Euphoria Morning

Euphoria Mourning (originally titled Euphoria Morning) is the first solo studio album by American musician Chris Cornell. It was released through A&M Records on September 21, 1999, and Cornell embarked on a tour in support of the album in 2000. Cornell's only album from between the dissolution of Soundgarden and the formation of Audioslave, it did not sell as well as much of his work with those groups, though it did sell over 75,000 copies in its first week of release and has gone on to sell over 393,000 copies in the U.S. The album was well-received critically, and its lead single, "Can't Change Me", was nominated for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards.

Production

Recording

In 1998, Cornell began working on material for a solo album in collaboration with Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider of the band Eleven, and the album was recorded in Johannes and Schneider's Los Angeles home studio.

Track information

Cornell said the album's lead single, "Can't Change Me", is "kind of a sad discovery that this singer is involved with this person that has amazing powers to help people and change things positively, and he's realizing that none of it is really rubbing off on him." He told MTV News that the genesis of the song can be found in some of Soundgarden's hits, such as "Blow Up the Outside World" and "Fell on Black Days". An alternate recording of the song featuring Cornell singing in French can be found on various international editions of the album. The lyrics were translated into French by Alexis Lemoine.

"Flutter Girl" was an outtake from Superunknown, the 1994 Soundgarden album. The title was created by Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament as part of a joke tracklist for the character Poncier's demo tape in the 1992 Cameron Crowe film Singles, but Cornell surprised Crowe by writing and recording songs with the joke names. The five-track Poncier EP, which includes the 1992 version of "Flutter Girl", was released as a promotional CD in 2015 for Record Store Day.

A reworked version of "Mission", retitled "Mission 2000", was included on the soundtrack of the 2000 film Mission: Impossible 2.

Cornell stated that "Wave Goodbye" was written as a tribute to his friend Jeff Buckley, who died in 1997.

"Moonchild" is about Cornell's then-wife Susan Silver. In the song, he affectionately describes how she "gets really freaked out during the full moon".

Musical style

The album has been described as "psychedelic folk-rock" that "delves back into '60s psychedelic melodies and acoustic ditties",

| rev2 = Alternative Press

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| rev3 = Robert Christgau

|rev3score = C+

| rev4 = Entertainment Weekly

|rev4score = B+

| rev5 = NME

|rev5score = 4/10

| rev6 = Q

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| rev7 = Rolling Stone

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While the album was not a particularly big seller for Cornell, the single "Can't Change Me" was nominated for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance at the 42nd Grammy Awards.

The song "Preaching the End of the World" inspired the title of Lorene Scafaria's 2012 film Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

Re-release and title change

The album was re-released on CD and vinyl on August 14, 2015, with the modified title Euphoria Mourning. Cornell said that is the title he had originally wanted for the album, but his manager at the time of the original release, Jim Guerinot, suggested that "Euphoria Morning" (without the "u") would be a better title:

;Main personnel

Chris Cornell - lead vocals (all tracks), guitar (tracks 1–3 and 5–13), harmonica (track 1)
Alain Johannes - guitar (tracks 1–6, 8, and 10–12), bass guitar (tracks 2–5, 10, and 11), backing vocals (tracks 1 and 13), theremin (track 4), mandolin (tracks 4 and 13), clarinet (track 10), tabla (track 12)
Natasha Shneider - keyboards (tracks 1–4, 6–8, and 10–13), bass guitar (tracks 6 and 13), backing vocals (tracks 4–7, and 13), tambourine (tracks 1–4, 11, and 12), piano (track 5), organ (track 5), timpani (track 11)
Ric Markmann - bass guitar (tracks 1, 7, 8, and 12)
Josh Freese - drums (tracks 1–4, 6, 8, and 11)

;Additional musicians

Jason Falkner - bass guitar (track 5)
Greg Upchurch - drums (track 5)
Victor Indrizzo - drums (track 7)
Matt Cameron - drums (track 10)
Bill Rieflin - drums (track 12)
Misha Shneider - bayan (track 14)

;Technical personnel

Chris Cornell - production, engineering, mixing
Alain Johannes - production, engineering, mixing
Natasha Shneider - production, engineering, mixing
Dave Collins - mastering

Charts

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! Chart (1999)

! Peak position