‘Black Hole Sun’: the advice that unlocked the most defining grunge anthem of 1994
Being musically talented isn’t always enough to bring success – often, it takes an entire team of people to guide that talent and push it in the right direction. Soundgarden leader Chris Cornell may have been the voice of a generation, but during the creation of Superunknown, he needed some guidance when it came to the nature of his songwriting.
It wasn’t that Cornell was fighting creative fatigue or a slow descent from the band’s peak. In fact, it was practically the opposite, with the release of their previous record, Badmotorfinger, cementing Soundgarden’s position as major players in the modern rock scene. And it also helped that producing the follow-up was someone with a good roster of projects already up his sleeve: Michael Beinhorn.
At the time, Cornell was understandably keen to continue the high they were very still much enjoying, eager to pour his all into a record that would reach even bigger heights and achieve a longer cultural impact. However, as most bands experience around the second or third album mark, things got a little hazy when it came to the songwriting, with Cornell becoming more aware than ever what his fans specifically enjoyed and wanted from them in the future.
Of course, riding the same wave that earned you success is always a slippery slope, mainly because, if you commit yourself to doing more of the same, people quickly become bored and fatigued, even if they believed that’s what they wanted in the first place. However, reinvention is also a slippery slope, as it often requires a great deal of bravery and even more of a commitment to creating the kind of art that feels most honest and authentic.
However, the success of Badmotorfinger initially left Cornell firmly in the first category. Aiming to write the kinds of songs he believed the fans wanted, and the kind that picked up where Badmotorfinger left off, he felt eager to maintain that same momentum and avoid doing anything that would ultimately harm the undeniable path to success that they were already on.
Then, sensing that this was the wrong thing to do, Beinhorn stepped in, encouraging Cornell to ignore any outsider factors and focus solely on the kind of music he wanted to write. Recalling this conversation to Ultimate Guitar, Beinhorn explained to Cornell that, while the new material might sound undeniably like Soundgarden, it’s better to write “songs that you really love” rather than “songs that are going to please the constituency of your fans”.
Of course, Beinhorn (and Cornell, probably) also recognised that this move could very well result in the loss of a significant chunk of the band’s fanbase, but what really happened was better than either of them could have ever imagined. After all, two weeks after that conversation, according to Beinhorn, Cornell came back with two songs, one of which defined their entire legacy: ‘Fell on Black Days’ and ‘Black Hole Sun’.
Suffice to say, Beinhorn knew how “incredible” ‘Black Hole Sun’ was from the first opening notes. He even went so far as to call it “one of the best songs I’ve ever heard”, and he told Cornell as much, arguing that what he’d done was effectively go away, listen to his gut, and come back with “the most important track on the whole record”.
Funnily enough, Cornell also came up with the song’s electric guitar section, giving it a more delicate feel than anything guitarist Kim Thayil could play. But all of these unique embellishments – the ones that Cornell wouldn’t have likely come up with, had he not had the previous conversation with Beinhorn – ended up shaping their journey, and remained focused on the simple art of intuition, rather than falling into the familiar trap of pandering to fans.
