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Soundgarden
American rock band
Soundgarden was an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1984 by singer and drummer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto. Scott Sundquist was brought in to play drums in 1985 so that Cornell could focus solely on vocals.
Sundquist was soon replaced on drums by Matt Cameron in 1986. Yamamoto left in 1989 and was replaced initially by Jason Everman and shortly thereafter by Ben Shepherd.
Soundgarden disbanded in 1997 and reformed in 2010. Following Cornell's death in 2017, Thayil declared in October 2018 that Soundgarden had disbanded once again.
members: Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Ben Shepherd, Matt Cameron, Hiro Yamamoto
formed in: Seattle, Washington
labels: Sub Pop, A&M Records, C/Z Records, SST Records
genres: grunge, alternative rock, heavy metal music, hard rock, alternative metal, stoner metal
influenced by: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix
awards: MTV Video Music Awards
Facts from Wikidata and Discogs, free to use.
grungealternative rockalternative metalhard rocksludge metalpsychedelic rock
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Formation and early recordings (1984–1988)
Soundgarden was formed in 1984 and included Chris Cornell (drums and vocals), Hiro Yamamoto (bass), and Kim Thayil (guitar). Yamamoto and Cornell had been jamming together, and after trying several guitarists, were joined by Thayil. The band named themselves after a wind-channeling pipe sculpture titled A Sound Garden, on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration property at 7600 Sand Point Way, next to Magnuson Park in Seattle.
Soundgarden were pioneers of the grunge music genre, which mixed elements of punk rock and metal to make a sludgy, murky sound through the use of fuzzy-sounding distortion in the guitars.
The development of the Seattle independent record label Sub Pop Records is tied closely to Soundgarden (due to Sub Pop co-founder Jonathan Poneman funding Soundgarden's early releases), and the success of the band resulted in the expansion of Sub Pop as a serious record label.
Formed during 1984 in Seattle, Washington, USA, Soundgarden was one of the early bands to record for the seminal Sub Pop record label. Along with the likes of Green River, Melvins and Skin Yard, Soundgarden is generally regarded as a founding father of the 'grunge' genre. Though much of their work had a more hard rock / metallic nature than the likes of their latter contemporaries Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, or Nirvana. From a metallic standpoint, their peak was the 1991 album '11394', with the more recent albums showcasing more of an alternative rock leaning to the band's sound (1994 produced their highest selling single, "54941"). The band parted ways amicably on April 9th 1997 to pursue other interests. Notably drummer Matt Cameron joined Pearl Jam in 1998, and vocalist Chris Cornell released his first full-length solo album in 1999, before joining forces with the musical-core of Rage Against The Machine to form the band Audioslave in 2001.
At precisely midnight on January 1st 2010, U.S. EST, Chris Cornell posted on his Twitter and Facebook: "The 12 year break is over & school is back in session. Knights of the Soundtable ride again!" On May 18th 2017, arou
Also known as: Modern Classic, Modern Classic Backing Track, Sound Garden, Soundgärden, サウンドガーデン
From Discogs (free to use). Their entry
Liner notes
Soundgarden, the records, oldest first
Screaming Life
1987 ep
Ultramega OK
1988 album
Fopp
1988 ep
Louder Than Love
1989 album
Badmotorfinger
1991 album
Superunknown
1994 album
wanted
Gardenheads
1994 album
Down on the Upside
1996 album
Live on I-5
2011 ep
King Animal
2012 album
Satanoscillatemymetallicsonatas
2016 ep
Records from MusicBrainz; covers from the Cover Art Archive.
"Black Hole Sun" is a song by American rock band Soundgarden. Written by frontman Chris Cornell, the song was released on May 23, 1994, by A&M Records as the third single from the band's fourth studio album, Superunknown (1994).
Considered to be the band's signature song, it topped the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart, where it spent a total of seven weeks at number one. Despite peaking at number two on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, "Black Hole Sun" became the number-one modern rock track of 1994.
Origin and recording
"Black Hole Sun" was written by frontman Chris Cornell. In 1994, Cornell explained the song's origins to Uncut Magazine:
Composition
Musically, "Black Hole Sun" has been described as grunge, psychedelic rock, alternative rock, hard rock, and stoner rock. Regarding the song's lyrics, Cornell stated, "It's just sort of a surreal dreamscape, a weird, play-with-the-title kind of song." He also said that "lyrically it's probably the closest to me just playing with words for words' sake, of anything I've written. I guess it worked for a lot of people who heard it, but I have no idea how you'd begin to take that one literally." In another interview he elaborated further, stating, "It's funny because hits are usually sort of congruent, sort of an identifiable lyric idea, and that song pretty much had none. The chorus lyric is kind of beautiful and easy to remember. Other than...
Critical reception
Greg Prato of AllMusic called the song "one of the few bright spots" of mid-1994, when "the world was still reeling from Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's suicide the previous April". He said, "The song had a psychedelic edge to it (especially evident in the verse's guitar part), as the composition shifted between sedate melodicism and gargantuan guitar riffs. The lyrics were classic Chris Cornell—lines didn't exactly make sense on paper but did within the song." Larry Flick from Billboard magazine praised it as "a magnificent pop single", noting that "track's resonant production highlights its moving, Beatlesque quality without sacrificing band's visceral punch." Ann Powers of Blender proclaimed that "Cornell's fixation with the Beatles pays...
Music video
The surreal and apocalyptic music video for "Black Hole Sun" was directed by British video director Howard Greenhalgh, produced by Megan Hollister for Why Not Films (London, England), shot by Ivan Bartos, and features post-production work by 525 Post Production (Hollywood, California) and Soho 601 Effects (London). The video follows a suburban neighborhood and its vain inhabitants with grotesquely exaggerated grins, who are eventually swallowed up when the Sun suddenly turns into a black hole, while the band performs the song somewhere in an open field. In the video, Cornell is wearing a fork necklace given to him by Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon. In an online chat, the band stated that the video "was entirely the director's idea", and...
