As important dates in rock history go, March 8 doesn’t rank all that high. But these three albums released on March 8 are worth revisiting.
What’s more, two of the albums weren’t just released on the same date. They were released on the same day. That day is March 8, 1994. That’s the day Soundgarden released their forth studio album, the breakthrough Superunknown. And that’s also the day Nine Inch Nails released their breakthrough sophomore full-length, The Downward Spiral.
If you were a ’90s kid like I was, that was a pretty big day and those wound up being two pretty big albums in your life. In the summer of ’94, I was enrolled in the 5-week summer program at Berklee College of Music. I used to take the Orange Line from Oak Grove to Haymarket, then hop on the Green Line to Hynes, trombone in hand. The Downward Spiral was my primary soundtrack that summer.
Revisit a Trio of Classic Albums Released on March 8
And when that tape wasn’t lodged in my Sony Walkman, it was my Superunknown cassette blasting through the headphones. That’s the album I came back to more and more in ’94. The Nine Inch Nails album was amazing, but you had to be in the right headspace to engage with it fully. The Soundgarden release was great anytime. And my girlfriend loved it, too. So that gave it an edge.
It wouldn’t be until years later that I’d fall into Queen‘s Queen II, which released 20 years earlier: March 8, 1994. It’s early Queen, so it’s much more arty and progressive than what was to come for the band. If you keep scrolling, I’ll take you through the singles from each of the three albums. And when you’re done, I’d be willing to bet you’ll have a deeper appreciation for the eighth day of March.
