleashed scream. Finally, as the entire thing explodes, drummer Matt Cameron closes the song with such ferocity, you’re half expecting to hear his snare crack. The entire effect is the musical equivalent of a dormant volcano slowly building before its Mt. St. Helens-like eruption.
On Superunkown, Soundgarden proudly wore their Led Zeppelin influence, and “Like Suicide” was the band’s “In My Time of Dying”. Comparing love to suicide is hardly original, and a year later Billy Corgan shouted Cornell’s lament almost verbatim on “Bodies”. But Cornell’s sentiments on “Like Suicide” were more sinister and thus more believable. When Cornell yells “I feel for you”, you’re not sure if that’s actually a good thing.
The lyrics also contained its share of cryptic foreshadowing. The most obvious one being the death of Kurt Cobain, who expressed his love of Louder Than Love in interviews. However, there are other most subtle instances. Nearly a half-decade before school shootings overtook the media spotlight, Cornell’s pained delivery of a line like “with an ounce of pain, I wield a ton of rage” can put a chill down a listener’s spine. And all this from a song that Cornell apparently wrote about a bird that fatally flew into a window in his house.
“Like Suicide” would have been a great capper for Soundgarden: It combined the pure aggressiveness of their earlier work with the refined skill the band demonstrated in the more Beatlesque songs on Superunknown. The song could also be on the shortlist for best song the band ever recorded. But the band opted for one more album, 1996’s Down the Upside, with mixed results. Still, many circles regard Superunkown as grunge’s last masterpiece. And like most masterpieces, the closing track pretty much determines whether it’s fit for that distinction or just merely a “great album”. Judged on “Like Suicide”, it was easy to figure out what category Superunknown would fall.
Comments
Interesting writeup - but for me, Cornell’s acoustic version of “Like Suicide” is more powerful because of its pure simplicity.
Comment by Kelly from UK — November 4, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
Nice article. I think this album gets consistently undervalued by indie kids because of that “spot the sellout” game (and Cornell’s work of the last 10 years would seem to justify that). Nonetheless, this has to be considered one of the best albums of the 90s, and perhaps the best punk/metal hybrid album ever.
Comment by Ethan Stanislawski from New York, NY — November 4, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
More power to those that like his work, but I find Chris Cornell to be one of the most overrated rock musicians of grunge or any other sub-niche. His lyrics are extremely formulaic and as a singer he’s a bit of a one-trick pony. Soundgarden’s sludginess is distinctive but, unlike Nirvana and Alice in Chains, isn’t really particularly interesting after the first few listens. And it’s all so frickin’ depressing! Soundgarden were one of the bigger, and most undeserving, flukes of the 90s in my view.
Comment by mike from seattle — November 4, 2009 @ 2:34 pm
yes! i agree! i loved superunknown, but until i paid attention to “like suicide”, it has gone on to become my favorite song ever. it is their swan song, and my second favorite is their last song on boot camp. by really, like suicide fit better on superunknown than it would on dotu. so it’s one album too early… i’m happy with that… really, i am.
Comment by davidsunknown — November 4, 2009 @ 6:35 pm
I’m not sure you can call “Superunknown” a masterpiece, although it’s pretty close. There are definitely 2-3 songs that are mediocre (“Half”, “Kickstand”). I also have no idea why you would want to skip “Spoonman”, it’s probably one of the best hard rock songs of all time. Just because a song or album is extremely popular, doesn’t mean it’s bad, there’s a reason why it’s popular.
In response to “mike from seattle”, who claims Cornell isn’t versatile, you really are talking out of your ass. We’re talking about a man who did Soundgarden, Temple Of The Dog, Audioslave, and incredible solo work, with styles ranging from Hard Rock to Punk to Metal to Gospel to R&B to Alternative to Opera (his version of Ave Maria) to Pop and Hip/Hop, dude…are you serious? He is one of the most gifted, and UNDERRATED, versatile singers we’ve had in the history of rock music. A singer who is not afraid to push the boundaries of what a rock singer is supposed to do. Fuck the haters, I for one actually loved his new album “Scream” because I’m a Rock fan who actually keeps an open mind. The problem with snobby Rock fans is that they’re quick to label everyone a sell out and refuse to give anything new a fair chance. Which is why Modern Rock has become so unbelievably stale. Kudos to Cornell for continuing to explore and put out great music this far along into his career.
Comment by Armand from NY — November 4, 2009 @ 9:31 pm
Complaining that Soundgarden is too depressing is like complaining that the Care Bears are too happy. It’s the nature of the beast.
While I consider Superunknown the best hard rock album of the 90s, I’d call Down on the Upside the best Soundgarden album. It has less of Superunknown’s perfect sound, and is less sure of its own misery. Superunknown is about drugs and depression. DotU is a recognition of having a broken mind. That album has the band gutting itself in dark, psychedelic, soaring places. It’s like a live record with no live audience. Each is unique and indispensable, and will get their due in time.
Comment by Palermo — November 4, 2009 @ 10:34 pm
Hey Mike-ee from Seattle,
Formulaic? One trick Pony?
Er, fluke me.
Comment by Uni from Mountain Fun Zone — November 4, 2009 @ 11:21 pm
No one trick pony for me - like Armand from NY said Cornell is versatile. I’m not really liking Scream as I’m not a great hip hop fan and in honesty I thought Scream a waste of time. Other than that, Cornell was involved with the best music ever made from Soundgarden to Carry On.
Contrary to what Armand had written rock music hasn’t gone stale. There are plenty of new vibrant bands emerging and 2009 is one of the best years of rock. Just go beyond your radio and discover new music on sites like Myspace, Youtube etc.
Comment by Miller McCabe from San Fransisco — November 5, 2009 @ 5:18 am
Great, great, great album. Absolutely a grunge masterpiece and one of the decade’s finest rock albums. It’s funny, people are deriding Spoonman for being a hit, and yet these are the same people that lavish praise on Creep by Radiohead for the same reasons. Whatever. Superunknown is dark, heavy, trippy and powerful. It’s not as raw as Louder Than Love, but it’s the band at the height of their considerable powers.
Comment by Mav from Buffalo, NY — November 5, 2009 @ 4:19 pm
Soundgarden was the epitome of the Seattlemovement. i love nearly every Soundgarden song and Chris, while his solo is lacking, is still incredible-on tape. Live he couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket, but he’s got a contract or two and i have none.
Like Suicide was a definite marker in my life and i still rotate it heavily into my workout music, cruising music, and deployment music. It is just that good of a song.
Each one of us here has his/her own likes/dislikes, but I think we can agree on what this article actually says: Like Suicide is a great song!
Comment by Aaron from North Carolina — November 15, 2009 @ 7:18 pm
I have to say, Sean, this and Jennifer’s “Parklife” piece have inspired me to do a track-by-track breakdown of what I consider to be the best album of 1994. Three guesses.
Comment by AJ Ramirez from California — November 18, 2009 @ 3:44 am
@Mike - Soundgarden, a one trick pony? OK, let’s compare them to AIC, then.
Soundgarden mixed metal, hardcore, psychedelia, and alternative pop into their style of hard rock, utilizing unorthodox guitar tunings, strange chord progressions, and tricky time signatures. They expanded their sound with every album. This is all apart from the fact that they pioneered the sound that Jerry Cantrell openly admitted to lifting in the beginning of his career.
AIC, however good of a band they were, only spiced up their straightforward heavy metal sound with eerie harmonies and nice country-folk songs. I’m not dismissing that, but while you can argue their superiority in songwriting (I wouldn’t), calling them a more interesting band is a tough sell.
Comment by Bob — November 24, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
@Bob
I agree with you. I learned to play nearly every AIC song in a matter of months, but I still have yet to lick a quarter of SG’s stuff because of those awesome tunings. I still dig AIC, but when it comes down to great music for many occasions, Soundgarden wins, hands down.
As far as accessibility goes, even my Dad liked Soundgarden, but not AIC. And dad was a folkie.
Comment by Aaron Perkins from North Carolina — November 24, 2009 @ 5:20 pm