To say that I felt saddened to hear the news last week that Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell had hanged himself following a show in Detroit is an understatement. I felt destroyed by the news, as if a fairly significant part of my past had dissipated. I do feel that a great talent had been lost, but as in any loss of a great artistic talent, it did provide an opportunity to reflect upon just what made Cornell such a compelling figure in the first place.

Full disclosure: I am too young to have memories of the Seattle grunge scene, yet I always feel like it’s been a part of my life. I came of age in the 2000s, a decade wildly considered to be a feeble period for mainstream rock, and many would make the case that things have not improved much in the 2010s. As a result, I tended to listen to a lot of music from the past, and grunge just so happened to be one of the things I gravitated to. Whether it was your smaller-name bands like Mudhoney or the Screaming Trees or your heavy-hitters like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and, yes, Soundgarden, this is a scene that defined my middle and high school years more than a decade after it defined many other people’s. All these bands brought something to the table, and that was certainly true of Soundgarden. They drew on influences like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath to give this normally punk-infused genre a metal edge, largely courtesy of their dynamite guitarist Kim Thayil.

They also had another not-so-secret weapon: Cornell, who was by far the best vocalist of any of the grunge bands who made it big.

Taking cues from his idol Robert Plant, Cornell had a banshee wail of a voice and went all out with it. His voice could shred across every song, perfectly complementing Thayil’s riffs. However, he did have a great sense of control. A good example is their 1996 hit “Blow Up the Outside World,” which perfectly demonstrates grunge’s quiet-loud dynamic. The verses feature Cornell softly singing over a serene melody which suddenly kicks into high gear during the chorus, Cornell included. He brings the right amount of explosive intensity you’d expect from a song called “Blow Up the Outside World.” That song is one of the perfect exemplars of Cornell’s gifts as a vocalist, although one could also point to an endless array of others. If there has ever been a song where Cornell hasn’t put any effort into it, I haven’t heard it.

Although they are now considered one of the best-known bands of the grunge scene, Soundgarden actually took a while to reach that status. By 1994, they had been floating just below the mainstream, having not charted any rock hits while Nirvana and Pearl Jam were claiming the spotlight, even though Soundgarden predated both of them. However, when they released their mainstream breakthrough “Superunknown,” they turned out a couple of songs that continue to receive frequent airplay on rock stations today, including “Spoonman,” “Fell on Black Days” and easily their best known song “Black Hole Sun,” which became an anthem for those reeling from the loss of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain that year. That and their followup album “Down on the Upside” established the group as a permanent fixture on rock radio.

I would be remiss if I did not mention Cornell’s other groups. One was Temple of the Dog, a grunge supergroup which put out one album in 1991 as a tribute to the late Mother Love Bone frontman Andrew Wood and is best known for introducing the world to future Pearl Jam leader Eddie Vedder via the hit song “Hunger Strike.” Plus, after Rage Against the Machine split in 2000, the remaining members recruited Cornell to succeed vocalist Zack de la Rocha for what would later become the group Audioslave. The combination of one of the greatest frontmen in rock with one of the greatest rhythm sections in rock created a blueprint that was tough to live up to. That may be why Audioslave is not regarded as fondly as Soundgarden, although I think they put out three very solid albums and was completely sold by their incredibly energetic live Lollapalooza set in 2003.

In the past few days, I’ve been listening to a lot of Cornell’s music. In light of his passing, it can be very difficult— especially with how much he sang about death and despondence— but it’s continued to remind me what a remarkable talent he was. He crafted music that has lasted more than 20 years later, and I hope future rock vocalists will continue to take cues from him. To paraphrase one of Audioslave’s hits: he was not our rolling wheels, he was the highway. He was not our carpet ride, he was the sky.

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