Patience is a virtue and thankfully Soundgarden had a lot of it going into the recording of their fourth album. 30 years ago, Soundgarden solidified their place in the grunge history books with the release of their fourth studio LP Superunknown. Originally released on March 8, 1994, the album launched the band into the blinding spotlight of mainstream success. Grunge is a busy genre with a complex relationship with the idea of fame and success, before the success of Superunknown, Soundgarden was another grunge band with a label backing hoping to cash in on the genre’s popularity. The tale is as old as time, as soon as the band found their voice and allowed their lofty ideas to crash land on tape, everything else began to fall into place.
The miraculous thing about this album launching the band to mainstream popularity is that these 15 songs only deviate slightly from what the band did on previous records. Soundgarden seemingly found their voice on their first record, 1988’s Ultramega OK. As the story goes, this and the preceding two albums only move Soundgarden slightly closer to the star-studded success they would go on to achieve with Superunknown. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and is certified six times platinum. It is considered an essential grunge album as it captured a specific moment in the genre, the height of its popularity. In the mid-90s, grunge was an unstoppable force with bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam taking over popular music with effortless grace. Thanks to Superunkonwn, Soundgarden was able to solidify itself as one of grunge’s biggest selling offerings.
Ironically, the band was able to achieve this by stepping away from the ethos of grunge. By showcasing a wider range of influences, the band was able to create a version of the genre all to their own. The story goes that the band had just wrapped up a leg of the 1992 Lollapalooza tour. Instead of immediately gathering in a studio for another attempt at a breakthrough album, the individual members went their separate ways to begin the writing process. They reconvened and shuffled through each demo, now attacking these ideas as a full band. This allowed the nuance of Soundgarden to unleash itself, a self-realization of hurricane proportions. The band also changed their producer and brought in Michael Beinhorn, a diverse producer who has credits ranging from Herbie Hancock to Red Hot Chilli Peppers. A new producer, a new approach, and a new headspace were all Soundgarden needed to unlock a sound all to their own, and they never let go.
Soundgarden did more than find the freedom they needed, they put that freedom to a melody and made it potent. Superunknown captured a creative turning point for the band and spun it into 15 tracks of raw emotion and palpable musicianship. While their discography has flourished into its cinematic universe, Superuknown was the knife that carved Soundgarden into the Mount Rushmore of grunge.
