I had the immense privilege of seeing Cornell with both Audioslave and Soundgarden. And he was probably one of the greatest vocalists I ever saw perform in person. The world has lost an amazing talent and person. And I am heartbroken as I realize that my generation will be sorely lacking in old rock stars.

Soundgarden
Gun (Live ’90)
Get On The Snake (Live ’90)
Superunknown was one of the first albums I bought with my own money to listen to on my own. I didn’t have to buy a lot of music with my own money when I was a kid, mostly because my mom and I had very similar musical tastes. Having a mom who was way into Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana really saved me a lot of money at the time. Thanks mom! My mom is dope.

Anyways, for some reason I can clearly recall buying Superunknown used at a CD Warehouse and playing the shit out of that album. I would listen to it when I played Doom, read comics or mowed the lawn. I honestly think the main reason that album became my default background music was simply because it’s so damn long. That album is 15 tracks and 71 minutes long. And it doesn’t have a single piece of filler on it. That just never fucking happens.  How many classic, amazing tracks are on that album? Six? Seven? Eight? I mean, shit, “Black Hole Sun” might be the worst song on that album, and it’ s one of the greatest rock singles of the 90s. But it can’t hold a candle to “Spoonman” or “Kickstand” or even the title track. It’s downright criminal that Superunknown isn’t spoken with the same reference as Nevermind and Ten. It’s the Thriller or Hysteria of grunge; every song could’ve been a single. And again, at 15 tracks long that’s a holy shit statement.

For the longest time there were countless Soundgarden rarities. Unlike Pearl Jam or Nirvana, there didn’t seem to be anyone keeping track of the Soundgarden archives. Thankfully, that started to come to an end a few years back. Between the deluxe editions of Badmotorfinger and Superunknown, and the 3CD rarities compilation Echo Of Miles, a good portion of the rare Soundgarden tracks worth a listen are now easy to score, and I suggest you do that. Be sure to check out their oddly sedate-but-great cover of Devo’s “Girl U Want” and the amazing Moby remix of “Dusty,” which I prefer to the original.

These live tracks are from the CD single to “Blow Up The Outside World.” To the best of my knowledge, they were never included on any of the various re-issues, but if I’m wrong please let me know.

FYI: the “movie no one saw” that Cornell references in the beginning of “Get On the Snake” is Lost Angels. He’s certainly right, no one saw that movie, but the soundtrack, which included The Pogues, Toni Childs, Soul Asylum and Apollo Smile, was hella dope.

Audioslave
Show Me How To Live (T Ray Remix)
Set It Off (Live From Letterman)
Gasoline (Live From Letterman)
I’ve always felt that Audioslave is an underrated band. At the very least, their first album certainly is. It is such a great record, a fantastic hard rock album that came out at a time when those were few and far between. I got to see Audioslave live three times, and each time they delivered a stand out show. If you’ve never given the band a proper chance, I really recommend that first self-titled record. And while those second two albums don’t hold up when compared to that stellar debut, they both have some solid tracks. Scope them out on iTunes, each have some buried gems. I’m a big fan of “Man Or Animal” and “Somedays,” myself.

Audioslave doesn’t have many rarities to speak of. I think their only commercially released B-side was “We Got The Whip” and you can get that on iTunes no problem. These three tracks were the only ones in my collection that I couldn’t find commercially available.  They’re all from various singles from the first album. The two “live” tracks don’t sound very live. You get zero crowd noise on these. I suspect that they’re rehearsal recordings. They still sound good though. The remix of “Show Me How To Live” is the highlight of the group though. It’s a good remix of a great song that adds some layers of electronic and psychedelic effects. Simple, but it works.

…

Sigh. Why does everything have to suck so much?