Superficially, Chris Cornell’s solo debut album, Euphoria Morning (later reissued as Euphoria Mourning), ticked all of the vital packing containers. Broadly accepted as a creative triumph by the critics, it peaked contained in the Prime 20 of the Billboard 200 and its signature single, “Can’t Change Me,” obtained a Grammy nomination. But the album’s slow-burning success belied the truth that its creation was a cathartic expertise for the previous Soundgarden vocalist.
Having fronted that band for a decade, Cornell had been within the eye of the hurricane when grunge made his Seattle hometown the best metropolis on the planet through the early 90s. Soundgarden’s landmark fourth album, 1994’s Superunknown, bought over 9 million copies worldwide and skyrocketed the group to stardom. A sprawling and introverted affair, their fifth album, Down On The Upside, had loads to suggest it, however didn’t have the affect of its predecessor. After a grueling world tour in help of the album, exhaustion and inner strife led to Cornell and firm asserting their cut up within the spring of 1997.
The enduring frontman’s preliminary post-Soundgarden days proved troublesome. Believing a solo profession might be a viable possibility, Cornell stockpiled songs for what turned Euphoria Morning, however, as he mirrored in an interview with Rolling Stone’s Rod Yates, in 2015: “It was a pretty dark album lyrically and I was going through a really difficult time in my life.”
Nonetheless, Cornell quickly turned a nook, and he selected correctly when recruiting the collaborators wanted to comprehend his solo debut. For his first lieutenant, Cornell turned to Alain Johannes, a well-respected LA-based musician with a CV that included stints with Purple Sizzling Chili Peppers spin-off bands Eleven and What Is This?, and dexterous multi-instrumental expertise which later led him to work with Them Crooked Vultures and PJ Harvey. Johannes, in flip, introduced alongside his spouse, Eleven’s keyboardist Natasha Shneider, and a number of other different key gamers together with Weapons N’ Roses/Devo drummer Josh Freese.
Between them, Cornell and his proficient staff crafted a report wealthy in variety and which adroitly straddled magnificence and darkness. Musically, nothing was off-limits, with the band relishing the problem of perfecting every part from prowling post-grunge rockers (“Mission,” “Pillow Of Your Bones”) to the James Carr-esque Southern soul of “When I’m Down,” whereas Johannes adorned the tracks with all types of unlikely sonic elaborations, together with the woodwind serenade framing “Disappearing One” and the Mellotron and mandolins that powered the shape-shifting folk-rocker “Follow My Way.”
Responding in sort, Cornell nailed a collection of excellent vocal performances for Euphoria Morning. Coaxing out reserves of energy and vulnerability, he merely soared on “Preaching The End Of The World” and the wracked ballad “Steel Rain,” whereas his staggering falsetto floated out and in of “Wave Goodbye”: a young and suitably acrobatic elegy to the late Jeff Buckley. “Can’t Change Me,” nevertheless, delivered the album’s eureka second, with a killer melody, dashes of The Beatles circa Abbey Highway, and one more majestic Cornell vocal all aligning to perfection throughout a transcendent three-minute blast of guitar-driven pop.
Launched by A&M on September 21, 1999, Euphoria Morning was quickly hailed by the critics, with Rolling Stone declaring that “Cornell, Johannes, and Shneider have woven a formidable delicacy and intricacy into each song.” The album additionally made its mark commercially, peaking simply exterior the UK Prime 30 and at a extremely respectable No.18 on the Billboard 200, on the way in which to transferring near half 1,000,000 copies.
Supported by the core of his studio band, Chris Cornell’s subsequent six-month tour steered he’d laid all of the groundwork he wanted for a profitable solo profession. Destiny, nevertheless, conspired to intervene. When Cornell subsequent returned to the higher echelons of the charts, within the early 00s, he was on the helm of his incendiary new band Audioslave’s hit-stuffed eponymous debut.
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