The 15 Best Chris Cornell Songs
Photo by Adam McCullough for Paste
Nobody could sing like Chris Cornell. He was the voice of a generation, a movement, a style of music that will forever hold a critical place in rock history. Although he started his musical career as a drummer, Cornell’s abilities to turn a banshee shriek into a melodious howl thrust him into the spotlight. In fact, that penchant for creating and delivering memorable memories was one of the key factors distinguishing Cornell’s first major band, Soundgarden, from its grunge contemporaries like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Mudhoney. Later in his career—amid five solo LPs, three albums with the supergroup Audioslave and one-off tribute project Temple of the Dog—Cornell elevated his peers through his vocal mastery weaving between their instrumental prowess. In addition to his singing, Cornell proved himself a formidable songwriter, narrating sometimes sentimental, sometimes tragic tales. In mourning his premature passing, and in memory of his life and legacy, we offer 15 of his best songs.
15. Soundgarden, “Flower”
Appearing on Soundgarden’s 1988 LP Ultramega OK, which received a superb reissue earlier this year, “Flower” sounds like the band that was yet to come. It’s less oppressive as some of the more punk tracks on the album (not to mention what appeared on earlier EPs Screaming Life and Fopp) and Cornell’s ability to turn a scream into something beautiful can certainly be heard on this early single. —Hilary Saunders
14. Soundgarden, “Birth Ritual”
The soundtrack to Cameron Crowe’s Singles was, like the movie itself, a snapshot of an early-’90s Seattle scene overflowing with bands that deserved to be in the frame (minus Citizen Dick). Everyone you loved was there, and if you were an East Coast kid with no hope of making it to Seattle anytime soon, Singles seemed as close as you’d ever get to seeing Soundgarden play in a room where Campbell Scott is too busy trying to win back Kyra Sedgwick to notice what’s happening onstage. What he couldn’t see was that the star of the scene is Chris Cornell—lithe, shirtless, doing his prowling Osbourne-Plant thing on “Birth Ritual.” This was one of Soundgarden’s most propulsive, metallic riffs, with the machine-gun guitars leading to an unforgettable squalling one-word chorus—”RituaaaaaAAAALLLL!”—as Cornell stalked Crowe’s camera. The Singles soundtrack was the only place you could find “Birth Ritual,” and that seemed right; it was a perfect pairing of sound and image, the murky venom of the music matched only by that glorious jet-black hair. —Matthew Oshinsky
13. Soundgarden, “Like Suicide”
The news that Chris Cornell’s death has been ruled a suicide bears a cruel irony, given that one of his signature songs is titled “Like Suicide.” Culled from Soundgarden’s 1994 release, Superunknown the song’s dark, despondent tone draws from a rumination about snuffing out a crippled bird after it flew into Cornell’s front door. The starkness and sobriety is striking even by Soundgarden standards, making it an ideal requiem for a tragic, tortured soul. —Lee Zimmerman
12. Soundgarden, “Fell on Black Days”
Perhaps more than any other song Cornell wrote, “Fell on Black Days” takes on deeper and sadder meaning in the wake of his suicide. Known to struggle with depression, Cornell wrote about his incurable suspicion that darkness was his factory setting and that whatever happiness he might have felt was counterfeit: “I’m a search light soul they say / But I can’t see it in the night / I’m only faking when I get it right.” The song rides a tighter, if no less muscular, groove than Soundgarden had really attempted to that point, with Cornell and Kim Thayil’s lean guitars gliding along the beat rather than attacking it. It was the sound of an electrifying band harnessing their power, even if some old habits wouldn’t die. Cornell, coiled up and settled into his lower register, sounds adrift but alert (as Kurt Vile might put it) as he stares into the abyss, finally rising to cry “How would I know that this could be my fate?” —Matthew Oshinsky
11. Audioslave, “Like a Stone”
It’s painful to hear Audioslave’s second-ever single now, especially knowing the circumstances surrounding lead singer Chris Cornell’s death. Though the song’s meaning has been heavily debated, with some theorizing that Cornell was referring the late Alice in Chains singer, Layne Staley (he wasn’t), “Like a Stone” was actually about waiting for an idealized version of the afterlife — but then, like Cornell has said, “going to hell anyway.” Despite its all-too-telling imagery, this sludgy, mid-tempo radio staple will be forever immortalized in the supergroup’s canon. —Rachel Brodsky