BADMOTORFINGER

(1991, a&m)

Later, Superunknown would be the knockout punch, but it was Badmotorfinger that established Soundgarden as contenders. With the media spotlight roving Seattle for grunge’s crown princes, the band’s classic third album was in the right place, at the right time – whether they liked it or not. “We were making music for nothing more than the impact of having a bunch of beer-soaked people jump around,” Thayil told Noisey a quartercentury later, while promoting the superdeluxe reissue,

Perhaps that’s an oversimplification. In 1991, Soundgarden had big ideas and vital new blood, Thayil telling The Music Paper that incoming bassist Ben Shepherd’s writing had made the new material “faster” and “weirder”. Cornell arrived with demos of Rusty Cage and Searching With My Good Eye Closed, but all four members got credits – the guitarist dubbed it “the heavy metal White Album” – and locked to devastating effect on Jesus Christ Pose, an “insane car-wreck” jam whose Bible Belt-baiting lyric didn’t prevent it reaching No.30 in the UK.

With label A&M keeping their hands off, the band moved to their own shuddering groove, and from Thayil’s wah-wah intro to Rusty Cage, all bets were off, these 12 tracks welding punk, metal and alt.rock, dabbling in tricksy time signatures, tempos and guitar tunings. “Rhythmically the album is more complex,” Cornell noted, as he watched the MTV generation mosh gingerly to Outshined’s juggernaut riff. “It’s inhaling and exhaling.”

Contemptuous of both artists that

“let themselves be commodified” and record labels that “round off the edges”, it simply fell to producer Terry date to catch the sparks. And though Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten dominated the release schedules that autumn, Badmotorfinger was one hell of a bridesmaid, chalking up double-platinum sales and Grammy nominations, making them stars.

The band hadn’t planned any of it, and squirmed through an arena tour with Guns N’ Roses, Cornell noting that “most of [the audience] hadn’t heard our songs and didn’t care about them”. But by then, of course, they were in too deep. HY