Chris Cornell

Hands down, my favorite rock singer of all time is Chris Cornell. Chances are, I will cover various albums from his illustrious career over the course of this blog, but for now I'm going to talk about Cornell and his career in general.

Chris Cornell was born in Seattle in 1964. In 1984, 20 years later, he formed Soundgarden with friends Kim Thayil and Hiro Yamamoto. This makes Soundgarden and I the same age. No wonder I love them so much. An interesting note: Chris Cornell started out as the drummer. Eventually Matt Cameron settled in and took over the drum kit; clearly the band recognized Cornell's vocal talent. Soundgarden signed to the famous indie label Sub Pop, which has a very strong association with the Seattle "grunge" sound. Several years later, they were the first band out of that scene to sign to a major label.

Soundgarden's early years were comprised of albums such as the dual EPs "Screaming Life" and "Fopp," their debut LP "Ultramega OK" (which was nominated for a Grammy), and "Louder Than Love" (their major label debut). It wasn't until "Badmotorfinger," however, that they began to attain truly notable mainstream success. That album, bolstered by hits like "Outshined," "Jesus Christ Pose," and "Rusty Cage," rocketed them into the limelight. That album happens to not only be my favorite Soundgarden album, but one of my favorite albums of all time. I will definitely cover it on this blog at some point, and talk about its influence on me.

Despite being the first to the major label party, Soundgarden's success was eclipsed in the early years by Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Indeed, while "Badmotorfinger" came out the same year, 1991, as "Nevermind" and "Ten," the latter two albums enjoyed success on a whole other level. Not to say that they were bitter rivals. In fact, Cornell collaborated with the members of Pearl Jam on the Temple of the Dog project, a tribute to their late friend, Andrew Wood of the band Mother Love Bone. This album resulted in the hit song "Hunger Strike," which is a duet between Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder. I still remember when I first heard that song on the radio: "Hey, that sounds like the guy from Soundgarden . . . and the guy from Pearl Jam. How can that be?" When I confirmed their identities my mind was just about blown. That song is still one of my favorites.

It wasn't until 1994 that Soundgarden truly took the charts by storm with "Superunknown." This is the album that cemented the band's status as rock royalty, particularly due to the smash hit "Black Hole Sun." Other hits like "Fell on Black Days" and "Spoonman" showed that Soundgarden weren't just a one-hit wonder. It was "Black Hole Sun" that first introduced me to the band and to Cornell's amazing voice. I was hooked from first listen.

Unfortunately, Soundgarden's follow-up to "Superunknown," titled "Down on the Upside," did not replicate the former album's success. Although it did give us the classic song, "Burden in My Hand," which is one of my absolute favorite songs. After that album Soundgarden broke up. By the time I actually discovered them in 1999, they'd already been broken up for three years or so (I was a bit late to rock music).

Chris Cornell pursued a solo career for a while, including the wonderful album "Euphoria Morning." "Can't Change Me," the single from that album, is another one of my all-time favorite songs (anyone seeing a pattern here?)

Cornell was pretty quiet for a few years, until a rumor started that he was possibly going to collaborate with the former members of Rage Against the Machine, who were without a singer since Zack de la Rocha left the band. This was practically too good to be true! I hadn't been much a fan of RATM at the time. While I loved their instrumentals, I wasn't that much a fan of the rap vocals (they've since grown on me). So pairing my favorite vocalist with them sounded like the makings of the best band ever!

When the supergroup finally came to fruition with Audioslave's first album, my expectations were more than met . . . it was an awesome album! While their second and third albums couldn't quite measure up, they were still solidly one of my favorite bands and I was able to see them live twice. To my pleasure, they tended to cover several Soundgarden songs, which was the second best thing to seeing Soundgarden live. Here's one of my favorite Audioslave songs, "Show Me How to Live."

Chris Cornell also had the honor of contributing the theme song for the movie that brought James Bond back into movie audiences' good graces: Casino Royale. The song, called "You Know My Name," did not disappoint. While it didn't quite dethrone "A View to a Kill" as my favorite James Bond theme, it's definitely up there!

Chris Cornell's solo career hasn't been quite as . . . consistently high-quality as his work with Soundgarden. None of his solo albums after "Euphoria Morning" really had the same magic, and he made the questionable decision to work with Timbaland for one of them. Fortunately, a few years ago Soundgarden reunited, and I was finally able to see them perform live. This was after I had already seen Audioslave twice and Chris Cornell solo twice. What an amazing show! The band later put out their first album since "Down on the Upside": "King Animal."

Chris Cornell is one of the greatest rock vocalists of his generation. From Temple of the Dog to Soundgarden to his solo work to Audioslave and back to Soundgarden again, Cornell's career has given rock music some of its most enduring classics. If you want to sample the best that the "Seattle Sound" had to offer, you can't go wrong with sampling any of Cornell's amazing work.