Music We Listen To, Feat., Soundgarden
Genre: Grunge, Alternative
It has been more than a week since I learned of the death of Chris Cornell. And in this time, that’s really all I have listened to. I checked out Blondie’s new Single, and that sort of shook me from my funk over Cornell’s death. And as I am writing this, I am listening to Nevermind. But for the last week, its been nonstop Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog. It is a celebration of something that I think can only really be celebrated at the distance of more than two decades.
My other post on Cornell’s death dealt more with a sort of hopelessness at the loss of not so much the man, but what he represented for me. It was a very personal article, and the loss was felt very personally. But returning to the music I think was cathartic. And it has really helped me deal with this loss, more than anything I could possibly imagine.
I never quit listening to Soundgarden. It is true that their records have slipped off my mp3 player to make way for other, newer ones. And my tastes in music have changed dramatically since the days when the band was in heavy rotation for me. But, the internet is amazing, and whenever I needed a dose of the darkness, Soundgarden was there.
I remember the first time I heard Nirvana. It was a bootleg of their album Bleach. It was lent me by this dude named Joel Walley. I listened to it and thought it was just noise. I was still listening to Queen and Led Zeppelin and the Black Crowes, and all that. I gave him the tape back and said, “Man, this is garbage. This guy just yells.” And, though I don’t recall his reaction, I could tell he was disappointed that I didn’t like it. Like three weeks later, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came on the radio for the first time, and it was paradigm-busting. I was really into Nirvana for about 6 weeks or so. I loved Lithium, I loved the whole record, and played it loud. My music tastes changed over night, literally. I still liked my old music too, but there was something about this new stuff which I just knew was changing the entire world.
A few weeks into this new grunge craze which was sweeping west to east across the country, and hitting Indiana at full fury at that particular time, a buddy of mine turned me on to Soundgarden. Like a lot of people, I was kind of late to the party — Soundgarden was getting huge at the same time as Nirvana. At first, I preferred the speedier tempos of Nirvana to the slowed down, really dark Soundgarden.
But there was just something about Soundgarden… I can’t really put my finger on it. Nirvana was manic next to Soundgarden. Soundgarden was brooding devil music compared to the anarchistic chaos in Nirvana. Of course Soundgarden was on Beavis and Butthead (that’s how I found a lot of new music for a long time in HS), and a rapid acquisition of a taste for Soundgarden’s style of sludgy alternative admittedly displaced Nirvana after a pretty short time.
By senior year, my crew was blasting Soundgarden out of our cars, right alongside of Nirvana, right alongside Public Enemy, right alongside STP, right alongside the Beastie Boys… Soundgarden was the anchor… It was what the nerd D&D players had in common with the metal heads, as the potheads moved in a more psychedelic direction. Finally the tribes were uniting! Yeah, that’s romantic. But as one of those D&D guys, who did theater, who was the captain of the Quiz Bowl team, it was nice to be accepted by the metal heads. We all liked Soundgarden in 94. When Kurt Cobain killed himself in April of my senior year, we listened to Black Hole Sun and thought Cornell was talking about the whole damned world! Everyone did.
And when Soundgarden broke up in 1997, it was almost anti-climactic. Only a few of us mourned the end of the era. Most folks had moved on to other bands — No Doubt and Sublime were big then, and so was Blink 182 and a bunch of post-grunge, like the Wallflowers…
You can trace the trajectory of music in the 90s, but any line you draw must go through Soundgarden. If you follow rock, Soundgarden is there. If you followed metal, you run through Soundgarden. All alternative goes through Soundgarden. Even hip hop artists gave props to Cornell when he died. Reggie Watts, that crazy bizarre weirdo comedian, idolized the man. Without much more gilding the lily, we owe a great cultural debt to that band.
In parting, we listen to Soundgarden now because it is so dark. If I may lament one more time the hypermaterialism which sloshes through every corner in modern music these days, I listen to Soundgarden because it reminds me of a time when music was far more introspective. It was about internal demons, but not the kind we saw in the late 90s. Nothing in Soundgarden’s music even hinted at “daddy issues” the way ALL of Korn’s (and all their clones) music did, for example. Soundgarden dealt with much larger, and probably more relatable demons. Those demons were the world itself and the rot in it, and since we all lived in that, I kind of knew what the guy was talking about, and I understood Matt Cameron’s pounding percussion, and I understood Kim Thayil’s flaying guitar work, and I got Ben Shepherd’s grindy bass… It was clear in a way that later rock was not.
Like acid to make food less sickeningly sweet, you embrace the darkness to help you cope with the saccharine world. I listen to Soundgarden to remind me that the crap which controls the minds of many of today’s youth is really poison for them, and Soundgarden acts kind of like an antidote. And I will until I die.
Our world needs more of that, not less of it.
Without further ado, here’s 1994’s Superunknown. This is Soundgarden in its prime, its darkest, and by the way, its most popular. This is the one we always come back to. This is music we listen to, over and over again, and always will. This is Soundgarden.
