“Black Hole Sun” is the most popular Soundgarden song to cover by an order of magnitude. With something like 150 covers, it can feel like there aren’t too many fresh versions. And, to be perfectly honest, when I heard the opening of the first verse of Aloe Blacc‘s new cover of “Black Hole Sun,” I assumed I was in for another straight-ahead cover of the song that follows the vocal line and just replaces the guitars with something a little more contemporary. To be fair to Blacc, the opening sounds nothing like the original, with some ethereal vocals and faint percussion instead of the iconic guitar. But when Blacc starts singing that first verse, it initially sounds like he’s just going to sing the song over some 21st century beats. Ho hum.
But as he sings he gets a little creative with rhythm of the lyrics and adds some flourishes to the vocal. And when the chorus comes in, it feels like an entirely different song, almost with a little soul. Things get weirder in the second verse both in terms of how Blacc approaches his vocal and especially in the backing track, which has all sorts of weird things going on in the mix.
The bridge is downright funky and when Blacc returns to the verse again there are lots of effects in the background. Blacc and his band vamp the chorus for the coda and there’s a pretty great guitar solo before the bridge is brought back in for the finale, as in the original.
It’s a vibrant, fun, inventive cover. Blacc completely makes the song his own but it’s still very much recognizable as the most famous of all Soundgarden songs. Check it out:
