Soundgarden “Black Hole Sun” charted

Black Hole Sun Soundgarden

Writer(s): Chris Cornell (see lyrics here) Released: May 4, 1994 First Charted: April 23, 1994 Peak: 24a US, 25 CB, 16 GR, 13 RR, 17 AR, 2 MR, 12 UK, 5 CN, 6 AU, 5 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.4 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 250.0 video, 514.57 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Soundgarden formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1984. The rock band became a cornerstone of the grunge movement in the early 1990s. Their first album, 1988’s Ultramega OK, failed to chart. However, Louder Than Love reached #108 in 1989 and Badmotorfinger got to #39 in 1991 and went double platinum. They exploded with their fourth album, 1994’s Superunknown. The album reached #1 and went six-times platinum. Five songs from the album reached the top 20 on Billboard’s album rock chart. The highest was third single, “Black Hole Sun,” which got to #1. Billboard named the song #1 of the year for their modern rock tracks chart, even though it only peaked at #2. The song also went to #1 in Iceland and reached the top 10 in Australia, Canada, France, and Ireland. WK It won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. VH1 ranked it one of the 100 greatest hard rock songs. The band’s lead singer, Chris Cornell, wrote the song while driving home to Seattle. He misunderstood a TV news anchor, thinking he heard “black hole sun.” He thought it would make an amazing song title and liked the juxtaposition of a black hole, “a void, a giant circle of nothing, and then you have the sun, the giver of all life.” SF He said, “It all came together, pretty much the whole arrangement…I spent a lot of time spinning those melodies in my head so I wouldn’t forget them. I got home and whistled it into a Dictaphone.” WK Cornell said the lyrics were “a stream of consciousness based on the feeling I got from the chorus and title.” WK He also said “lyrically it’s probably the closest to me just playing with words for words’ sake…I have no idea how you’d begin to take that one literally…I was just sucked in by the music and I was painting a picture with the lyrics. There was no real idea to get across.” WK Resources: AMG All Music Guide SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 10/2/2022; last updated 2/3/2023.

Pearl Jam first charted with “Jeremy”

Jeremy Pearl Jam

Writer(s): Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament (see lyrics here) Released: January 2, 1992 First Charted: August 15, 1992 Peak: 79 US, 5 AR, 5 MR, 15 UK, 32 CN, 68 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 133.92 video, 257.78 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: January 8, 1991. Richardson High School in Richardson, Texas. 16-year-old Jeremy Wade Delle missed class, so his English teacher told him to go the office to get an admittance slip. The boy returned with a gun, walked to the front of the classroom, placed the barrel in his mouth, and fired, killing himself SF in front of 30 students. WK Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, was inspired to write a song about the incident after reading about it in the Dallas Morning News. Vedder combined the details of that story with his own memories from junior high in San Diego, California. WK A kid in his class brought a gun to school one day and shot at a fish tank. In the song, Vedder references his own experiences of fighting with the boy. SF The song was released as the third single for Pearl Jam’s debut album, Ten. While it is possibly the best-known song in the band’s canon, it didn’t initially chart on the Billboard Hot 100, although it did hit #5 on both the mainstream and alternative rock charts. The song did eventually make it to the pop charts three years later upon a July 1995 reissue, eeking its way onto the chart at #79. WK The iconic video for the song mixes shots reflecting the incidents described in the song interspersed with clips of the band performing. The director, Mark Pellington, passed on it originally, but dove in after Vedder explained the back story to the song. Because of MTV’s policy against showing firearms, Pellington had to cut a shot of the gun going in Jeremy’s mouth. An image of the classmates with blood spattered on them implied Jeremy shot himself, but it was sometimes interpreted as him shooting his classmates. SF Entertainment Weekly’s Michel Romero described it as “an Afterschool Special from hell.” WK Regardless, it won Video of the Year at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. SF Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Pearl Jam SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 5/9/2020; last updated 12/27/2022.