Superunknown is the fourth studio album by American rock band Soundgarden, released on March 8, 1994, through A&M Records.

[8] After two albums with producer Terry Date, the band decided to seek another collaborator, as guitarist Kim Thayil said, "We just thought we'd go for a change.

"[8] Eventually they settled on producer Michael Beinhorn, who "didn't have his own trademark sound which he was trying to tack on to Soundgarden" and had ideas the band approved.

[6] Bad Animals' resident engineer Adam Kasper, who went on to produce Soundgarden's following albums, assisted Beinhorn on the recording process.

For instance, prior to recording the vocals of "Black Hole Sun", Beinhorn made Cornell listen to Frank Sinatra.

[9] Soundgarden took a break in the middle of recording to open for Neil Young on a ten-day tour of the United States.

[6] Footage of the band recording and mixing the song "Kickstand" was featured in the Bill Nye the Science Guy episode "Sound".

The songs on Superunknown captured the metal influences of the band's previous works while showcasing the group's newly evolving style.

Steve Huey of AllMusic said that the band's "earlier punk influences are rarely detectable, replaced by surprisingly effective appropriations of pop and psychedelia.

In a 1994 interview with Guitar World, Thayil explained, "We looked deep down inside the very core of our souls and there was a little Ringo sitting there.

Oh sure, we like telling people it's John Lennon or George Harrison; but when you really look deep inside of Soundgarden, there's a little Ringo wanting to get out.

Thayil has said that Soundgarden usually did not consider the time signature of a song until after the band had written it, and said that the use of odd meters was "a total accident".

[19][20] Lyrically, the album is quite dark and mysterious, as much of it is often interpreted to be dealing with issues such as substance abuse, suicide, and depression, with running themes of revenge, annihilation, seclusion, fear, loss, death, and discovery.

[22] Cornell stated that "Let Me Drown" is about "crawling back to the womb to die",[23] "Fell on Black Days" is about realizing "you're unhappy in the extreme",[22] "Black Hole Sun" is about a "surreal dreamscape",[23] "Limo Wreck" is a "'shame-on-decadence' song",[11] "The Day I Tried to Live" is about "trying to step out of being patterned and closed off and reclusive",[24] and "4th of July" is about using LSD.

"[21] The album also saw a limited release on 12" colored vinyl (blue, orange, and clear), as a double-LP in a gatefold sleeve.

The Super Deluxe Edition was packaged in a hardbound book with a lenticular cover, liner notes by David Fricke and newly reimagined album artwork designed by Josh Graham.

[41] Rolling Stone magazine's J. D. Considine was impressed by the record's range and, despite criticizing "Black Hole Sun" and "Half", he said "at its best, Superunknown offers a more harrowing depiction of alienation and despair than anything on In Utero".

[42] Jon Pareles of The New York Times credited the band with trying to transcend conventional heavy metal: "Superunknown actually tries to broaden its audience by breaking heavy-metal genre barriers that Soundgarden used to accept.

"[49] In Entertainment Weekly, David Browne wrote, "Soundgarden is pumped and primed on Superunknown, and they deliver the goods."

He praised it as a "hard-rock milestone – a boiling vat of volcanic power, record-making smarts, and '90s anomie and anxiety that sets a new standard for anything called metal.

"[39] Ann Powers from Blender said that "guitarist Thayil helps create the stoner-rock template", and that it "stands as Soundgarden's masterpiece".

[44] Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, who had "mocked" Soundgarden's "conceptual pretentions for years", still felt their foredooming, pessimistic lyrics lacked much substance, but said they had improved composing, arranging, and producing on an album that was "easily the best—most galvanizing, kinetic, sensational, catchy—Zep rip in history".

[50] In a retrospective review, AllMusic editor Steve Huey wrote, "It's obvious that Superunknown was consciously styled as a masterwork, and it fulfills every ambition.

[51] "We were listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam just like everybody else," remarked Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell, "and especially to Soundgarden – the Superunknown record.

Towards the end of the American tour I felt like I could still kinda sing, but I wasn't really giving the band a fair shake.