# Outshined

Outshined is een nummer van de Amerikaanse grungeband Soundgarden. Het is de tweede single van hun derde album Badmotorfinger uit 1991. Daarnaast is het nummer ook te vinden op het compilatiealbum A-Sides uit 1997.
Het nummer is geschreven door Chris Cornell. De zware, donkere gitaarriffs in het refrein van het nummer doen sterk denken aan Black Sabbath, waar Soundgarden zich duidelijk door heeft laten inspireren. Die 'ouderwetse' sound gecombineerd met de verwarde, gedeprimeerde sfeer in het nummer maakten dat het begin jaren 90, een sombere tijd waarin onzekerheid over de toekomst heerste, kon uitgroeien tot een lijflied van de opkomende grungemuziek. Het kende dan ook veel airplay op rock-radiostations en MTV.

## Tekst en betekenis

Het nummer gaat over afschuw van het eeuwig voortkabbelende bestaan dat iedereen lijdt en de gedachte dat mensen gevangenzitten in deze eindeloze dagelijkse levens. Cornells tekst zit vol met paradoxen ("I got up feeling so down"; "I'm feeling that I'm sober, even though I'm drinking/I can't get any lower, still I feel I'm sinking") waarmee het bestaan wordt geschetst van iemand die zichzelf voortdurend tegenspreekt en zichzelf constant genadeloos afbrandt. ("I got off being sold out/I kept the movie rolling, but the story's getting old now"; "I just looked in the mirror and things aren't looking so good").
Chris Cornell over Outshined:
   "I don't know how everyone else feels...but I definitely go through periods of extreme self-confidence, feeling like I can do anything. Perhaps a fan will sense that, like in a performance, and the hero image creeps out. But then someone will say something, however insignificant, or I'll get something in my head and, all of a sudden, I'm plummeting in the opposite direction, I'm a piece of shit, and I really can't do anything about it. That's where Outshined comes from, and why I'll never consider myself a hero."
Verder is de zin "I'm looking California and feeling Minnesota" een van de bekendste zinnen uit een Soundgarden-nummer. Cornell over deze zin:
   "One of the first times I remember writing something personal was on tour. I was feeling really freaky and down, and I looked in the mirror and I was wearing a red T-shirt and some baggy tennis shorts. I remember thinking that as bummed as I felt, I looked like some beach kid. And then I came up with that line -- 'I'm looking California / And feeling Minnesota,' from the song 'Outshined' -- and as soon as I wrote it down, I thought it was the dumbest thing. But after the record came out and we went on tour, everybody would be screaming along with that particular line when it came up in the song. That was a shock. How could anyone know that that was one of the most personally specific things I had ever written? It was just a tiny line. But somehow, maybe because it was personal, it just pushed that button."
   "I've never really been biographical in my lyrics, so when I wrote a line like "I'm looking California and feeling Minnesota" from Outshined, it just felt refreshing."
De zin werd zo bekend dat het diende als inspiratiebron voor de titel van de film Feeling Minnesota uit 1996. Soundgarden heeft overigens niets met deze film te maken.

## Videoclip

In de videoclip van Outshined speelt Soundgarden het nummer in een staalfabriek. De clip werd geproduceerd door Jonathan Dayton en Valerie Faris en geregisseerd door Matt Mahurin, die later ook de videoclip van The Day I Tried To Live zou regisseren. Hij kwam uit in december 1991 en had veel airplay op MTV, met name in MTV's 'Buzz Bin'. Een programma waarin clips werden uitgezonden van aanstormend muziektalent. Desondanks waren de bandleden niet tevreden over de clip. Volgens Chris Cornell besteedde Mahurin te veel tijd aan Metallica's clip van The Unforgiven, waar hij tegelijk met die van Outshined mee bezig was.
Cornell over de videoclip:
   "Matt Mahurin does people on the street, social underbelly crap, but it's pretend underbelly. The clip was in the MTV 'Buzz Bin' for a few weeks and then it fell off. About two months later he sent us the real cut, and it was fantastic, way better than the one that got on the air. It was frustrating. The unseen version was dangerous; the released version was a standard hard rock video. He kind of winged it, he was too busy with Metallica."
Kim Thayil over de videoclip:
   "All I can remember is that they cut the guitar solo to make the video 'single-length.' I thought that was a stupid thing. Here we are, a guitar band, and the guitar solo—it may not be a great guitar solo—was edited out just for the video. That's ridiculous. It was a heavy song and our most popular video, even though it was a crap video. It never kicks in or explodes; there's no dynamics. The band never loosens up and explores the riff because the solo was taken out."
Thayil in een ander interview:
   "It was 'Buzz Bin' at MTV and got played a lot. I think when it was in 'Buzz Bin', simultaneously Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and Pearl Jam's Alive were also in 'Buzz Bin' and they were also from Seattle, so maybe we were a little bit overshadowed—a little bit 'outshined' at that point! I didn't like our video either—it stunk! It was a last minute thing. I believe it was the couple who made that Smashing Pumpkins video where they were on the moon and stuff. Well, this was one of their early videos—and I hated it! That's what I remember most about that song—just how much I couldn't stand the video!"
Naast de originele versie bestaat er een alternatieve videoclip, die enkel op de Canadese televisie te zien was. Hierin speelt Soundgarden het nummer in een geel-belichte studio.