Song of the Week - Black Hole Sun (1994)

Soundgarden, Superunknown
(1994; A&M Records)

Three years after Nevermind changed mainstream rock music forever, Seattle rock band Soundgarden released Superunknown, their fourth album and despite a few songs that I love (Outshined for instance), the band had nothing one would really call a "hit".  That all changed, however, when they released the third single off of Superunkown, Black Hole Sun.  Black Hole Sun is now stands alongside Smells Like Teen Spirit, Everlong and Enter Sandman as a shining example of why 90's rock was awesome.

Soundgarden had been around for a decade at this point, forming in 1984, signing with an indie label and playing around with the Seattle sound that was growing at the time, but had not yet broken through as most mainstream rock still took the form of hairspray and Spandex.  The Seattle scene was dirtier; kind of how the punk era of the 70's must have looked and sounded to the Who crowd.  It was a grittier, more serious and angrier-sound than most rockers were used to at the time and it took one loud, aggressive and amazing single in 1991 from an unknown band called Nirvana to change all of that.  Grunge then became king.

Now, in all fairness, Soundgraden was not a grunge band.  Rather, they embodied a purer, more agile and agressive rock that still employed classical tropes like guitar solos and heavy vocalization that most grungers rejected.  They were sort of a breakthrough band, blurring the lines between the Anthrax and Iron Maiden crowd and the long haired, Sunset Strip folks who still clung to their Hagar-fronted Van Halen relics. This is why Black Hole Sun was so important.

In the early 90's despite its influential nature, Smells Like Teen Spirit was heavily snubbed by the guys who still listened to Bon Jovi and the eager twenty-somethings awaiting that ill-fated 90's Whitesnake breakthrough.  However, there was something about Black Hole Sun that was much more acceptable, much more accessible even.  People who did not like modern rock music liked it.  It conjured memories of Don't Fear the Reaper while filling in the modern idea of rock with heavy distortion, squealing guitar, and a not-quite-screaming vocal style.

Much of this, I believe, can be attributed to singer Chris Cornell's voice.  He is, in my opinion, one of the greatest rock singers of all time.  He actually sings rather than grunts or mumbles, yet it did not sound ironic and sunny like Roth or overblown and emotional like Live's Ed Kowalczyk (I happen to like Live though.  I was just making a point.).  Instead, he was gritty without being offensive and mild enough, even in his heavier vocal stylings, to be able to find his melody in the song.  It was a nice blend.

So, the big hit, Black Hole Sun.  The song was actually not really about anything.  Cornell, who wrote the song on his own, described it as a lyrical experiment.  I see it too.  At first listen it sounds quite literal, yet any attempt to seek metaphor leaves one filling in the blanks for themselves.  My interpretation is it is a meloncholy tribute to an end to suffering, coming any way it can.  The famous creepy video for the song shows a distorted view of Americana, something that was popular in the 90's as the youth began rejecting the forms and ideas of their parents.  This chaotic and subversive world is then sucked up by a literal Black Hole Sun, destroying everything.  I can see the director of the video also coming to a this literal interpretation in his work.  That leaves me feeling that any sort of subtext or undertone may be completely invalid, but hey, that's the beauty of any sort of art.  It is all subjective.

The Song -

Soundgarden, Black Hole Sun (1994; A&M Records)