Soundgarden: Superunknown (20th Anniversary Edition Gatefold - 2 LP - 2014)

One of my favorite print adds is for Klipsch Speakers and it features a Klipsch setup with the tagline of “Pissing off the neighbors since 1946.”  I run two different setups at home and both feature Klipsch RB-5s.  Superunknown is one of those albums that must be “Turned up to 11.”  Let the neighbors complain all they want.  

Superunknown was an album I first purchased on CD through Columbia House in high school and I’m sure I still owe them at least $3.75 and my first born child.  Listening to this album over and over on my Magnavox portable CD player with my in-earn headphones so that I could push the bass as hard as possible, was my moment of solace sitting in the backseat of my parents sedan driving to wherever we were going.  I didn’t care because Chris Cornell was speaking directly to me. 

For me, it’s the fact that so many of the songs on Superunknown take the time to draw you in and don’t just rely on a heavy dose of distorted guitars and nearly indispensable vocals.  While Pearl Jam and Nirvana headline the Grunge movement, for me, Soundgarden sits atop them all and Superunknown is the best of their best.  It’s angry, it’s moody, it’s loud, but it’s also complex.  Songs like “Fell On Black Days” and “Mailman” carry you from beginning to the end and allow you to experience all the colors of Cornell’s greatness.  He can sign softly to you and then peel your face off in the same moment.  

If side one is moody and broody, side two takes off with the title track and ends with one of the most commercially successful songs in “Black Hole Sun.”  Let’s be honest, that music video was weird.  But the song holds up and the album as a whole might sit on the top of my Pantheon of grunge albums.  Songs like “The Day I Tried To Live,” and “4th of July” make this an album that isn’t just what was put in front of us on MTV, but a deep and complex work that you have to listen all the way through, side by side, to fully enjoy.  

I’ve been working with kids in elementary schools since 2001 and recently, they’ve taken to wearing ironically “vintage” band shirts.  Problem number one is that they’re wearing band shirts that are “vintage” from when I was a kid which is impossible since I have not aged.  The second and more real problem is that nearly every kid I see wearing a shirt has some version of the Nirvana smiley face or the word “Nevermind” on it.  When I encounter such a student, I politely remind each of them that Soundgarden was a much more dynamic and better band.  Superunknown for me is the pinnacle of their work with lyrics and music that lifts you in and out of the heavy grunge sound while still being wildly dynamic.  Grunge was defined by the yelling and the shouting and angst.  Superunknown is an album that proves that a band can embody that spirit while being so much more.  

Another fun aspect to this version in particular, and one of the small joys in collecting vinyl, is the inclusion of a gorgeous 12x12 lyric book.  These kinds of add-ons are rarely found with CDs or tapes, and almost never encountered when streaming. So crack open the gatefold, flip through the art and lyric book, turn up the speakers, and piss off the neighbors.  I’m sure the band would approve.  I know I do.  

(By T.R.S.)