**5. “Black Hole Sun”, Soundgarden, 1994**
Yes, it may be a bit weird to place one of Cornell’s best known songs (and quite possibly his biggest hit) this low on the list, but bear with us: at the time, even if a successful song, it was another one in a string of (great) grunge hits. Truth is, if this one’s #5, then you can figure how big Chris Cornell’s catalog is. “Black Hole Sun” was the song that made them from a good known rock band to really big stars, spending the last few years touring on the Lollapalooza Festival on 1992, or opening to bigger acts like Skid Row and Neil Young. The song, a psychedelic ballad, was accompanied by one of the most visually astounding videos of all time, and one of the most bizarre too. But again, at the time, the video was in such a competition it didn’t even got nominated to the MTV VMA’s of that year. But it was a new direction to the band, as they would embrace slower songs from here.
**4. “Seasons”, Chris Cornell, 1992**
The story of this one is that Cornell was friends with Cameron Crowe, the film director, who started working on a movie about the Seattle movement he witnessed but, at the time, didn’t actually had exploded. The film, “Singles”, is considered a great depiction of Generation X, and Chris was considered by Crowe to be the lead, but when it didn’t work, it went to Matt Dillon, who gave life to a struggling musician that was pursuing a rock career with his band, Citizen Dick (actually, members of Pearl Jam). The band breaks up and Dillon’s character, Cliff Poncier, releases a demo that he sells on the corners of Seattle. When you look at the playlist, you can see names like “Seasons” and “Spoonman” (that would land on Soundgarden’s next album, *Superunknown*. This beautiful, acoustic song, is supposed to be sung by Poncier.
**3. “Like a Stone”, Audioslave, 2003**
After Zach de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine, the three remaining members started considering replacements. At one time, Sen Dog of Cypress Hill was rumored to take De La Rocha’s place, but in the spring of 2001 word was that Chris Cornell was going to front a new unit with them. They were even slated to appear at next year’s Ozzfest, but finally it didn’t came to fruition as their debut album were delayed. But what an album: the union was even better than expected, something that other supergroups of the time, like Zwan or Velvet Revolver, couldn’t reach. Sonically a bit closer to Soundgarden than to the RATM camp, this post-grunge ballad became, along with The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army”, one of the rock anthem of the 2000’s. And this one has one of the best guitar solos of all time; just because it isn’t fast it doesn’t mean isn’t great.
**2. “Hunger Strike”, Temple of the Dog, 1991**
When recording this moody tribute to his lost pal, Chris Cornell had surrounding himself with ex Mother Love Bone members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, who were starting a new band called Mookie Blaylock (like the Seattle SuperSonics guard) and brought their newly recruited guitar Mike McCready to the recordings, complete with Soundgarden’s drummer Matt Cameron, in a supergroup, Temple of the Dog, that would go to release a self-titled album. The album, released in early ’91, was preceded by this beautiful song, which also included then provisional Mookie Blaylock singer Eddie Vedder. Released back in January 1991, it didn’t attract any attention at all, but when grunge exploded, it was re-released and a year and a half later, this became a huge hit. Vedder had already become the permanent singer for Mookie Blaylock, that were called by then Pearl Jam, and were touring Lollapalooza along with Soundgarden that summer. Is no surprise, then, that in September of that year, Vedder and Cornell took the festival’s second stage at Phoenix and sang it with only an acoustic guitar.
**1. “Rusty Cage”, Soundgarden, 1992**
*Badmotorfinger* was released around the same time that Nirvana’s *Nevermind* and Pearl Jam’s *Ten*, at the end of Summer ’91. The band released two singles that would become MTV darlings, “Outshined” (a stoner punk gem) and “Jesus Christ Pose” (a more traditional sludge metal ditty) that would help the album become a sleeper hit; but the biggest hit of the set was this heavy psych piece that actually caught up with people, so much that even Johnny Cash would release a cover version backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. This one sums up pretty much everything Soundgarden (and, by extent, Cornell himself) was: a bit of stoner rock, a bit of psychedelia, a bit of punk rock, a bit of Black Sabbath, a bit of ‘70’s hard rock. It features one of the most impressive vocals of all Cornell’s career, who could reach four octaves. It was the song that made Soundgarden enter the collective consciousness. Yes, it's not one of their best-known songs, but it is one of their biggest achievements. That’s why it is #1 in this list.