For whatever reason, I never really got into earlier Soundgarden albums including Badmotorfinger. I don’t know why I never connected to it, but it took Johnny Cash covers to bring me around, I guess.

Sometime in 1994, Black Hole Sun hit the airwaves and the MTV. I was hooked and while I hadn’t amassed a huge CD collection yet, this album entered the chat. Superunknown nearly wore out my portable DiscMan from start to finish on repeat.

The radio singles were great, but the non-radio songs were even better. To this day, I must listen to 4th of July every Independence Day. Tradition! Tra-di-tion!

I don’t want to downplay other Soundgarden albums at all, but I really feel like this was peak Soundgarden. Superunknown is the kind of album that was lightning caught in a bottle. All the elements are there: songwriting, production, presentation, and do not forget the sweet, sweet angst.

The incredible part is how well Soundgarden can write a ridiculous alternate tuning riff or non-standard time signature that is still appealing to the average listener. Not many bands can do that. Either it sounds good like this or it sounds like pretentious prog-noodler bullshit. More to the point, I think Soundgarden, and I do mean all members, had a firm understanding about what made a good song regardless of how it was constructed. They didn’t constrain themselves to conventions, nor did they try to wow people with outside-the-box oddness. (WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!)

It’s also interesting to me how this was an alternative to the alternative. That was a time period when the grunge formula was pervasive. Some bands started it, and a lot of bands copied it. Then came Superunknown and Soundgarden was like:

For that, I thank them.