Written by frontman Chris Cornell, "Blow Up the Outside World" was released on November 18, 1996, as the third single from the band's fifth studio album, Down on the Upside (1996).

The song topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, where it spent a total of four weeks at number one.

Cornell stated that he wrote the song when he was in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and at the time of writing it "[he] was a little fucked up".

[2]Regarding "Blow Up the Outside World", drummer Matt Cameron stated that "there's certain points in that tune that are just a really nice, emotional crunch that happens somehow ... that one in particular, that made my girlfriend cry the first time she heard it".

There's a number of acoustic guitars on the track as well and then, towards the end of the song, it gets louder and aggressive and goes to these power chords, and is maybe a little reminiscent of AC/DC.

"[5] "Blow Up the Outside World" was released as a single in 1996 with a previously unreleased B-side titled "A Splice of Space Jam".

Neil Strauss of The New York Times said that "the band can harness grunge's self-absorption to heavy metal's destructive energy and come up with a song like 'Blow Up the Outside World'.