Black Hole Sun
original song written and composed by Chris Cornell; first recorded by Soundgarden
"Black Hole Sun" is a song by American rock band Soundgarden. Written by frontman Chris Cornell, the song was released on May 23, 1994, by A&M Records as the third single from the band's fourth studio album, Superunknown (1994). Considered to be the band's signature song, it topped the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart, where it spent a total of seven weeks at number one. Despite peaking at number two on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, "Black Hole Sun" became the number-one modern rock track of 1994. Worldwide, the single reached the top 10 in Australia, Canada, France, and Ireland, while in Iceland, it reached number one.
The single's accompanying music video was directed by Howard Greenhalgh and received the award for MTV Best Metal/Hard Rock Video at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. "Black Hole Sun" was included on Soundgarden's 1997 greatest hits album A-Sides; it also appeared on the 2010 compilation album Telephantasm. In 2021, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Black Hole Sun" number 368 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Origin and recording
"Black Hole Sun" was written by frontman Chris Cornell. In 1994, Cornell explained the song's origins to Uncut Magazine:
I wrote it in my head driving home from Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, a 35–40 minute drive from Seattle.
The public source identifies “Black Hole Sun” as original song written and composed by Chris Cornell; first recorded by Soundgarden. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Black, Hole and original.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1639736. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 1997, 2010 and 2021.
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This entry incorporates text from “Black Hole Sun” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.