SEND EMAIL TO
NEWS [AT]
METALSUCKS
[DOT] NET
Believe it or not, folks still buy CDs. I know… I’m shocked too. But the weekly Soundscan numbers released by Neilsen actually do include digital downloads too. I know what you’re thinking… people still pay for music? I s’pose so. Here are the most recent week’s charting hard rock and metal releases, with my own snarky commentary, natch. Check those tags down yonder for a list of covered releases.
Last week we bestowed upon you, our loyal readers, the chance to win a vinyl copy of Valient Thorr’s Stranger as well a sweet VT t-shirt. A shout-out is in order for Genial Gentile whose “Hammered Smash Face” comment made me laugh, but ultimately I had to go with this one for its topical relevancy:
Nice job, Dingas! This week we’re giving away a Super Deluxe copy of the recently released Soundgarden retrospective set Telephantasm. The Super Deluxe version consists of 2 CDs — including the best of Soundgarden and some rare live and unreleased tracks (including “Black Rain“) — and a DVD containing the band’s entire music video collection and some bonus material, all housed in the deluxe packaging you see to the left (track list after the jump).
To win, just come up with the funniest caption to the below photo, and remember to use a real email address (or post it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect)!
So in case the animation style didn’t immediately tip you off, Metalocalypse co-creator Brendon Small directed the video for “Black Rain,” the new old Soundgarden song that was recorded during the Badmotorfinger sessions and has nothing to do with the painfully mediocre Ozzy album of the same title.
Thing is, the video features a cameo (actually multiple cameos) by Dethklok and Charles Foster Offdensen, that “band”‘s manager/lawyer/CFO. And while that’s a good way to lure in young ‘uns who maybe love Dethklok but don’t remember Soundgarden, it strikes me as being wildly out-of-place — I mean, I don’t think the Dethklok dudes would be Soundgarden fans. Even if they found the music br00tal enough (which I don’t think they would), I imagine that Chris Cornell’s consistently, uh, questionable artistic decisions would be enough to warrant extreme violence from Nathan Explosion and the gang.
Yep. I’m speculating on the feelings and aesthetic criticisms of a cartoon band. Just another day here at MetalSucks.
ANYWAY, potential character inconsistencies aside, this video is pretty cool. Check it out below, then let us know if you think Dethklok would dig Soundgarden or not in the comments section.
“Black Rain” will appear on Soundgarden’s new greatest hits collection, Telephantasm, which comes out September 28.
-AR
FRIENDLY REMINDER: Vince and I are taking over WSOU tomorrow from 4 -8! It’s the only radio station on the eastern seaboard that’s actually worth a damn, and it’s gonna have the awesomeness that is US, so listen in!!! We’ll be taking callers, too. If you live in the area, it’s 89.5 FM on your radio; everyone else can listen on the Internet right here.
And now here’s some things we did this week:
Okay. I hope to hear some of your voices tomorrow! Seriously, guys. Listen. Call. Don’t make me sad. If you do, we’ll schedule Nu Metal Week to take place ASAP.
-AR
KNDD 107.7 FM “The End” out of Seattle just premiered the new Soundgarden track “Black Rain. We didn’t even know there was gonna be a new Soundgarden track until someone at the radio station tipped us off to it yesterday… but hey, there’s a new Soundgarden track!
Now don’t get your hopes up too much — turns out it’s not exactly “new,” as it was recorded during the Badmotorfinger sessions in 1991. But still, it’s new as in it’s the first unreleased Soundgarden we’ve heard since we first slipped Down On the Upside into our boomboxes in 1996, and it’s still pretty exciting. “Black Rain” is one of the unreleased tracks from the Telephantasm retrospective, coming out on September 28th.
Here it is. Tell us what you think:
Soundgarden made their triumphant live reunion this weekend in Chicago — first at an intimate club show and then at Lollapalooza. If you were there, tell us how it was!
-VN
In the last few years, something seemed to happen and I barely noticed. Suddenly, I’m no longer the young kid at the show. I’m one of the guys hiding out by the bar. I’m not crowd surfing, not covered in sweat with my shirt off, and I’m certainly not moshing. I’m also not randomly yelling “Slayer!”, but that seems to span all demographics. I became… (gulp)… an adult. I don’t know what the range is in the ages of the followers of MetalSucks, but I’ll assume that it’s a mix of younger and older metal fans. I am 29 years old, but I still feel relatively young and energetic considering my opening salvo. I’m the youngest member of my band, and younger than a good majority of my friends in bands and the industry.
With that said, I think there comes a time for all metal heads, and probably all adults for that matter, when you look at what is popular amongst the true youth culture (16-24), and you feel as if not only do you not relate to it, but it feels alien, as if it’s creation was not meant for your consumption (which it wasn’t) – and it also seems inferior to music that you grew up with. I’m only 29, and I’m already having “back in my day” moments. It kind of scared me, and I began to wonder if I was being obtuse and a little too set in my ways, or if my analysis was accurate.
A couple of weeks ago the newly-reunited Soundgarden played their first show in almost thirteen years in Seattle under the name “Nudedragons” (which, in case reading and thinking aren’t your kind of thing, is all the letters from “Soundgarden” re-arranged). Needless to say, a lot of bootleg footage from the gig surfaced within hours of its completion, but we never posted any ’cause… well, I really don’t know why. I can’t even think of a bullshit excuse. We just didn’t, okay?
But last night reader Keith Brown e-mailed me the below link to pro-shot footage of the concert with the simple message that you see in the headline (Keith advises that you imagine those words being said “in a fanboy squeak”). And he’s not wrong. Hey, I’d love to catch a Soundgarden reunion show, even if I question Cornell’s reasons for getting involved…
-AR
Ever seen Woody Allen’s Zelig? It’s a pseudo-documentary about a guy who immediately assumes the traits of whomever he’s with at the moment; put him in a room full of Chinese people and he’ll turn into a Chinese man, move him to a room full of Hasidim and he’ll suddenly appear to be Hasidic, and so on and so forth. It’s a(n obvious but still pretty funny) metaphor for a guy with no personality of his own.
Now, consider Slash. Guns N’ Roses folklore tells us that Slash is not the best judge of his own material, and often wanted to scrap some of Guns’ best songs; and, unfortunately, evidence suggests that this folklore is fact, and that Slash is a pretty ho-hum songwriter. Axl Rose has his legitimate insanity and over-sized, not entirely comprehensible artistic vision, but all Slash really seems to have is a desire to be like his heroes in Aerosmith and AC/DC, which is to say, a legacy act and purveyor of catchy but fairly middle-of-the-road rock. Consequently, a lot of the pressure on Slash-penned songs in the post-GN’R era is not just on the guitar playing of the Artist Formerly Known as Saul Hudson, but on the performances of whatever singer he’s working with at any given moment. Slash songs can be like underwritten roles in movies that way; you need the best character actors available to give them some personality, or they risk becoming boring.
Slash has personality (or at least persona) to burn, and it’s no shock that on Slash, his first solo record, he keeps up his up his end of the bargain in the guitar solo department. Despite the fact that he was never a revolutionary musician, Slash was always a very distinctive musician; a lot of people play the way he does, but no one sounds quite like him. But it is kind of a shock that on this, the album which is supposed to be a distinct and unique artistic statement outside the confines of his collaborations with various bands, Slash has very much allowed himself, like Zelig, to blend in with whomever was in the room at the moment.
Soundgarden reunion rumors have been flying around almost as long as Soundgarden have been broken up. (And in case you lost count, this Friday will be the thirteenth anniversary of the break-up. Someone will have been born and bar mitzvahed in the time since Soundgarden were last together! Egads!) Chris Cornell pretty much let the cat out of the bag that the band is reuniting back in January, and now they’ve announced that they’re headlining Lollapalooza in August. (Unfortunately, the rest of the line-up for that festival is pretty blech, especially from a fan of half-way decent rock; there’s Social Distortion and, uh, that’s it. If the artist on the bill I’d be most excited to see that isn’t Soundgarden is Erykah Badu, well, that’s a festival I won’t be attending.)
And, as usual, my enthusiasm is tempered with cynicism.
So the Australian branch of iTunes has apparently uploaded thirty-second clips of all the songs from Slash’s forthcoming, self-titled solo album, and, of course, someone has uploaded all of those clips to YouTube. Gotta love the internet! So I thought we’d play one of our favorite games here at MetalSucks. It’s called “Let’s make premature judgments based on not very much actual music at all.” Listen to the clips in the video below, and then get my thoughts after the jump.
…..how else can you explain the fact that less than one week after I urged Castrato Cornell to reunite the almighty Soundgarden it totally happened??
You’re welcome, Kim Thayil!
To celebrate, here’s a nice solo acoustic ditty from CC before he pissed all over himself with Scream:
CHRIS CORNELL — “Seasons”, from the Singles Soundtrack (1992):
-KW
Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: System of a Down never broke up. The band members made it pretty clear that their break following 2006′s Ozzfest headline run (and 2+ year touring cycle prior) was just that, a break. If and when the band regrouped for another album and/on tour it would be when they were ready to do so, not because of outside pressures such as record label and/or fan demands. Bands do this all the time, only they don’t say things like “going on hiatus” that get press retards and all sorts of other idiots up in a tizzy. It’s perfectly normal to want some time off — to relax or pursue other endeavors — after having been on the road for over two years straight, don’t you think?
So. A Tweet by System of a Down bassist Shavo Odajian last night has the metal blogosphere shitting its panties. Dug up by Metal Insider:
“Are you guys ready for System???”
This could mean that System are getting ready for another tour and/or album… it could also mean that the band are releasing some kind of box set, rarities collection, or best-of compilation, as very likely could end up being the case with last week’s Soundgarden “reunion” frenzy. It could mean any number of things. Singer Serj Tankian recently spoke about working on his 2nd solo record, but that could certainly be pushed aside for now if he’d rather do System.
For now it’s too early to say. I suppose the truth will come out in the next few weeks. Metal kvltists/tr00ists/elitists will surely disagree, but I’m certainly excited about a potential new SOAD album.
-VN
Unless your New Years Eve revelry landed you in county lock-up or somewhere else without Internet access (or you just own an iPhone), you’ve likely heard the fantastic albeit unsurprising news that SOUNDGARDEN HAS REUNITED. Chris Cornell announced it precisely at the stroke of midnight (Eastern Standard Time) via his often bizarre and unintentionally hilarious Twitter account:
The 12 year break is over & school is back in session. Sign up now. Knights of the Soundtable ride again! www.soundgardenworld.com
So Soundgarden’s back together. What the hell does that mean?
What’s the big flippin deal bout Jesus? Moses died for your sins too…
The real spirit of this Hallmark holiday is in kindess and doing good and blah blah blah and other nice shiz……so I’m going to do Chris Cornell a favor and remind him that Soundgarden should reunite before they get way too old and forget how to play such rippin classics like this one.
And you’re staring at me like I, I need to be saved?
SOUNDGARDEN — “Jesus Christ Pose” from Badmotorfinger (1991)
{two little-known trivia tidbits: 1) Soundgarden got their name from a wind-channeling pipe sculpture in Seattle entitled “A Sound Garden” and 2) Chris Cornell originally played drums and sang at the same time, whoa! More Soundgarden mp3s here.}
completely non-metal bonus song to chillax to:
TORTOISE — “In Sarah, Mencken, Christ And Beethoven There Were Women And Men” from TNT (1998)
{hopefully the dulcet tones of Tortoise will quell the darkest among us……Happy Jew Year!!}
-KW
All this talk about Slash’s upcoming solo album has got me playing “Fantasy Velvet Revolver” in my head once again. Though I still hold out hope that Axl’s idea of having Perry Farrell front the band comes to fruition, I know in my heart that there’s probably a better chance of Scott Weiland rejoining the band, which is admittedly a pretty remote possibility. Remote like Siberia.
So looking through the list of vocalists purportedly gracing the axeman’s new record, I see a number of qualified albeit unlikely candidates to fill Weiland’s still-vacant spot. Yeah, it would be a heavy music lover’s dream to have Ozzy Osbourne sing for the band, considering the craptastic nature of his last few solo albums. Realistically, that would be an unholy managerial nightmare with the potential capacity to yield a catastrophic clusterfuck to put the legal woes of Black Sabbath and Guns N’ Roses to shame. Dave Grohl’s too busy counting his money and playing geriatric rock with his idols to commit to yet another band. These days, Alice Cooper and Lemmy Kilmister have the commercial drawing power of, well, Alice Cooper and Lemmy Kilmister, and maybe would shift a few more units than a Velvet Revolver fronted by an unknown (anyone remember Eric Dover or Rod Jackson?) or that dude from Spacehog. Don’t even get me started on Fergie.
One other name on that list, however, actually makes sense…
Some months back, Chris Cornell took the first step to undo the self-inflicted damage caused by his god-awful Timbaland-produced solo album Scream: he re-recorded one of its songs as a straightforward soft rock tune. Since then, the former Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman has taken some considerable steps towards restoring his rocker reputation, including performing John Lennon’s “Imagine” on the September 11th episode of The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien and unexpectedly reuniting grunge rock one-off Temple Of The Dog at a recent Pearl Jam concert.
Now comes news that the much maligned Scream will receive a full-blown “rework” to better reflect the rest of Cornell’s easily digested radio-friendly solo discography. Though, Cornell has yet to make any public statement about this, the existence of another re-recorded Scream cut says it all. Listen to this new version of “Never Far Away” and imagine just how positively banal Scream (Naked) will ultimately sound.
-GS
[Gary Suarez is simply irresistible. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]
I love playing ths game. The famed Metallica + GN’R + Faith No More run would have to be close to the top of my list. Soundgarden supporting Spoonman. Motley Crue supporting Too Fast For Love. King’s X on the Dogman tour, for sure… check out this performance [sent in by Shane Gillis] of the title track from that incredible record, filmed on the short-lived Jon Stewart show no less.
If you had a time machine that could take you back to any one specific tour (but ONLY one), who would you go see?
-VN
It’s raining in New York today. AGAIN. At least it’s warm; it’s been fucking rainy and cold for all of June (seriously… hoodie weather in June??). I feel like I’ve been cheated out of an entire month of summer. Fuck the world.
Here’s what happened this week:
We out. Stay tuned in a couple of hours for our #7 Best Metal Album of the 21st Century… So Far. I’ll be at tomorrow night’s Black Anvil show at the new Duff’s location in Brooklyn if anyone wants to come out and hang. See you next week for more shenanigans!
Anyone remember that scene in Spaceballs where Rick Moranis tells Bill Pullman “I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate?”
I wouldn’t be shocked if Soundgarden reunited. Everyone else is doing it; Chris Cornell needs to try and get his street cred back; I’m sure Kim Thayil could use a paycheck; and then there was that whole Tadgarden thing. In fact, I’d imagine that, at this point, the biggest impediment to a Soundgarden reunion is the fact that Cornell’s ex-wife, Susan Silver, set up the Tadgarden show, which, presumably, means she’s still involved in the band’s business dealings despite what was reportedly a nasty split with the singer.
Now, all of that being the case… in the words of my associate Gary Suarez, I’ll believe the reunion is happening when “I hear it from Kim Thayil’s hairy lips.”
And Shinedown singer Brent Smith, whom Blabbermouth tells me claims he heard from “someone… specifically in their organization” that the reunion is happening, ain’t no Kim Thayil. His lips aren’t even hairy.
