Still annnoying
Still annoying as hell:
Chris Cornell’s voice.
Listening to Call Me A Dog, from Temple of the Dog.
Wanted to just skip the song as it came up on shuffle, but there’s got to be a reason I bothered to put it on my iPod in the first place, right?
For some reason, I must have put most, if not all of the Temple of the Dog album, though I really only remember liking maybe 1.5 songs on it. And the only real reason I have the album is that it is a holdover from my must-have-everything-remotely-related-to-Pearl Jam days.
Now Hunger Strike is the song worth keeping. I can still love that song, Chris Cornell whine and all.
I think it’s time to audit Temple of the Dog. Hunger Strike stays. I think, unfortunately, I sing Chris Cornell’s part to myself.
I don’t mind stealing bread
From the mouths of decadence
But I can’t feed on the powerless
When my cup’s already overfilled,
But it’s on the table
The fire is cooking
And they’re farming babies
While slaves are working
Blood is on the table
And the mouths are choking
But I’m growing hungryI don’t mind stealing bread
From the mouths of decadence
But I can’t feed on the powerless
When my cup’s already overfilled
But it’s on the table
The fires cooking
And they’re farming babies
While the slaves are all working
And it’s on the table
The mouths are choking
But I’m growing hungry
I’m going hungry
Chris Cornell - soulful AC/DC voice. If you thought his voice was annoying in Temple, try listening to some pre-Badmotorfinger Soundgarden.
Temple of the Dog was good for its time, but not great. It was a self-indulgent mess disguised as a tribute to a dead singer that they all loved but really sucked in the first place. It was also Chris Cornell’s first solo album with backing band (up-and-comers) Pearl Jam.
“Reach Down” is still good, so is “Pushin Forward Back”. “Times of Trouble” is also still worth a listen, if only for the fact that Pearl Jam did their own version of the song called “Footsteps” that is far superior.
But you’re right, the CD just doesn’t hold up. When thinking about it, I realized that I only ever listened to the CD once in a while, and when I did, I skipped through songs. It was something that I tried to like for a while because I was a huge PJ fan, nothing more. When you TRY to like something, that should be your first clue.
As for Chris Cornell himself. The first Audioslave (Chris Cornell with backing band Rage Against The Machine) album is still awesome — apparently Cornell was going through a divorce at the time and it just goes to show that the best art comes from pain. Their other two albums (they’ve since broken up) were mediocre at best. While I was always a casual Soundgarden fan, the only album of theirs that was good all the way through was their final album, Down on the Upside. It was experimental, it had moments of doubt and pain - probably one of the most underrated albums of the time period. As for his solo stuff (solo, as in not as a supergroup), snooooooze.
You are now 2 cents richer.
Bah … I have that Audioslave album, but I just never got into it.
I can respect some of the things Chris Cornell has done as a musician, but I’m just not going to try that hard to like him, either.
Yes, there are other worthwhile songs on Temple of the Dog — I was being somewhat harsh — but overall all, the album just doesn’t stand up.
It’s getting time for me to purge some of my physical CDs as well as audit some of the stuff I have on my computer, and therefore, the iPod.