Chris Cornell on why Jeff Buckley was one of the most important of the 1990s: “He did this amazing thing”
The 1990s were bound to be a magical time for rock and roll. The entire genre had become bored with artists that wanted nothing more than to get on MTV, so when the grunge revolution knocked every hair metal band down a peg, it was anyone’s guess what the next cool phase of rock and roll was going to be. In the afterglow of the Seattle scene, everything was from Britpop to pop-punk to trip-hop, but Chris Cornell knew the greatest artists fit outside of any particular genre of music.
First of all, is it really accurate to call Soundgarden a grunge band in the first place? None of the Seattle bands identified with the term, and when looking at the baritone croon of Eddie Vedder and the primal scream of Kurt Cobain, hearing Cornell channel Robert Plant and play some of the strangest progressive rock and roll tunes on his albums didn’t exactly have the same feeling as everyone else in Seattle.
Cornell was always a student of music in many respects, and that meant never staying in one place for too long. An album like Ultramega OK saw them still wet behind the ears, but if you were to tell anyone that the same band who made ‘Flower’ would one day be making something as significant as ‘Black Hole Sun’, you were bound to get more than a few funny looks. But that was only a small portion of what the frontman could do.
On the Singles soundtrack, ‘Seasons’ was already a sign that he was working with something different when he picked up an acoustic guitar. This was him trying to carve out music that existed as a completely different entity from Soundgarden or even Temple of the Dog, but when you start to describe Cornell’s solo career, doesn’t it sound too familiar? A clearly capable guitar player using complex chords and the voice of an angel? Yep, that checks out as Cornell, but that’s also all of Jeff Buckley’s career.
The 1990s crooner wasn’t around for more than a few years, but listening to Grace, he was already starting to carve out his place in rock history. ‘Hallelujah’ had already become one of the greatest covers of all time, and had he not passed away in 1997, the album that became Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk would have been a great launching pad for the rest of his career.
Most artists would give out a PR statement when one of their musical comrades passed away, but despite not knowing him, Cornell seemed genuinely hurt, saying, “When Jeff died, I bought 15 of his bootlegs. I had an idea of what his music meant to people because he did this amazing thing in such a short period of time. He’s going to be the most important artist to so many people throughout their lives. It was really strange to realise that.”
Most of grunge had faded by the time Buckley broke out, but given how many post-grunge outfits had invaded the charts, this was a more accurate version of where the genre could have gone. It was still as emotionally frail as the Nirvanas and the Soundgardens of the world, and given how beautiful his voice sounded, it was much better to hear someone like Buckley on the charts rather than whatever slop Staind was making around the same time.
And it’s not like it’s hard to see who considered Buckley to be the most important artist, either, given that everyone from Radiohead to Alter Bridge to Muse has copied his soaring vocal style. All the pieces were in place for him to become one of the longest-lasting rock and roll legends, but sometimes the most prominent stars only shine bright for a limited amount of time.
