"Soundgarden has always shown a willingness to experiment well outside the standard rock mode, which has given the act a greater arc of creative development than that of many of the other bands who were also lumped in with the grunge phenomenon." The band's 1989 album, Louder Than Love, was marketed as heavy metal, but its darkly poetic lyrics, emotionally raw music and psychedelia-tinged songs struck a chord with people looking for something smarter and more vital than so much of the era's music, which seemed rife with over-commercialized hedonism disguised as rebellion. Soundgarden's breakthrough album was 1994's Superunknown, with its hit singles "Black Hole Sun" and "Spoonman." After an acrimonious breakup in 1997, the band got back together in 2010, and its tours, along with its 2012 comeback album, King Animal, proved the outfit hasn't exactly mellowed with age.
