“Superunknown” is the fourth studio album by grunge band Soundgarden. Fronted by vocalist Chris Cornell, it’s the band’s second album to feature bassist Ben Shepherd and first with producer Michael Beinhorn. The album was released with five singles including “The Day I Tried To Live” and “Spoonman”. It debuted at number one in the United States with over 300,000 copies sold and since then has sold almost 4 million copies in the country. The album was massively appreciated by critics and fans and earned two Grammys for Best Hard Rock Performance (“Black Hole Sun”) and Best Metal Performance (“Spoonman”) respectively.

This album is currently on high and heavy rotation. With the first ever listen, the album wasn’t too appealing to me. The only song that had stuck was “Black Hole Sun”. After awhile, it was time to really sit down and listen to this album again. The only phrase to describe the second run-through is “MIND BLOWING.” It’s incredibly impressive how a band could produce an album this great within the span of two months even after wrapping up a tour. The track that stands out the most is “4th of July”. The best part of this song is just how haunting it is. Cornell described the song as the time he was on acid and how there was voices “ten feet behind my head.” The guitar riff in this song is so addictive and Cornell’s vocals are out of this world. Another standout track on this album is “Like Suicide”. It’s a perfect ending to this album. Despite the title and being released just a month before Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain took his own life, leading to many speculations with this song, it actually has nothing to do with suicide. While writing music, Cornell heard a loud thump coming from upstairs. It turned out to be a female robin who had broken her neck after flying into the window glass. According to Chris, it was still alive, so he went and found a cinder block and smashed her head with it. As a result, he wrote “Like Suicide”. The only track from this album that has yet to click is “My Wave”. This song just comes off as boring but it could eventually grow to become a great song, like the rest of the album.

As an entire body of work, “Superunknown” is incredible. Hands down a genre-defining album and probably one of the 5 best albums to come from grunge music. This album is a must hear no matter what your music preference is.