That moment truly came with the release of 1994’s Superunknown, the band’s juggernaut breakthrough album, which would go on to sell nine-million copies, and can proudly stand shoulder to shoulder with Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten. It spawned GRAMMY-winning singles Black Hole Sun and Spoonman. The genesis of the former provides a fascinating insight into Chris’ skill for conjuring surrealist imagery for his lyrics, mishearing a news anchor’s words and building a masterpiece from there. What he possessed in imagination, however, he clearly lacked by way of his ear for a successful song, telling Entertainment Weekly, “I didn’t think of it tempo-wise or lyrically as a hit.”
He never lost a sense of what Soundgarden should be about, though, even when they reconvened after a 12-year absence, having split in 1997 following the release of their excellent Down On The Upside album. Teasing their return Chris, a man with a flair for the dramatic, tweeted: “Knights of the Soundtable ride again!” The fact the band’s post-reformation album, 2012’s King Animal, continued on the path laid by its leftfield predecessor showcased their leader’s restless desire for experimentation, while its business-as-usual brilliance was testament to the innate chemistry he shared with his bandmates. Meanwhile, Kim Thayil updated Billboard prior to Chris’ death, saying some of the band’s new songs had been demoed to follow King Animal, and would make fans interested to hear Soundgarden’s next steps. They have, of course, already received a bittersweet posthumous gift in the form of never-before-heard music, as part of the 25th anniversary two-disc reissue of Singles, Cameron Crowe’s zeitgeist-capturing 1992 romantic comedy, of which Chris Cornell originally contributed music to the soundtrack.
In the intervening years during Soundgarden’s dormancy, Chris showed his flexibility as a creative force by embracing the new opportunities afforded to him by going it alone. And while his debut solo album, 1999’s Euphoria Morning, didn’t enjoy his former band’s commercial success, critics praised the blissful, sultry quality of songs that brought his writing to the fore. Never one to be predictable and settle on any one sound, in 2001 he returned to a big band dynamic by joining forces with Rage Against The Machine members Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk to form Audioslave (a name he suggested). During their six-year career, they would release three albums – 2002’s Audioslave, 2005’s Out Of Exile and 2006’s Revelations – and receive three GRAMMY nominations, while allowing him to enact his life-long love of Led Zeppelin in the process. Despite delivering some of the best vocal performances of his career in the likes of the thunderous Cochise and the brooding I Am The Highway, Chris’ problems with drink were apparently at their worst during the making of their self-titled debut. He’d always had an addictive personality, claiming to have been a “daily drug user” at aged 13, and suggesting that his use of PCP as a teenager had resulted in him developing agoraphobia. Keen to put his long-standing demons to rest, as well as to deal with a dependency that impeded his considerable songwriting abilities, he checked into rehab upon the album’s completion.