
Soundgarden’s “Superunknown” was the crowning achievement for a band previously content with sitting on the periphery of grunge’s success. It was instantly accepted as an alternative rock staple and even admired by fans of classic rock. Few bands ever had more musical ability than Soundgarden had circa 1994.
But are the songs really that good? Or is this just the case of a band receiving its owed fame with a delay? Today, I am reviewing and revisiting “Superuknown.”

Soundgarden’s Journey to Making “Superuknown”
Success in the music world, especially in the overcrowded world of 1990s alternative rock, depends as much on chance as on musical ability.
By 1994, grunge had unexpectedly become a global hit and had turned Seattle into one of the most interesting cities for the world’s music press. Not all of the cities’ major bands benefited in the same way.
Sure, Nirvana and Pearl Jam had multi-platinum albums, and their singers were on magazine covers. Yes, Alice in Chains had transitioned from heavy-metal tours to their own headlining shows. Bands like Mudhoney or Tad also received more attention.
Soundgarden, one of the earliest bands from this scene and arguably one of the most innovative, fell somewhere in between when it came to success. Yes, the band’s 1991 album “Badmotorfinger” had been a moderate hit. But it was popular, mostly with fans of metal.
The Delayed Rise of Soundgarden
Yes, Chris Cornell was a well-respected singer with one of the most impressive vocal ranges in the alt-rock scene. But he was hardly a household name.
It looked like Soundgarden was just the band that grunge forgot. If that were to be the case, the group could just blame it on timing.
After all, they’d put in the work. They’d been touring the U.S. ever since they were in their teens and getting side jobs to support their passion when, inevitably, they came back to Seattle broke.
The band had grown in leaps and bounds musically, as well, from the indie-rock psychedelia of their “Screaming Life” EP to the angular riff-rock of the debut album “Ultramega OK.”
Life wasn’t fair, but what could you do? Their friends, Alice in Chains, in particular, had taken inspiration from Soundgarden. But AiC and Nirvana were newer bands with a better grasp on promoting themselves.
That’s why Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Ben Shepherd and Matt Cameron set about making “Superuknown” as an album that would please them collectively, not one that needed to fulfil commercial expectations.

“Superuknown,” a Refined Metal Classic?
“Superuknown” is the grunge album that has it all. Yes, the Seattle bands are generally praised for effortlessly combining styles like punk, garage rock, and heavy metal in a way that can please both mainstream and underground audiences.
What “Superuknown” did was blend these influences and turn it all into something resembling an Olympic event. This is not progressive-rock, no. But it is music that could not be performed or written by anyone but top-notch musicians at the very top of their game.
And it’s not just that Chris Cornell’s opera-metal vocals had reached full maturity or that Kim Thayil’s riffs had now moved closer to the grandeur of Tony Iommi’s work. No, it’s the songs. “Superuknown” contains 15 of them, and the vast majority are better than anything found on the albums of the alternative-rock bands trying to ape Nirvana and Pearl Jam to the top of the crowds. Hell, most of the 15 songs are better than anything Soundgarden had produced up to this point.
The tunes on the opening two tracks are sludgy and riff-based. But “Let Me Drown” and “My Wave” also sound like material that could be played in an arena. All the lessons learned opening up for bands like Guns n’ Roses had paid off.
“Mailman” and “Limo Wreck” brought a kind of negativity and darkness that seemed extreme even in an era in which the charts were dominated by this kind of music. The arrangement, complex tempos and Cornell’s singing make them all the more mysterious.
Musical Variety of “Superuknown”
Some songs begin with acoustic instrumentation, like “Head Down” and “Like Suicide,” which grow into massive highway music classic rockers.
When the band retreats into familiar psychedelic-rock territory, it does so not to provide a dreamy, heavenly sound. “4th of July” and “The Day I Tried to Live” are nightmarish.
The album famously contained great rock singles, although it’s hard to say if the group intended it to be this way. By the time of “Superuknown,” creativity was overflowing. Chris Cornell had proven he could write good songs on a whim. He’d done so with the Temple of the Dog album and with acoustic tunes, like “Seasons,” which inspired Cameron Crowe for the movie “Singles.”
One of these songs was “Spoonman,” a tune written about a Seattle street artist who created percussion sounds using household anthems. The dynamic rocker, with its back-and-forth vocals, signified a new era in the band’s evolution.
Then there was “Black Hole Sun,” an acid-drenched Beatlesque slow song featuring Cornell’s expressionist poetry. Long before the nightmarish music video became an MTV mainstay, it was clear that this would become one of the biggest songs of the band’s career. No other of their songs seemed more appropriate to be chanted back by an adoring audience.

Impact and Legacy of “Superuknown”
“Superunknown” became a global smash, not least because it was a modern rock album accepted by classic rock fans. Cornell’s vocals and Thayil’s guitar playing were compared favourably to bands like Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath.
This meant that Soundgarden had to promote the record heavily. The group always toured hard, made videos, etc. But the media machine was sent into overdrive. Sure, the group reached new fans and achieved much greater fame. However, all of this work took its toll and led to the group’s eventual dissolution in 1998.
The album had legs. Its reputation grows larger with every year. Currently, “Superunknown” has sold at least 9 million copies, making it one of the best-selling grunge albums of all time. Each song on the album has been streamed millions of times, and “Black Hole Sun” has been streamed on Spotify nearly 750 million times.
The story has both a happy and a sad end. While everyone knows of the tragic loss of Chris Cornell, I ought not to forget to mention that Soundgarden did reconvene in the late 2000s, made one more album, and were along for enough to witness how much of an impact their efforts had made.
And, while alternative rock made a colossal impression on many, few albums are better-sounding or more well-designed than Soundgarden’s “Superunknown.”