“If he felt like it”: the singer Chris Cornell felt could do anything
Sometimes, it doesn’t matter which genre a musician comes from, as long as their music leaves a lasting emotional impact – Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell might have found his footing in the grunge arena, but many of his favourite singers came from all over.
That said, whether or not Soundgarden can actually be considered grunge is still very much a point of contention – yes, they’re credited with pioneering the Seattle sound in the mid-1980s, but many of the bands from the same Seattle pool struggled with the term itself, likely because, when it all boils down to it, they’re so much more than a simple, reductive label.
At the same time, Cornell’s interest in a wide range of music also backs up the claim that Soundgarden was always something bigger. And for Cornell, learning the ropes started with acquiring the entire Beatles catalogue, much of which he knew would have a massive impact on him, even though he’d started listening to them at the young age of nine.
Then, as a teenager, his main source of inspiration was the sounds of Elvis Costello and the Beat, before the radio exposed him to the legendary rock sounds of the big three: Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and The Rolling Stones. Other influences, like Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, also crept onto his radar, infiltrating his own sounds in ways that are easy to detect when you listen close enough.
On ‘Black Hole Sun’, for instance, Cornell toyed with the dynamics of dark and light, veiling the weight of the message beneath a gentler sway of ambiguous arrangements that sound and feel happier than they actually are. As he once said, “I liken it to Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, where there’s a happy veneer over something dark.”
Cornell often attempted to channel his heroes in this way, no matter their genre or musical subculture. In Cornell’s world, if they resonated with him, that was good enough proof that they were worth incorporating into his own world in one way or another. Jeff Buckley, for instance, he called the epitome of every quality you’d ever wish to have as a musician, and someone who would undoubtedly “be the most important artist to so many people throughout their lives”.
In fact, as someone who knew full well what it was like to be painted into a corner, Cornell argued that Buckley was one of music’s biggest anomalies, because, unlike others, he had enough talent and drive to be able to pull off anything he put his mind to. His voice was his main selling point, but really, it was this that equipped him to do whatever he wanted and do it better than most.
As Cornell once explained, he could have done “anything” in the same way that someone like Jimi Hendrix could, where “there’s no real way to predict it”. He also praised Buckley’s “beautiful” songs and the way he sang, saying that he could even “create a bit of an uncomfortable edge to it if he felt like it”, which he mostly achieved through his voice alone.
Funnily enough, many people also see Cornell as someone who could have probably done anything he’d wanted to do, and people would have still shown up and listened. His voice alone had so much range and flexibility that it’s easy to imagine him flexing any creative muscles, proving once again why the grunge label is anything but a true reflection of his legacy.
