Song Of The Week: 5/21/17

Song: "Sunshower"

Artist: Chris Cornell

Album: "Great Expectations" Soundtrack

Year: 1997



IN MEMORIAM:

Chris Cornell
1964 - 2017



Man… It sucks to get old. For this week’s blog, I’m not going to get into the meaning of the song or do the regular info I give on the band and what they’ve been up to and all that. This is a tough one. Chris Cornell, one of the greatest voices in music history, is dead. Where to start? When I was a teenager, the bands coming out of Seattle had a huge impact on my life. Oddly enough for some reason, I really didn’t get into Soundgarden right away. Then “Superunknown” came out. What a great fuckin’ album! Immediately, I went out and starting getting all of Soundgarden’s albums. What the hell was I thinking? Soundgarden was un-fuckin’-real. Cornell had the voice of a God. Now, anyone who knows me knows that Pearl Jam is my all time favorite band and Eddie Vedder can do no wrong in my eyes. But even I can admit, as good of a vocalist as Eddie is, he is not Chris Cornell. From Soundgarden to Temple Of The Dog to Audioslave and his solo material, thank God Chris left us with so much material that we can lean on just to hear his voice. But it sucks that we’ll never have new material again. Cornell isn’t one of those artists that seemed like they were just hanging on in the latter part of his career. He was still very much relevant in the music world. Just look at the last Soundgarden release “King Animal” and his most recent solo single “The Promise”. It’s pretty fucked up. We lost Kurt. We lost Layne. It seemed that Chris and Eddie were gonna be around for a long time and continue giving us great music for years to come. And now Chris is gone. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos the last few days. Just capturing some of the powerful Cornell performances. Great videos of the recent Temple Of The Dog reunion tour. Great acoustic shows that really capture Chris at his most raw and emotional state. The great songs. “Slaves And Bulldozers”, “Rusty Cage”, “Say Hello 2 Heaven”, “Spoonman”, “Burden In My Hand”, “Cochise”, “Fell On Black Days”, “When I’m Down”, “The Day I Tried To Live”, “The Keeper”, “Sunshower”, “Seasons”, “Black Hole Sun”, “Birth Ritual”, “I Am The Highway”, “Can’t Change Me”, “Outshined”, Jesus, the list goes on and on and on. I’m sad that he’s gone. I’m angry he committed suicide. It seems so selfish. But, maybe I’m the one who’s being selfish because I want more music from him. Unfortunately, what happened happened and all we can do is listen to his music and watch old videos to keep the man’s memory alive. The death of Mr. Cornell has left all of his fans “feeling Minnesota”.

R.I.P.
Chris Cornell