Cornell knows something about swimming against the tide, having spent 12 years with the seminal Seattle band Soundgarden. Now his first solo effort, the brooding, retro “Euphoria Morning,” has debuted at No. 18. Musically, Cornell is taking more chances than ever with his dark, enormous voice, gliding through R&B, acoustic ballads and ’60s pop, as well as the Zeppelin-ized hard rock that Soundgarden trafficked in so gloriously. Lyrically, the singer’s still a moody s.o.b. specializing in tortured love and self-hate. In the groaning ballad “When I’m Down,” Cornell tells a woman he loves her only when he’s bummed out. Then he rushes to comfort her: hey, don’t worry about it, I’m always bummed out. Cornell admits his poetic, sometimes overwrought lyrics are more personal now but insists there’s still a lot he’s not telling us. “You probably don’t want to know what I’m really thinking,” he says. If it’s more depressing than this, then no, probably not.
In conversation, Cornell is laconic and thoughtful–the rare rock singer who begins a sentence with the words “I just have to reiterate… " He’s happy to be out of step with the top 40 because he knows what it’s like to be part of a trend and has no interest in reliving the experience. Soundgarden, which split amicably in 1997, was credited with reinventing heavy metal, inventing grunge, killing heavy metal and killing grunge. (It seems they always finished what they started.) Cornell has no regrets about the band’s passing. He recently told another magazine that he gained 40 pounds after the band broke up, and then detailed the diet he used to shed the weight again. When told that all this sounds like a lie, he laughs and says, “Um, yeah. That was just me having fun.” Still, Cornell has always had a Johnny Depp-like ambivalence about his hunk status–the poor guy–and admits going solo has made him even more self-conscious: “I’ve never been big into self-promotion. It’s awkward for me. Just seeing my name on a T shirt freaks me out.” Cornell’s new video is not without its beefcake quotient. But who’s complaining? Especially if the alternative is David Crosby’s dog.
