The second installment of my "classic albums" series
Superunknown is the fourth album by the Seattle grunge band Soundgarden. It was released in March 1994 through A&M Records. The following year it was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album, and picked up 2 Grammys for the songs "Black Hole Sun" and "Spoonman". Superunknown had 6 charting singles. No other grunge band had released an album with 6 commercially successful, charting singles - including Nirvana, Alice in Chains or Pearl Jam. The album went 6x platinum and granted Soundgarden huge international recognition. In 2003, the album was ranked number 336 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
While Nirvana was perhaps the best grunge band of the 90s with respect to song writing, to me Soundgarden was always the most talented. Soundgarden rocked long before the release of their fourth album, but Superunknown simply solidified their place as not only one of the best grudge scene bands, but one of the very best rock bands of the 90s. Superunknown is not a perfect album (it includes the ultamite example of a filler track - "Half" - afterall), but the full package is nothing short of a great rock album. Cornell is my favorite modern rock vocalist, and he also happened to write many of the album's best songs including Fell On Dark Days - the prefect example of how to do a "soft" rock single without cheesing it up. That range is one example of the album's brilliance. From the brooding melody of Black Hole Sun to the fierce urgency of the title track, the album successfully hits every corner of rock spectrum with methodical accuracy.
Fell On Dark Days[youtube=425,350]4xs0I8HFais[/youtube]
The Day I Tried to Live[youtube=425,350]wfGei3l-jfw[/youtube]
My Wave[youtube=425,350]ly7NMFw1wFA[/youtube]
