CHRIS CORNELL REMINDS US ALL THAT “TO BE YOURSELF IS ALL THAT YOU CAN DO.”
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 1:00pm by Gary Suarez
Chris Cornell has taken quite the public beating lately, from Trent Reznor’s Twitter taunting to the generally negative response to his recent Timbaland-produced album Scream. (Check out what our own Sammy O’Hagar had to say about it.) Well, perhaps on the advice of some stodgy A&R type at the bloated major label he happens to be signed to, he’s finally decided to respond to some of the criticism via the cutting edge music periodical known as The Washington Post. Below are some noteworthy extracts:
On Mr. Reznor’s cyber-bullying: “That’s kind of childish. To be honest, if I wanted to go out to blast records that I hate, I would be sitting on Twitter 24 hours a day blasting 96 percent of what comes out — maybe 98 percent of what comes out.”
On the backlash from longtime fans: “Underground DJ culture is tearing this record up, and they’re pretty snobby about what it is that they get into. From what I hear from other people, this album is just two years ahead of its time. But that’s also still unrelated to my older fans. As music changes and the landscape of music and the styles of music that become popular change, it still doesn’t mean that somebody in their 30s that’s been listening to me since they were a teenager is going to like where that goes. This record is just very different.”
On the recent Soundgarden reunion featuring Tad Doyle: “I thought it was cool that they’d actually get together and rehearse some songs. I was kind of surprised by it, to be honest. And I love Tad. We toured with Tad; I’ve always felt he was a really amazing person and a really talented guy. So I just really thought it was a cool thing for them to do.”
So while we may not all be in agreement on Scream, we can at least take comfort in the universally accepted truth that Tad Doyle is awesome. Cornell is currently on tour, with a sold-out two-night residency at New York’s Webster Hall beginning tonight. As previously threatened, I will be in attendance, demanding that he sing “Like Suicide” and drinking copious amounts of alcohol.
-GS
[Gary Suarez fell on black days. He also writes for Brainwashed and casually mismanages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]
So making a joke (albeit on a large scale, but Reznor can pull it off, so why not) about how bad an album is falls under “cyber-bullying” now?
Reznor = cool as shit.
Cornell = cockless little douche.
Cyber-bullying in this case is a metalsucks term for this so you’d better ask them instead of pouncing on it with some shitty rhetoric under the assumption that this was ever a term Cornell or the Washington Post used.
It was a dickish move on Reznor’s part and Cornell has handled it well considering.
Anyway, what’s with all the Metalsucks blog posts on Cornell these days, if anyone’s jumping on the bangwagon then its them, can’t get enough of hating him if it will appease a few cocksucking NIN fans that think they’re fucking trendy.
So this new album is two years ahead of it’s time? If this is what’s coming two years down the pike I’m just gonna go out and try to nip this shit in the bud.
Cornell is a total douche but the constant posts about him on this site do get pretty old. With that said Trent Reznor is vastly superior in every way to Chris Cornell.
Owen, your butthurt rage is amusing.
Strung, really? That’s cool I guess, nice to know Trent lets you have time off from sucking his dick.
great god did he just call his own record too ahead of its time? did that really just fucking happen?
“Underground DJ culture is tearing this record up, and they’re pretty snobby about what it is that they get into. From what I hear from other people, this album is just two years ahead of its time”
- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Alright guys, the music is now periphery.. Who the fuck is Chris Cornell and does his mother still tell him he’s special? This is further proof that some people never deserved a life of creation. Keep believing lies Timbaland and guys in flat bills tell you cause apparently you live a celebrity lifestlye in the celebrity fantasy playground of America. Fucking assholes–they’ll make that future of shitty pop rock industrial hip hop hybrid style over substance production over songcraft party over reflection bullshit a fucking reality if they can.
Then they can shit a “Chris Cornell – Scream” out every day. It’s economics, people.
In the same interview Cornell went on to say,
“A lot of people hated it, even people who were fans of us and had liked what we’d done until then hated it. They didn’t get it. That was exciting, actually. I like that feeling.”
Regardless of whether he really feels that way or not I give Cornell a lot of credit. I really don’t think he made Scream to try and break the bank or even recruit a new fan base. He’s experimenting people, that’s all. I really don’t believe he’s going to continue down this road with whatever he does next, so let it be. There are a lot of metal and alternative musicians who are into pop and/or hip hop. Why chastise Cornell for having the balls to dabble in it? It failed! So what! Just do what I did and don’t buy it, or download > laugh > delete. Hip hop fan bases didn’t climb up Run DMC or Public Enemy’s ass when they failed at rock.
I love NIN but at least Cornell isn’t out there remixing every song he’s ever written 30 different ways as if anybody gives a shit, or releasing single after single and ambient noise albums (Ghosts)…. That April fools joke was funny though. Also, can someone explain to me why Cornell is a douche? I think all you haters need to go back and listen to BMF, Superunkown, or even Louder Than Love and realize the error of your words. Not many albums of that quality have been written since, sure as shit not by the likes of Chimaira, Wolves In The Throne Room, God Forbid, or the many other so-so bands heavily slurped by MS. Scream sucked a mighty one, no question, but it’s gonna take a lot more than that to get me to not like Cornell.
In the same interview Cornell went on to say,
“A lot of people hated it, even people who were fans of us and had liked what we’d done until then hated it. They didn’t get it. That was exciting, actually. I like that feeling.”
Regardless of whether he really feels that way or not I give Cornell a lot of credit. I really don’t think he made Scream to try and break the bank or even recruit a new fan base. He’s experimenting people, that’s all. I really don’t believe he’s going to continue down this road with whatever he does next, so let it be. There are a lot of metal and alternative musicians who are into pop and/or hip hop. Why chastise Cornell for having the balls to dabble in it? It failed! So what! Just do what I did and don’t buy it, or download > laugh > delete. Hip hop fan bases didn’t climb up Run DMC or Public Enemy’s ass when they failed at rock.
I love NIN but at least Cornell isn’t out there remixing every song he’s ever written 30 different ways as if anybody gives a shit, or releasing single after single and ambient noise albums (Ghosts)…. That April fools joke was funny though. Also, can someone explain to me why Cornell is a douche? I think all you haters need to go back and listen to BMF, Superunkown, or even Louder Than Love and realize the error of your words. Not many albums of that quality have been written since, sure as shit not by the likes of Chimaira, Wolves In The Throne Room, God Forbid, or the many other so-so bands heavily slurped by MS. Scream sucked a mighty one, no question, but it’s gonna take a lot more than that to get me to not like Cornell.
Owen, in all honesty, you’re the only cock sucking douche here. To say that NIN fans think they’re trendy is completely asinine. I mean, really??? How long has the band been around? Could they even be considered trendy at this point? I certainly don’t think so. Fact of the matter is Reznor has been able to sustain a career for 20 or so years in the music industry while staying artistically and commercially relevant, not selling out and pissing off his fans and remaining one of the coolest frontmen in music. Something that very few, if any, other musicians have ever managed. Cornell certainly hasn’t. Sorry, it’s not a dickish move to call a turd a turd.
On that note, I’m calling your comparison between being a fan and cock sucking a turd. Yes, that’s right, you sir are an unoriginal twat. Dickish move on my part? No, just fact.
Ben, your butthurt rage is amusing.
In all honesty, I’m not even a big Cornell fan, I’m just fed up with all the asinine one sidedness of this whole situation, it sort of irritates me that when someone doesnt live up to your expectation of them then it’s suddenly a big deal to you all, when someone steps outside that little tiny category in your mind you have penholed for them that they suddenly become so important to you.
If anything you’re all the ex cock sucking fans who are just a wee bit pissed that someone you had stereotyped as a “rock singer” is suddenly doing something that you don’t like anymore. I wouldn’t say Cornells record is bad, it’s certainly a stylistic departure from what he used to do, but so what, Cornell didnt need to sell out, he was a millionaire already. This is just pure experimentation on his part, and fine, you’re entitled to not like it, but don’t get all self righteous as if you had some sort of possession over the man, that’s just greedy.
As for Reznor, yes it was a low blow, you don’t call someone out on what their doing in their lives and you don’t criticise it unless you’ve got some insecurities yourself, Reznor’s got a bit of an ego to deal with it seems, and I could give a shit whether he’s consistant, consistancy is boring, wheres the risk in consistancy, so he has kept more fans than Cornell, but what is this life?
Cos it sure as hell aint a dick waving contest.
So Cornell is uncool now and apparently my defending Cornells right to be uncool makes me a cocksucker?
Honestly, thats a pathetic excuse for an argument, get back in your box.
@ Owen
Sure, I agree with you, Cornell has a TON of great work in his catalog, and if he wants to experiment and do something different, by all means he should.
BUT
I don’t think it’s fair for Cornell to complain about the criticism by Reznor and others, because he’s the one putting the work out there. Cornell is the one coming off as an entitled prick, expecting everyone to love whatever he releases. I see Reznor as simply calling it as he personally sees it, but I’ll admit I’m a NIN fanboy and probably can’t see this whole thing 100% objectively.
I also don’t see how you can describe Nine Inch Nails as ‘boring’? You may not like it , but it’s sure as hell more interesting than alot of other music.
Adam, I never said NiN were boring just that consistancy is, all I’m saying is it’s alright to drop the ball sometimes, it’s human, being perfect is boring, being human is beautiful.
Unfortunately everyone expects their megastars not to be human, which is where the problem is, Cornell had an image built up and people expected of him, somewhat unfairly, to release excellent quality albums every time.
As for Cornell complaining, call it interpretation but I don’t see it here, all I see is that Cornell has been asked what he thought about something and has called it as he see’s it, which is that he thinks Reznor is a bit out of order, the difference is that Cornell is asked for his opinion here, whereas Reznor just put his out there when it wasn’t called for.
I’m not saying Reznor shouldn’t do that, hell he can say what he wants but it’s not a good thing for an artist to be calling out on other peoples work, it sounds like he has an elevated sense of self importance – it’s certainly not without probability that Reznor will one day release a shit album and everyone will pan him for it, but then does he deserve that? He seems to think he’s better than everyone else after all.
Having said all this, I think we’re all possibly over-reading this in general, this whole album/consequent criticism has been totally out of proportion and I think should die already.
“PLAY SPOON-MAN!!”
Think that gets me, Mike Patton, did peeping tom, this and that, electro dub whatever and no body gives him shit, nobody points out that he is prancing around like a wanna be vanilla ice, everyone just eats up whatever shit he churns out. In saying that, Faith No More rule and im exstatic at their return but Chris Cornell has done exactley the same thing and everyone turns on him.
Compare Mike Patton to Chris ( ok, Chris has nothing on Pattons voice but…. )
Both Were In MASSIVE INFLUENTIAL 90’s ROCK BANDS ( FNM / SOUNDGARDEN )
Both have flirted with other acts ( TOMAHAWK / AUDIOSLAVE )
Both Have put out WIGGER SHIT ( PEEPING TOM / SCREAM )
but one gets all the praise in the world, and the other gets shit canned.
Trent Reznor is a fucking joke, his songs are nothing more than layers upon layers of shitty Pro Tools tracks on a monotonous drum loop with some fucking terrible vocals and talky lyrics. Anyone can talk into a mic add a couple of pitch bends… that is not singing.
please stop talking about chris cornell. he has never been involved in making metal music, he is 10000 times further away from metal now than he ever was, and every post about him devolves into dick-fencing. you might want to stop talking about trent reznor too.
@Owen
Yes, defending Cornell’s right to be uncool makes you a cocksucker(so does the fact that you suck tons of cock). You didn’t have any problem blanketing NIN fans with the accusation, did you? So, apparently, you’re just the pot calling Reznor’s kettle black. Because it’s okay for you to criticize people but not him. NIN fans are cocksuckers but Cornell needs to be shielded from criticism like a fucking infant apparently. Again, I call you out on this and, yes, this also makes you a cocksucker.
For the record, though, you got my argument totally wrong. I was merely saying that Cornell’s new album sucks and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with someone calling him out on it. Who gives a fuck. What, do we have to start teaching celebrities the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” rhyme? Maybe Cornell can put that one on his next album. There’s nothing wrong with talking shit about something that you think sucks. And you’re right, taking risks is good. But taking a risk that turns out to be a failure is just that, a failure. Cornell’s album is a failure, even if he wants to bullshit people and say it’s just ahead of it’s time. As a comparison that fits this discussion perfectly, most people consider The Fragile to have been a very risky album for NIN to make. Commercially, it didn’t do incredibly well but artistically, people respect the shit out of it. So, if someone wanted to talk shit about Reznor and say that The Fragile was a commercial failure, more power to them.
The only thing that’s pathetic here is you and the only box I’ve been in lately was your mother’s, by the way. You really should tell her to mothball that stinky fucker when I’m not in town to plow the shit out of her.
@Lee
difference is, Patton has made a career out of trying to get people to hate them but having fans eat his shit up anyway. He goes out of his way to be a dick and to make music that it barely comprehensible. Cornell, however, attempted to go the other route, to attempt to be popular and he hasn’t been incredibly successful on that path(comparitively speaking of course). Audioslave burned out after their first album and Cornell’s solo stuff has never been received very well.
Tony Iommi likes Superuknown – that counts for a lot in my world.
“a few cocksucking NIN fans”
That’s not a blanket accusation, that’s a statement with a limitation, it doesn’t say all NiN fans it says “a few”.
Are you one of those few?
If not then why are you so concerned about it.
Yes there is nothing wrong with calling things out that suck but in Reznors case it smacks of pious one upmanship, and to be honest I could give a shit about what Reznor, Reznor’s fans, Cornell, Cornell’s fans all want to say, do, think about the album/Cornell or anything, I’m not here to defend some sort of everybody love each other lifestyle where we all smoke weed and get on well like some sort of hippy comune, all I’m saying is that defending Reznor as some sort of sheep like opinion is somehow superior to everyone else’s and because he is such a “cool guy” is just totally partisan.
So yes, I call bullshit about the whole thing, Reznor’s attitude, the almost entirely nodding partisan collective of Metalsucks who are willing to put out for him when he’s being a little bitch like his opinion was at all worth any more or less than anyone elses.
As for the your mother comments, if you really had to end on that note then you could at least have found a better retort than the same one everyone and his mother have been using for the last one thousand years.
Need fuel for the next round?
Here’s the bait:
http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/can-of-worms1.jpg
Actually, I thought it was a pretty witty retort. I mean, I realize that the “mom” thing is kind of overused, but what are the other options? Sister? You may not have one. Same thing goes for a girlfriend/wife. So, in the end, I stand by my choice to bang the shit out of your mom’s pooper. I feel the creativity of my retort, barring the mom factor, more than compensates. Your mom could possibly be dead, but I know you must have dropped from someone’s diseased womb.
As for me calling your “cocksucker” statement a blanket one, the context of your initial statement, combined with your follow up to Strung definitely showed a trend. A fascination with sucking cock, if you will. Your words may not say “blanket” but your intent is obvious.
“I’m not here to defend some sort of everybody love each other lifestyle where we all smoke weed and get on well like some sort of hippy comune” That’s actually exactly what it seems like you’re saying.
“all I’m saying is that defending Reznor as some sort of sheep like opinion is somehow superior to everyone else’s and because he is such a “cool guy” is just totally partisan.”
It’s not because his opinion is worth more. It’s because his opinion is THE SAME. Everyone knows this album sucks. It sucks big ol’ donkey balls. Reznor just gets bonus points for being famous and still echoing the opinion of the masses in a public forum.
And for the record, I’m not really concerned, this is just fun. Aren’t you having fun?
So being a musician now automatically voids the right to have an opinion, and voice it, about other people’s music? No, it doesn’t. Reznor has every right to say whatever he thinks of Cornell’s music, in whatever type of media he wants.
I was pretty ambivalent about Cornell (I don’t really like any of his music) until his little, “The common people might not like it, but the ‘underground DJs’ love it and say it’s years ahead of its time” just came off as a complete douche move. He tries to invalidate the majority opinion by making it seem the thoughts of a (quite possibly completely theoretical) very small group are somehow more important, simply because the majority opinion is negative. Since he evidently thinks of this as “experimental work”, calling it “years ahead of its time” is probably what he wanted people to say about it….but since they didn’t, he needed a way to slip the term out there somehow, and what better way to do it than say it’s what an ambiguous group of people think of it?
Oh yes, lots =)
You trying to justify the quality of your own insults is like Cornell trying to justify the quality of his own album.
But yes, it’s been fun, let’s do it again sometime, next time you might not want to bother exhuming my mother and fucking a corpse though, that shit is nasty.
At DL, blah blah blah same point I rebutted 10 fucking posts ago blah blah blah.
Hey, as long as I can find a big enough microwave to warm her up in first it’s all good.
And it’s not the same thing. Me justifying the quality of my insults would be like Lamb of God or KSE justifying the quality of their albums. Sure, there’s some derivative stuff included but you’ll be damned if it isn’t well done.
Chris Cornell can make albums with Timbalaand all he wants, as long as he starts singing about suicide and serpents again. I can’t even be bothered to download this, because I know I’m not going to hear him howling about nooses, death, and despair. In fact, a Timbalaand produced album about killing yourself with a snake would probably be fucking awesome. Chris, if you’re reading this, please jump up on it. You’ll make your old fans kind of like you again, and your new, imaginary fans will still be super psyched because it’s got Timbo. That, sir, is the very definition of win-win.
Owen – you didn’t rebut a fucking thing.
God people on the internet are fucking annoying.
-I like Chris Cornell.
-I’m not a fan of this album, but I’m glad the he’s not an arrogant douche and doesn’t expect his old fans to embrace it.
-Good for him for doing what he wants to do despite public opinion. it’s not like any of his solo albums have ever sold excessively well anyways, regardless of anyones opinion of how high or low they are in quality.
And for the record, when you actually read the interview with all of the interviewers questions, and all of Chris’ answers (the way it SHOULD be read) it is much better, and much more interesting.
This is irrelevant but…
I’d feel a lot less trendy listening to Scream than I would listening to anything by iwrestledabear once.
I nominate Cornell for BIGGEST DOUCHE OF THE UNIVERSE.
That said; maybe he should join Flaccid Bizkit for some much-needed cred?
(OK; that was mean…)
If Cornell actually DID participate in the Soundgarden reunion, would that make him cool again?
Personally; I think the biggest contribution to society Soundgarden ever made was turning hipsters in Buttfuck Nowhere onto The Melvins.