No sooner do I post a rumination on the complexities behind the suicide of Chris Cornell does Rolling Stone publish a story saying Cornell’s wife blames anxiety medication for his choice to take his own life. One can only hope that she and her children find some semblance of peace at this unimaginablly difficult time.
I had one other thought that I’d love to throw out there about all this, and this is more of the music-geekery I was reticent to wade into in that first post. I’ve been reading so many hack-scribbled “think-pieces” and social media posts that broadly sum up Cornell as a “pioneering grunge rocker.” I’ve also seen Soundgarden’s name lazily lumped in alongside similarly pigeon-holed acts like Stone Temple Pitols and Smashing Pumpkins, bands with only a tenuous connection to Soundgarden.
Could we maybe stop judging bands through the filter of their dubiously appointed genre. When I first heard Soundgarden, they were being touted as a metal band. Moreover, they were an evolving, organic unit. While their sound remained burly and expansive, marked by Cornell's amazingly elastic voice, you cannot suggest that all Soundgarden albums sounded the same.
I’d take that a step further and assert that even within their own immediate peer group, Soundgarden didn’t really sound anything like their fellow Seattle bands. Beyond the tonsorial/sartorial aesthetics and sensibilities, is there really that much common ground between the music of Soundgarden and, say, the music of Nirvana or Mudhoney?
It's a lofty comparison, I realize, but in the same way The Clash were so much more than simply "a punk band," Soundgarden was more than simply "a grunge band."
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