I never really talk about it much, but after the 2 year obsession I had with U2 as a teenager, Soundgarden became my next band to be obsessed with. I started getting into Soundgarden right after Badmotorfinger was released, in 1992, but at the same time I was infatuated with U2. Badmotorfinger was a hard listen for me at the time because I wasn't "really" into hard rock/metal, and as the grunge thing was happening Soundgarden didn't really have that grunge vibe, at least in my opinion, so they really teetered that Metal/Rock genre label. So an album like Badmotorfinger wasn't as palpable to the ears as say Pearl Jam's Ten or Nirvana's Nevermind was at that time. It didn't help that the first video I saw was for Outshined and Chris Cornell was shirtless, rocking renaissance era painter facial hair and screaming "SHOW ME THE POWER CHILD" in a steel factory with fire in the background.
So as time went by and I continued listening to Badmotorfinger again and again it finally clicked and I got it. The lyrics weren't stupid, they were somewhat intelligent, thought provoking, the production made sense and the power of Kim Thayil's guitar work shown through and of course Cornell's incredible range finally got through to me. This all happened during 92/93 which seemed like an eternity. There wasn't internet then like we have now so honestly MTV was the source for any music news. Finally sometime in late 93 there was a news report on Soundgarden's much anticipated next album, and Chris Cornell shaved his head. That literally was what MTV news focused on. Chris Cornell started wearing shirts and shaved his head and people freaked out.
Superunknown dropped and holy crap. It was an incredible listen because Soundgarden at the time were really great at making good albums. Albums that didn't sound like their previous albums. There were a lot of songs on Superunknown and of course Black Hole Sun blew up. So yeah, 1994 I was really incredibly obsessed with Soundgarden. In an odd way when Down On The Upside came out in 96 that era felt like things had changed and the band were losing some spark. And of course they broke up a year later in 1997 and musical tastes changed.
I was on board for the first Chris Cornell solo album, and still think it's an interested good first outing, I like the production and it really takes me back to the year it came out. His later solo stuff was hit or miss and I wasn't too fond of Audioslave. I gave King Animal some listens but nothing from it really stuck with me. I do hope they have another good album in them. I know Chris is doing more solo stuff again.
