The type of music that made Chris Cornell feel “horrible”
As a teenage Soundgarden fan in the 1990s, repeatedly spinning Superunknown and Down on the Upside on my Sony CFD-510 “Mega Bass” CD Boombox, the question was occasionally posed to me: “Why do you like listening to this unbelievably dark and depressing music? Isn’t high school painful enough as it is?”
My response, naturally, was to try to explain the age-old paradox through which “sad” art can end up having the opposite effect on one’s spirits. It’s not a dependable mathematical equation or a law of physics by any means, but whether you’re drawn to Vincent Van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, Lars von Trier, or Tori Amos, the same alchemy is often in effect. The experience of someone else sharing their pain and vulnerability—rather than sending us further down a pit of our own despair—gives us a sense of being less alone, and thus, makes us a bit more optimistic about ourselves and humanity in general.
Unsurprisingly, many of the artists who’ve ended up providing this service with their work were inspired in a similar way in their own formative years. Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell was no exception, as he explained in an interview with Alternative Press back in 1999.
“I would always sit in my bedroom and listen to music by myself. That was my favourite thing to do,” Cornell said. “I would often listen to really dark music, and if I was in a very dark period of my life, it made me feel happy.”
Cornell summed up the sad art paradox quite well there, but he also mentioned the flip side of the same coin, the sometimes confusing way in which “happy” music, or party tunes, can send you down the tubes.
“If I listened to Ted Nugent at a keg party, I felt horrible,” Cornell said. “I didn’t want to be around people. I didn’t want to listen to the soundtrack to the keg—Ted Nugent. It’s a party song, it’s a party record, great. That’s for somebody else. It’s not for me.”
At the time of this interview, Cornell was promoting his first solo album after the break-up of Soundgarden, 1999’s Euphoria Morning. With song titles like ‘Preaching the End of the World’, ‘When I’m Down’, and ‘Pillow of Your Bones’, this album wasn’t necessarily cheerier than the Soundgarden catalogue, but the sound was definitely less heavy and pulling from more pop, folk, and R&B influences.
The record ended up being a moderate success in terms of sales, but Cornell seemed unconcerned with tracking such numbers. He was well aware that the sad art paradox didn’t apply to every music listener out there. In fact, on the whole, there were probably always more people who were gonna prefer listening to Ted Nugent over by the kegs.
“I don’t think commercial success has ever been any indication of the quality of a record,” Cornell told AP. “Not only are the biggest-selling albums not necessarily the best; in most cases, they’re probably the worst. There are a lot of amazing records nobody bought. People who are really interested in the art form know. I think the true artist would take enormous sacrifices financially to be recognised for what they are inspired by, and know that they inspired other people.”
