(I give this book four stars.)

It has been seven years since Chris Cornell passed. I wanted to write a eulogy all those years ago, but words escaped me for so long that I just buried them deep inside my soul and tried to look the other way – to that alternate reality where the world doesn’t burden some people with more than they can handle. That’s the world I’ve liked to pretend we live in since he died in 2017. But I could no longer avert my eyes and imagine that he is still here belting out his poetry to sometimes raucous sometimes mellifluous melodies when I acknowledged reality by reading Corbin Reiff’s biography of Chris Cornell entitled Total ** Godhead. (Expletive deletion is mine.)

I have always been the type to read biographies. I figure that I need to know what is behind a genius, a mover, a wordsmith, a musician – the impetus that drives the ones who are the best examples of what humanity is. Not just potential, but potential achieved.

That is Chris Cornell – all of the potential that one human being can achieve in one single lifetime. He did achieve. In his realm of rock music, his music has the potential to save the damned from whatever it is that eludes them. Just listen to his lyrics to peer into the aperture of his vulnerability, the flip side of his strength. “For me, I always had one foot in this very dark, lonely, isolated world. If you’re depressed long enough, it’s almost a comfort, a state of mind what you’ve made peace with because you’ve been in it so long.” A clue. That’s why I read.

His is the brooding music of my generation, they say. His disillusionment, sorrow, and anger at societal and political hypocrisy reflects ours and is what bonds us as a generation. He was born in 1964, so the pundits would argue that he is a “Late Boomer,” a “Cusper,” or a “Gen Jones.” But we all know that those of us born after President Kennedy’s assassination lived a different childhood and adolescence from those born in the post-war boom. So, was he the voice of Gen Jones or Gen X? Perhaps both, but it doesn’t really matter because whenever you were born, you either acknowledge the Ugly Truth or you don’t. Those of us in this pocket of time bond over “…shared anxieties about societal issues like feminism, environmentalism, and increasing corporate control.” And Chris was just genius enough to express it for us.

Reiff’s book entails a very in-depth dive into the music that Chris wrote, sang, produced, and performed for three decades. Every song, every album, ever tour is painstakingly chronicled from the nascent music-lover to the rock legend that he became. If you want to know anything about the musician, it’s in here. The only reason I shortchanged it by one star is that the personal side of Chris was minimized in favor of the public persona. I wanted to know more about the person of Chris Cornell – his family, his history, his philanthropy – the man behind the myth. Maybe someone who was close to him throughout his life can continue his story in this way one day.

Your perception of him and his music may differ from mine, but, as Chris himself said, that’s not my concern. “As far as I’m concerned, I can do anything musically. The perception outside of that is none of my business.” We all benefit because his only focus was his music, not people and their mindless opinions.

Rest in peace, Chris.