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Soundgarden

last updated 2026-09-11 11:26

Soundgarden

Plays on LTZ: (historical total not available beyond this vault's episode folders)

Tracks played

Black Hole Sun (Album Version) — played 2026-08-20

Research

Soundgarden — Black Hole Sun (Album Version)

Played: 2026-08-20 (moment in history)

Chris Cornell wrote it as a 'stream-of-consciousness' throwaway and later called the lyrics 'just a surreal dreamscape... not meant to be literally anything' — yet it became Soundgarden's biggest, most enduring hit. It topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and won the 1995 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. The Howard Greenhalgh-directed video — smiling suburbanites whose faces melt as the sky tears open — ran in heavy MTV rotation and made it the defining sound of 'the summer of '94.' As recently as July 2026 Paste re-named it its Song of the Week, noting 'no song outshone Black Hole Sun during the summer of '94.'

Moment in History: Chris Cornell was a close friend of Linkin Park's Chester Bennington; per this episode's Moment in History, Cornell was found dead in his Detroit hotel room on 18 May 2017, and Bennington died by suicide two months later, on the same day-of-year as this show.
Sources: Given to Rock · Paste

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