The real treasure trove of Superunknown’s re-release however, is found in the vast amount of alternate takes scattered all over discs two through four. Soundgarden have proven their concert chops over and over again, going way back to their 1990 home video (and rare accompanying EP) Louder Than Live. The live tracks that dominate the second disc do not merely showcase Superunknown, but also versions of songs from Badmotorfinger and Ultramega OK. The 20th Anniversary release could stand as something of a greatest hits compilation in its own right for all of the rarities it contains. Imagine the songs that weren’t chosen for their commercial potential. The remaining two singles, “Spoonman” and “My Wave”, feature unconventional instruments and abnormal instrument tuning. The album’s mega hit, “Black Hole Sun”, features a surreal dreamscape with lyrics that aren’t quite universally accessible. Most, if not all, of the singles from the album feature dark themes that might cause even Robert Smith of the Cure to suggest that singer-songwriter Chris Cornell try Prozac.“The Day I Tried to Live” and “Fell on Black Days” are two of the album’s biggest hits and deal with depressing failure and crushing defeat, all set to murky song textures that beckon the ear to listen. Part of this is because the songs themselves are fascinatingly complex and cerebral and hardly fit the mold of what most people would consider singles these days, or ever. In fact, while Superunknown may not feature Soundgarden’s best songs, it is arguably the band’s best all around album, with consistently great songs throughout, including those that were packaged as singles to propel Superunknown to super stardom. However, Superunknown is not a sell out record for the band, nor is it devoid of Soundgarden’s signature style or even a relinquishing of said style in favor of the sounds of their brethren in the “Grunge” subgenre of music - a subgenre Soundgarden never actually fit into or exemplified. Superunknown may be easily regarded as Soundgarden’s most commercial album, if only for the fact that it is the band’s most successful, achieving a certification of five times platinum. Is it worth the money and the time to listen? Unquestionably.
To celebrate this milestone, the band is re-releasing Superunknown in a deluxe 20th Anniversary edition that consists of no less than five discs: one CD and one Blu-ray audio disc of the original album in its entirety and three more CDs of alternate takes and rarities.
As musical tastes changed along with the turn of the decade into the 1990s, Soundgarden was no longer featured in heavy metal magazines or in rotation on MTV’s Headbangers Ball, but were promoted along with the more “alternative” bands of the era until they finally became enormous commercial successes thanks to their breakthrough album Superunknown, 20 years ago. In their early days they covered unlikely songs and dabbled in unlikely genres (see the dance / dub track “FOPP” from their second EP) before settling into their signature, albeit evolving, sound. Soundgarden started in 1984 with a strange progressive / punk / thrash sound - with a bit of Black Sabbath thrown in - that predated what is now known as “grunge”.