As a fan of all music, including Metal, I love his new work. trash me all you want, it’s still great music.

1. Soundgarden-32%
2. Alice In Chains-29%
3. Pearl Jam-22%
4. Nirvana-9%
5. Stone Temple Pilots-6%

2%=other bands such as Screaming Trees

Say whatever you will about the shill he has become but the true kings of grunge were, are and always will be Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. Fuck Nirvana.

Cornell was a musical hero to me – one of the things I always respected about him was that he didn’t repeat the same record. And that was fine when the music was good. It started to turn big time on the second Audioslave album.

But such was Soundgarden’s greatness that it still feels wrong for me to be putting the boot in (Boot Camp?).

While a contestant on American Idol, David Cook performed cover songs. One of these was a melodramatic take on Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” For those of you that have been following Chris Cornell’s turn towards pop, you’ll recall that his last solo album included a cover of that very song. Turns out that Cook was actually covering the cover, as their respective interpretations were remarkably identical and equally lame. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Cornell–whose sales were surely bolstered (if even temporarily) by Cook’s televised performance–would be involved in the writing of Cook’s album.

As for Cornell’s career trajectory, I have a theory that I’ve mentioned on a few occasions. In short: Cornell is following in Robert Plant’s footsteps. While we all revere Plant for his groundbreaking work in Led Zeppelin, time has allowed us to overlook his solo career. It’s safe to say that this Timbaland collaboration will be on par with Now And Zen, which featured the soda-shilling single “Long Cool One”.

So essentially, we’ve got to suck it up for the next few years until Cornell decides to reunite with Kim Thayil a la Walking Into Clarksdale.

That said, it is somewhat hypocritical to use a web platform that allows for this type of associative advertising if you’re going to call others out for artistic bankruptcy (i.e., criticize how someone else makes a buck while trying to make your own).