“4th of July,” “Boot Camp,” “Head Down”—those are good, concise Soundgarden songs all of these years later, good enough that I was impelled recently to buy the discs they’re on so as to revisit them via something better than YouTube or Spotify. (The discs were only a couple of bucks each.) Badmotorfinger I suspect would be a harder sell, but it’s been a while. IIRC it overwhelmingly has the same problem as a lot of late eighties and early nineties Aerosmith tunage (e.g. singles like “Cryin’,” “Livin’ on the Edge,” the dreadful “Janie’s Got a Gun”) in that the songs go past the five-, sometimes six-minute mark, “chorusing out” ad nauseam at times, as if to ram the main hook(s) home to MTV viewers and listeners of stations like 93QFM. It’s been ages since I’ve heard GnR’s “November Rain,” but I remember it having a similar interminable quality, something rarely present in most of the really good punk and post-punk/etc. bands’ music of the late seventies and eighties. It was as if there was a nineties corporate hard-rock mandate decreeing that brevity—leaving the listener “wanting more”—was out, for fear of hogging less airtime than the competition. But maybe these bands had their reasons, I dunno.

It’s been a while since I’ve sat down and listened to much Soundgarden/Cornell stuff before or after this period, which may be superior, but I saw Michael Mann’s Miami Vice a few days ago, for the first time, and the Cornell solo songs in it seemed to date it just as much if not more than the mid-aughts digital video cinematography. (Would take either Blackhat or Collateral over that movie, as far as later Mann goes, not that I'm a huge fanboy or that you asked.) Though he did kind of “wail” or “screech” like Plant, at the time some people were quicker to compare Cornell’s vox to those on The Guess Who song “American Woman,” which in hindsight does indeed seem more accurate. To me, based on what I’ve heard, there’s more LedZep to be found in RATM or Shellac (though the similarities end there) than either Soundgarden or Tool. But probably any vaguely Gen X rock band was influenced to some extent by the usual suspects of the mega popular seventies classic/hard rock stable.

Tool, I never saw live. Didn’t own any of their records. Somehow their strain of subversiveness never clicked, either while I was an adolescent or an “adult.” I can’t explain it much beyond that. The Quay Brothers-esque videos by Fred Stuhr exhibited a lot of talent, but the music itself never impelled me to dive deeper. Would say that generally the reason I gravitate toward a band or not has more to do with overall “vibe” or “approach” than “chops” or “intensity” per se.

losthighway wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 7:46 pm I always feel like [Tool] think they're smarter than they actually are. That's probably fair.

Fixed.

Tool was the TED Talk of prog/metal.

How about Cornell solo vs. Plant solo? That would be a tough one since both were dire, and I'll throw in Audioslave to sweeten the pot.

Krev wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 9:16 pm How about Cornell solo vs. Plant solo? That would be a tough one since both were dire, and I'll throw in Audioslave to sweeten the pot.

Plant solo is actually better.

God .... Audioslave oof.

DaveA wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 7:47 pm Collateral over that movie, as far as later Mann goes

FWIW, Mann did use Audioslave's 'Shadow on the Sun' in a scene in that film.

brownreasontolive wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 9:26 am

motorbike guy wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 9:09 am
I don't know where i heard/read it but Chris C played a lot more of the guitar parts than I had originally thought.

Soundgarden is, at times, fucking great.

Tool i have no time for them.

Cornell played at least 50% of the guitar when I saw them live and as I understand it, this is representative of how they wrote.
+ a vocal range that smokes 30 years of pop signers.

Tool has 3 very talented members, but all their albums sound the fucking same.
I can usually get past a pompous frontman if they're zealous enough, but I don't think Maynard even buys his own act. So very boring,

And while Tool's albums sound the same, Soundgarden never recorded the same thing twice. Each release is its own thing.

Soundgarden fucking rules. Equal parts Zep and Sabbath to my ears, which some Die Kreuzen thrown in for good measure, especially in the early stuff.

I don't hate Tool, but I haven't listened to them in literal decades.

I'll also give Soundgarden credit for writing songs/parts that aren't in 4/4 time and aren't 12 minutes long.

zircona1 wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 1:14 pm

DaveA wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 7:47 pm Collateral over that movie, as far as later Mann goes

FWIW, Mann did use Audioslave's 'Shadow on the Sun' in a scene in that film.

That's right! Forgot. But overall that and Blackhat worked better for me, for whatever reasons. But to be fair, most features shot on DV in the aughts don't look/feel like they were made in the last five or so years... it's just that the Cornell tracks in Miami Vice seemed to really drive home the "this was made in a different era" feel.

tallchris wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 3:35 pm I'll also give Soundgarden credit for writing songs/parts that aren't in 4/4 time and aren't 12 minutes long.

huh.. of the 2 bands Tool has far more odd time bits.

penningtron wrote: Tue Nov 09, 2021 7:39 am

tallchris wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 3:35 pm I'll also give Soundgarden credit for writing songs/parts that aren't in 4/4 time and aren't 12 minutes long.

huh.. of the 2 bands Tool has far more odd time bits.

But it's much harder to notice, as they all sound the same.