Chris Cornell: Ranking Every Album From Worst To Best

Harvested from Cornell's long and illustrious career, both as a solo artist and with his various bandmates, Songbook strips down songs from every chapter of his career and allows the singer to get as moody and reflective as he wants. The lone fact that none of it feels particularly self-indulgent or over-aggrandized makes it a staggering success.

Most of the songs chosen for Songbook had been overlooked by casual fans, with roughly two-thirds of the tracks falling into "obscure" territory. That's for the best, though, as Cornell sounds much more comfortable rearranging the tunes that he hadn't already played to death by that point.

It's not that these versions of "Black Hole Sun" and "Like A Stone" are necessarily bad, they just have that obligatory feeling to them that drains a bit of the original power out of them. Still, those hiccups are few and far between, as most of the album sounds more forceful than forced, allowing Cornell to update his old songs with a natural confidence that makes this go down so very smooth.

Also, nothing on Songbook sounds as forced or misguided at his too-precious acoustic cover of "Billie Jean." So that's a plus.