Not only is this platinum-certified endeavor one of the best albums of the 1990s, overall, but it is also one of those quintessential grunge albums that have come to define the genre; SOUNDGARDEN released their fourth studio album “Superunknown” on March 8 th, 1994, through A&M Records and it turned out to be both a critical and commercial success. Along with ALICE IN CHAINS, these Seattle rockers represented the heavier side of grunge, albeit with a good pinch of psychedelia and even pop. For instance, the biggest hit on the outing, “Black Hole Sun,” sure does resonate with the air of THE BEATLES (when the band played in Helsinki, in 1995, the encore ended rather befittingly with a grungey rendition of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” the album closer from THE BEATLES‘ 1969 classic “Abbey Road”). On this album, SOUNDGARDEN‘s evolution took a quantum leap from their early punk-influenced heavy metal to a sonic realm of their own. If I were to describe it to someone who has never heard of the band, perhaps I would say, ”Think of the heavy metal from the 1980s, played by the ”Fab Four,” and then throw in some LED ZEPPELIN vibes and spice them up with the alienation of the disenfranchised slacker generation – and there you have it!”
“Let Me Drown” sets the pendulum in motion with a ZEPPELIN-esque riffer in drop-D tuning and laced with poignant lyrics. For years, I thought the song must have referred to Native American mythology, probably because of the first verse’s imagery of stretching skin and bones, and talking about the holy land. Later, I learned that the song is about crawling back to the womb to die – the urge to return to the origins of life, regressum ad uterus, in psychological terms. Vocalist Chris Cornell once admitted, “I didn’t want to say this, because NIRVANA put out that “In Utero” album, with the fetus all over it.” The bridge sounds particularly haunting now that I know the meaning of the lyrics.
While using alternate tunings on guitars was a rather common characteristic of those early-1990s grunge albums, what set “Superunknown” apart from the rest was the abundance of odd time signatures. The first off-kilter banger is “My Wave.” The song alternates between quintuple meter and straight-up 4/4 rather deliciously. Guitarist Kim Thayill has said that the use of odd meters on this album was a total accident – not that we mind, but it seems that the band had a lot of happy accidents in the studio! According to Cornell, “We were about to leave, we were just about to grab our car keys, and we started playing the riff and then everybody immediately started playing the song.” This type of spontaneous creativity probably explains why the songs have a nice groove to them despite all the other-worldly time signatures. Even the lysergic riff monster, “Limo Wreck,” in a compound quintuple meter of 15/8, sounds diabolically groovy! SOUNDGARDEN was founded in the golden era of hair metal, in 1984, but not even their early material could be pinned down to represent such an aesthetic, and, by their 10th anniversary, the band had set both feet firmly in the progressive rock sandbox. Two of the myriad singles released off the album, “The Day I Tried to Live” and “Spoonman,” both incorporate banging riffs in septuple meter. The latter was originally written as an acoustic piece for the soundtrack of the epochal 1992 film Singles. The album version features the song’s inspiration, Artis the Spoonman, playing his spoons in the song’s bridge.
As though offering brief moments of relief amidst all the heavy and progressive monoliths of melancholy, “Kickstand” and “Half” are somewhat peculiar curiosities – an uptempo punk blast and a psychedelic interlude, respectively. As isolated tracks, they might not exactly have much to offer, but if you listen through the album in one go, they fall into place quite nicely. The thing is, most of the songs are pretty dark, both musically and lyrically.
Apart from “Fell On Black Days,” a slow-burning melancholy riffer in 6/4 meter, the darkest and heaviest moments are predominantly in straightforward 4/4 time signature. “Mailman” is a BLACK SABBATH-esque riffathon about a serial killer about to go on a killing spree. Then, “Black Hole Sun” is THE grunge song of all time – if you have not been exposed to it over the last 30 years, I guess you must have been born yesterday. The song is basically what the parallel-reality version of the psychedelia-era THE BEATLES might have sounded like with Big Muff pedalboards – and speaking of psychedelia, if my memory serves me right, the track, “4th of July,” is an account of Cornell‘s LSD experience. While the doom-tempo riffs might not give it away, the lyrics surely should.
Last, the original edition of the album ends on a spectacularly dark note with the track, “Like Suicide.” The first time I heard the song, the lyrics came off extremely dark and poignant. Later, I found out that Cornell had written the song about a robin that had broken its neck flying into the window. Later editions end with the song, “She Likes Surprises,” but I must admit to mostly skipping the track since the first edition I bought in the 1990s came without the song. That CD eventually wore out from excessive spins, so I now have the new edition. Still, for me, the album is comprised of 15 tracks. Period.
With its 71-minute running time, “Superunknown” was a landmark album that layered the distinctive sound of early 1990s Seattle with paisley-patterned prog elements and single-handedly redefined the very term, “grunge.” For me, it resonates with a special aura since SOUNDGARDEN was the only grunge monolith that I managed to see live in their prime, about a year after the release of this haunting album. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the album still sounds as poignant as ever – a true musical masterpiece!
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- Let Me Drown
- My Wave
- Fell On Black Days
- Mailman
- Superunknown
- Head Down
- Black Hole Sun
- Spoonman
- Limo Wreck
- The Day I Tried to Live
- Kickstand
- Fresh Tendrils
- 4th of July
- Half
- Like Suicide
- She Likes Surprises
Lineup
Chris Cornell – vocals, rhythm guitars
Kim Thayil – lead guitars
Ben Shepherd – bass, backing vocals, percussion
Matt Cameron – drums, percussion, backing vocals, Mellotron
Label
A&M
