“Rhinosaur” by Soundgarden

"Rhinosaur" is a deep cut from Down on the Upside, Soundgarden's 1996 album on A&M, and the band never gave it a single of its own, tucking it onto the B-side of "Ty Cobb" instead. Funny thing: "Ty Cobb" didn't chart, while "Rhinosaur" climbed to 19 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart on moderate rock radio play. Matt Cameron wrote the music and Chris Cornell the words, aimed at a target Cornell kept vague enough to fit several people or groups.

It rides a massive groove built on the "stairstep" riffs Kim Thayil loved, and the tuning is an oddity for this band: Thayil and bandmate Ben played in dropped-D while Cornell stayed in standard, when normally if one of them dropped, all three did. Soundgarden produced it, with Adam Kasper co-producing, engineering and sharing the mix.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.