Chris Cornell on the “quintessential” rock singer: “Great presence and relentless attitude”
Most rock fans who grew up in the last 20 years could probably tell you where they were when they first heard Chris Cornell sing. Fans had already been hearing what could come out of powerhouses like Robert Plant and Ozzy Osbourne in the 1970s, but Cornell seemed to be channelling some demon inside him half the time, making the kind of vocal leaps that would leave most incapacitated for days after they attempted it. For all that time he spent listening to people like Plant, Cornell said that the core of his sound came from the reckless abandon of Iggy Pop.
When you look at how grunge played out, it is always about the sounds of proto-punk. Although everyone would later embrace the sound of sludgy riffs and hard-rock-style choruses, acts like Melvins and Duff McKagan’s early band 10 Minute Warning laid the groundwork for grunge by playing songs indebted to punk rock.
Before there was punk, there was The Stooges, and Pop was one of the most eye-catching singers ever to hit the scene. While Mick Jagger or John Lennon typically have that star power look to them before they open their mouth, Pop used his time onstage to assault the audience’s senses half the time, doing everything he could to shock the crowd.
It all still came back to the music before anything else, but listening to him belt out songs like ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ was unintentionally birthing the sound of grunge as well. He kept things within the boundaries of rock and roll, but that combination of melodic pieces framed with the “I could give a shit” attitude made him an idol for anyone who didn’t take themselves all that seriously.
Despite Cornell being the archetype of what a rock singer should be on a technical level, he said that everything that a frontman should be something Pop already covered, telling Louder, “[He’s] the quintessential rock singer in all its forms. He’s got great presence and a relentless attitude. If they created an anime version of a rock singer, it would look like Iggy. That energy he gives off comes across in his physique too. What’s more, he can sing. He can really croon”.
If Pop set the standard for what good rock and roll should sound like, then Cornell brought that mindset to a new level. Despite still finding his feet as a vocalist on the first handful of Soundgarden albums, hearing him go from the punk-rock adjacent voice to metal lord on Louder Than Love to eclectic rock and roll songwriter on Superunknown is still one of the biggest ranges any singer has ever attempted.
Cornell may have put a lot more time into maintaining his voice over his lifetime, but that kind of throaty shriek that he was known for probably wouldn’t have been possible if Pop had not done it first. As much as people like to draw comparisons to Robert Plant every time Cornell opened his mouth, songs like ‘Spoonman’ have as much in common with Led Zeppelin II as they do with Fun House.
