Tony's Favorite 1990s Albums

When in doubt, make a list. I subscribe to several YouTube channels, some of which are run by amateur online music critics. As is their wont, they too make lists – top ten prog rock albums, top 10 Deep Purple albums, etc. You get the idea. Thus inspired I thought I would list my Top 10 albums from the 1990s, which to these ears is the last good musical decade. To be clear, this isn’t a “best of” list, because any such pronouncements by anybody are completely subjective. These are “favorites,” so opinions [like recollections] may vary. Without further ado:

U2 - Achtung Baby (1991) – After The Joshua Tree [1987] and Rattle and Hum [1988], U2 faced an existential crisis. The Joshua Tree was their big artistic statement. To punctuate that statement, they decided they would film their subsequent tour. They envisioned a U2 version of A Hard Day’s Night. Rattle and Hum was more like a home movie, four guys looking to discover American music, and a joyless home movie at that. The reviews of Rattle and Hum were scathing, and the guys in the band were a bit shell shocked. Up to this point they were critical darlings and weren’t used to people telling them they weren’t perfect. And they [most especially Bono] had gotten too caught up in their own self-importance. Bono’s wife Ali summed it up best – she told him “you’ve gotten so serious.  The boy I fell in love with was so full of mischief, so full of madness.  You were a much more experimental character – what’s happened to you?” They went away to re-invent themselves, but in the process discovered they weren’t on the same page musically, hence the existential crisis. They pulled themselves together and re-invented themselves. They exorcised the “preachy” U2 [for a while, anyway], stopped Bono’s posturing and hectoring for social justice, and became rock stars that could make music that was fun. Achtung Baby is my favorite U2 album by far.

Rush - Counterparts (1993) – After a five-album run where all kinds of keyboards served as the focus of Rush music, Alex Lifeson finally re-emerged from the shadows with a vengeance. Rush started out as a guitar band, but after Moving Pictures [1981] they moved further and further away from that ethos to the point that Alex Lifeson became a musical afterthought.  There were just too many damn synthesizers for my liking, and the songwriting was pretty weak after Grace Under Pressure [1984]. Counterparts is the album for which I waited nine years. Keyboards were relegated to the background, and Lerxst’s guitar was finally front and center again. Of the eleven songs on the album [one is an instrumental: Leave That Thing Alone], nine are strong, while the remaining songs are merely “ok.”  Once again, Rush was a fire-breathing beast, and I couldn’t be happier as a fan.

R.E.M. - Out of Time [1991] and Automatic for the People [1992] – I’m cheating a little bit here because I think of both of these albums as two sides of the same coin. Both are mostly acoustic, and unlike the louder album that preceded them – Green [1988] – they have aged very well. They don’t sound dated. I admit I didn’t get into these guys at the time, as ubiquitous as they were in the late Eighties/early Nineties. But with the passage of 32 years, and with Carol passing away, I was nostalgic for a happier time and thus I did a reappraisal. For the most part, I haven’t a clue about what Michael Stipe was singing about. I don’t think he had any idea, either. But there is a moment of clarity on Man On The Moon, an elegy for Andy Kaufman. It proved to me that if he wanted to, Michael Stipe can make complete sense. And he had a sense of humor. With that said, I cut him some slack on the rest of his lyrics, which can be very obtuse and impenetrable. At a time when grunge and alternative music were all the rage [some of which I like very much], these two statements, released nineteen months apart, were outside the norm. Instead of loud, detuned guitars, there are mandolins, acoustic guitars, pianos and bouzoukis. There’s a lot to be said for going against the grain, and R.E.M. are to be commended for it. I appreciate them now – better late than never. But when I think I’ve had enough of quiet music, I’ll throw on Dirt or Superunknown.  Speaking of which…

Alice in Chains – Dirt [1992] – A long time ago, MTV had this show on Saturday nights called The Headbangers Ball. It was on this show that a video caught Carol’s eye. It was made by a band from Seattle. The singer was going on about being buried in his own shit. Carol didn’t impress easily, but she liked what she heard and told me “you’ve got to hear this.” The band was Alice in Chains, and the song was Man in the Box. The song was from their debut album, Facelift [1990]. We were both immediately hooked. A couple of years later, I saw a movie called Singles [1992]. It takes place in Seattle and is about the love lives of twentysomethings, with the burgeoning grunge movement serving as the backdrop for the story. It was here that I got a preview of the next AIC album. Their new song, Would? [an elegy for Mother Love Bone vocalist Andrew Wood], featured in the movie. Dirt, the album from whence it came, is a musical 2x4 across the forehead. Jerry Cantrell’s riffs were dark and sludgy, very Sabbathesque but recorded a helluva lot better. Though not a concept album per se, this harrowing album has drug addiction as its theme for the last half of the album. Layne Staley, in a vice grip of heroin addiction that just wouldn’t let go, articulated his own downward spiral and self-destruction. The album also includes themes of mortality, relationships, and depression, with a tribute to Cantrell’s father [a Vietnam vet] thrown in for good measure. Of note, they began recording Dirt during the LA riots in the summer of 1992, which only added to the album’s vibe of doom. Alice in Chains have recorded some stellar music since 1992, but Dirt remains their magnum opus. It still remains in heavy rotation for me.

Soundgarden - Superunknown (1994) - Of the four big bands to come out of Seattle in the early 1990s [Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden], Soundgarden was the first to get a major label record deal, but the last to get the big break. They got people’s attention with Badmotorfinger (1991), but in 1994 Superunknown launched them into the stratosphere. Superunknown opens with a thunderous one-two punch of Let Me Drown and My Wave. Fell On Black Days which follows slows the pace and is dark and very moody. Mailman is one of Matt Cameron’s songs. As the title says, it’s about a mailman, who is about to “go postal.” Kim Thayil pours the sludge on thick with his detuned guitars in a grinding riff, and Ben Shepard’s bass makes the sludge even thicker. I have no idea what Superunknown [the song] is about, and I don’t care. It’s loud, it’s fast, it’s brutal in its intensity, and it’s relentless. Black Hole Sun is the monster hit, which is more of a mood than a song, but that’s ok. Spoonman is another fast one…and another hit. It’s all good. Carol and I saw them at Red Rocks in 2011, and they played most of this album. To date, it’s the loudest concert I ever attended. We lost some hearing that day.

Pink Floyd- The Division Bell [1994] – The last real Pink Floyd album. I don’t count The Endless River because there’s only one real song on it, and not a very good one. As much as I like 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason, it’s really a David Gilmour solo album in all but name. It has more in common with Gilmour’s About Face [1984] than it does with Pink Floyd. Rick Wright didn’t play much on it, and Nick Mason didn’t play at all. But that album served its purpose. In the aftermath of Roger Waters’ 1985 departure, it proved the band could function without him, much to Waters’ distress. After touring AMLOR for two solid years, Wright and Mason were back in playing shape. Wright has five songwriting credits on The Division Bell and sang on a Pink Floyd album for the first time since Dark Side of the Moon. Unlike AMLOR, this sounded like a Pink Floyd album. David Gilmour isn’t a lyricist, and he isn’t big on the whole “concept album” thing. But in contemporary interviews, he did say the underlying theme of the album was the inability of people to communicate. Both he and Rick Wright opined that The Division Bell sounds more like Wish You Were Here [the favorite of both Gilmour and Wright] than anything else in Pink Floyd’s canon. For me, it took just one listen to Keep Talking to know that this album was going to be a good one. But, the emotional center of the album is the final song, High Hopes. It is a wistful look back on happier times in Cambridge before fame. Carol and I saw two shows on this tour. They were the best shows we had ever seen, with film clips playing on a giant screen behind the stage, flying pigs, lasers, and a giant mirror ball that illuminated everything during Comfortably Numb. The music was pretty good, too. 😊

Deep Purple - Purpendicular (1996) – One can’t discuss Deep Purple without talking about the interpersonal drama of the players. They shocked the rock world by reuniting the classic Mark II lineup [Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice] in 1984 with the album Perfect Strangers. The House of Blue Light [1987] followed, but the disagreements between Blackmore and Gillan that led to their 1973 split resurfaced. Soon, Gillan was fired in 1989, to be replaced by Joe Lynn Turner. The resulting album, Slaves and Masters [1990] sounds like a bad Rainbow album. Blackmore was happy, but the rest of the band wasn’t. They wanted Gillan back, so he returned in 1992. They recorded The Battle Rages On [1993], and it was Ritchie’s turn to be unhappy. The band toured in Europe and played their last show [Helsinki] in November 1993. In three weeks hence, they were supposed to go to Japan, but Ritchie tore up his visa and left the band. The band had to honor the Japan dates, and somehow, they got Joe Satriani to fill in for Ritchie. They had a world tour ahead of them and they played the dates with Satriani, but there was a hitch. Satriani had his own career and couldn’t stay with Deep Purple. Deep Purple needed a new guitar player [or, as Gillan would say, a “banjo player”]. Each member made a list. The only player on everyone’s list was Steve Morse. Morse turned out to be an enlightened choice. He’s nothing like Blackmore, and that’s the point. If one doesn’t hire someone to sound like Ritchie Blackmore, the less likely people are going to make comparisons to him, other than to say “he doesn’t sound like Ritchie.” With Morse, they could afford to take a fresh approach, to exercise the musical muscles that had atrophied and get away from making generic hard rock albums. Morse’s own work before joining Deep Purple spanned a variety of styles, genres and moods. This is what he brought to Deep Purple, and to their credit they embraced the change. This album swings like no other Deep Purple album. Ian Paice gets to do more than just a 4/4 bash like he had to do from Perfect Strangers onward. The rest of the band was able to write and contribute more than they had when Ritchie was the musical director. The result was Purpendicular, which would be their most experimental album since before Gillan and Glover joined the band in 1969. This album proved that there was life after Blackmore, so much so that the Morse-Purple marriage lasted twenty-eight years. Highly recommended.

Gov’t Mule - Dose (1997) – The Allman Brothers Band reunited in 1989 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the band founded by Duane Allman. Guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist Allen Woody were the new guys. After the success of the Dreams tour, the band decided to create new music. The new album, Seven Turns [1990], was their best album since Brothers and Sisters [1973]. Subsequent albums [Shades of Two Worlds (1991) and Where It All Begins (1994)] were almost as good. To occupy themselves during ABB downtimes, Haynes and Woody had formed power trio Gov’t Mule with Matt Abts, who played with Haynes in Dickey Betts’ band before the 1989 reformation. It was going to be a busman’s holiday, like what Hot Tuna started out to be vis-à-vis the Jefferson Airplane. They recorded one self-titled album in 1995. The plan was just one album, but the ABB was a dysfunctional unit. Gregg Allman had his substance abuse issues, and Dickey Betts was in and out of the band due to his own substance abuse issues [to be charitable, he was a mean drunk]. The interpersonal dynamic was a bit toxic. Haynes and Woody decided they had enough and left the Allman Brothers in 1997, and they didn’t look back. The Mule would be their full-time gig. Dose is jam band music at its finest. This album spawned three (!) sprawling, monster classics – Blind Man in the Dark, Thorazine Shuffle [known in some spiritual circles as the “Thorazine Clusterfuck”], and Game Face. Throw in two instrumentals [Birth of the Mule and Thelonious Beck], the folk blues of Son House’s John the Revelator, and a jam take on the Beatles She Said She Said, you have a classic.

Bob Dylan – Time Out of Mind [1997] – At the conclusion of the 1980s, Bob Dylan released an outstanding album, Oh Mercy, about which I have already commented. As he had more than enough songs for that album, he rerecorded those leftovers [and a handful of newer songs] for the next album, Under the Red Sky [1990]. This wasn’t a bad album, but in the wake of Oh Mercy it was a bit of a letdown. Afterward, he went silent. Not for the first time, many began to doubt whether he could still be creative. The man himself had his doubts, wondering aloud whether he had enough songs to sing and stop writing. He went back to his folk roots and cut two albums - Good as I Been to You [1992] and World Gone Wrong [1993] - that were traditional folk songs, performed by him alone with only an acoustic guitar and a harmonica to accompany him. It took him until 1996 to find the inspiration to write new material. His new songs addressed love, heartbreak, betrayal and loss, old age and mortality. For his sound, Dylan found his inspiration in the blues. When in doubt, go back to the source. I’ve waxed poetic about 2001’s “Love And Theft” in these pages before and how I thought [and still think] that album was the best he had done since Blood on the Tracks. I had done a Top 10 list of Dylan albums. I had Time Out of Mind at #6, Oh Mercy at #3, and  “Love And Theft” at #2. Thanks to a remix of the entire Time Out of Mind album as presented on the Fragments box set [released in 2022], I may have to rethink the order of things. Time Out of Mind is truly extraordinary.

Tom Petty – Wildflowers [1994] – Tom Petty had a new record deal with Warner Brothers, but there was a catch. He was still signed to MCA, and he wanted out. His relationship with MCA was tempestuous. MCA had originally rejected Full Moon Fever. They butted heads over his compensation, artistic control and album prices. The price for his freedom was a greatest hits compilation, but it had to include two new songs. One song turned out to be Mary Jane’s Last Dance. Tom wasn’t done with making clean breaks. After recording Mary Jane’s Last Dance, he fired drummer Stan Lynch. In his place he hired Steve Ferrone, an inspired choice. They didn’t get along anymore, and Tom thought it was time for a change. No change was more drastic for him than his marriage. His 22-year marriage to Jane Benyo was falling apart. Daughter Adria took one listen to Wildflowers and knew immediately that her parents’ marriage was over. Welcome to middle age. Another break Petty made [though not permanent like the rest] was with Jeff Lynne. Lynne produced Petty’s first solo record, Full Moon Fever [1989] and Into the Great Wide Open [1991]. For Wildflowers he worked with Rick Rubin at Mike Campbell’s suggestion. For this record, Petty said that after spending almost twenty years making records with the Heartbreakers, he wanted to branch out and work with others in order to learn and grow. He credited Rubin with guiding him back to a musical place where he would feel very comfortable. At this point in his life, Petty got more comfortable making music that wasn’t just loud rock ‘n roll. To be sure, there is plenty of loud rock ‘n roll on this record, but there are also folky, confessional moments as well. The album alternates between the loud and the quiet. Originally, Petty planned Wallflowers to be a double album. He wrote twenty-five songs for it, but when he finished it and played it for Warner Brothers, they said it was too long. He pruned Wildflowers to fifteen songs. Some of the leftovers came out for his soundtrack to the movie She’s The One. Others remained unreleased until the Wildflowers & All the Rest box set came out in 2020. There was quantity as well as quality. He wanted to revisit the whole Wildflowers thing after his final tour, but fate had other ideas. Wildflowers is Tom Petty’s masterpiece.

Chris Cornell - RIP

His was a voice unlike any other.  He could go from a whisper to a scream.  He was equally effective at either end of that range.  In this day of The Voice and American Idol, singers are here today, gone today.  They make that first album, and often they are never heard from again.  Some of them have staying power [Carrie Underwood comes to mind], but most of them don’t.  Chris Cornell had staying power.   Primarily known as the voice of Soundgarden, he had his solo work, he had Audioslave, he had Temple of the Dog.  His recorded legacy is an embarrassment of riches.

Carol found Soundgarden on MTV.  The song was Outshined.  The hook was the line I’m looking California and feeling Minnesota.  She told me “you have to see this”.  I did, and I’ve been hooked ever since.  She found Soundgarden, but I found Temple of the Dog.  In 1993, there was a movie called Singles.  Unlike most movie soundtracks, I bought that one.  That album was a Seattle music primer, with loose tracks from Soundgarden [Birth Ritual], Alice in Chains [Would?], and Pearl Jam [State of Love and Trust].  There were also two gems - Chloe Dancer / Crown of Thorns [from Mother Love Bone], and a song from Chris Cornell called Seasons.  It was a solo acoustic piece, and it was brilliant.  Between Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog and now a solo song, Chris Cornell burrowed himself into my music subconscious, where he remains.  The Soundgarden made what I think is “the last great rock album” – Superunknown, of which I’ve already written at length.  Two years later they put out Down On The Upside.  Some folks think it’s better than Superunknown – I’m not one of them.  They toured to support Down On The Upside, but after that tour Soundgarden broke up.  I felt cheated because I didn’t get to see them.

He started a solo career.  His first album was Euphoria Mourning (it used to be spelled “Morning” but changed when it was re-issued.)  He deliberately did not want to sound like Soundgarden.  Lyrically, it’s a dark album.  He told Rolling Stone this:  "It was a pretty dark album lyrically and pretty depressing, and I was going through a really difficult time in my life — my band wasn't together anymore, my marriage was falling apart and I was dealing with it by drinking way too much, and that has its own problems, particularly with depression.”  Stylistically, it’s all over the map.  Does he want to be a balladeer, a soul singer, a rock guy?  You get a little of everything, with some Middle Eastern sounds thrown in.  He’s not sure of the direction he wants to go in.  This problem would plague him on his next solo outing, Carry On.   Of his third album, Scream, the less said the better.  He collaborated with hip-hop producer Timbaland.  Synthesizers and drum machines replaced real instruments, and the production sucked the life out of his vocals.  Between Euphoria Mourning and Carry On, he teamed up with the instrumentalists from Rage Against the Machine.  They made three albums [Audioslave, Out of Exile, and Revelations].  Some of it is ok [but I want better than “ok” from someone with Chris Cornell’s talent], but the rest is forgettable.  I tried to like them, I really did.

At the beginning of 2010, he tweeted the following:  "The 12-year break is over and school is back in session. Sign up now. Knights of the Soundtable ride again!"  To me, that meant one thing – Soundgarden was back, and it was about damned time.  They started to tour again, and in 2011 I finally got to see them at my favorite venue – Red Rocks.  I was not disappointed.  Carol and I lost a little hearing at that show, but it was worth it.  Before Soundgarden would record King Animal [IMHO an excellent release], he released Songbook.  Compiled from solo acoustic shows, the songs from his solo career and Audioslave that I thought were merely “ok” became very, very good [see my list below].  Whether he did it deliberately or just stumbled upon it, Chris Cornell found his direction, that of “singer-songwriter”.  In my mind, that sobriquet means boring acoustic navel gazing from the likes of James Taylor, but Chris made it work.  His next solo release would he Higher Truth from 2015.  With this album, he hit the jackpot.  Finally, with a direction and a cohesive set of outstanding songs, he finally carved out a niche for himself while he wasn’t being the rock god frontman for Soundgarden.

His last release was a song he recorded for the movie The Promise.  The movie tells the story of the Armenian genocide from 1915.  The song, with the same name as the movie, would fit alongside those from Higher Truth.  I recommend it highly.  All proceeds from sales of the song go to the International Rescue Committee.

It is here that I will leave Chris Cornell’s story.  Below are the songs of his that I like the most that show his talents as a singer, musician, and songwriter.

Disc 1

Let Me Drown [Soundgarden – Superunknown]

My Wave [Soundgarden – Superunknown]

Fell On Black Days [Soundgarden – Superunknown]

Superunknown [Soundgarden – Superunknown]

Burden In My Hand [Soundgarden - Down On The Upside]

Black Hole Sun [Soundgarden – Superunknown]

Spoonman [Soundgarden – Superunknown]

Call Me A Dog [Temple of the Dog]

Times Of Trouble [Temple of the Dog]

Rusty Cage [Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger]

Outshined [Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger]

Slaves And Bulldozers [Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger]

Jesus Christ Pose [Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger]

Reach Down [Temple of the Dog]

Disc 2

Say Hello 2 Heaven [Temple of the Dog]

Pushin' Forward Back [Temple of the Dog]

Searching With My Good Eye Closed [Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger]

Room A Thousand Years Wide [Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger]

Mind Riot [Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger]

New Damage (With Brian May) [Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger Deluxe Edition]

Seasons [Chris Cornell - Singles OST]

Into The Void [Sealth] [Soundgarden – Echo of Miles]

Mailman [Soundgarden – Superunknown]
Limo Wreck [Soundgarden – Superunknown]

Switch Opens [Soundgarden - Down On The Upside]

Overfloater [Soundgarden - Down On The Upside]

Flutter Girl [Chris Cornell – Euphoria Mourning]
Mission [Chris Cornell – Euphoria Mourning]

Steel Rain [Chris Cornell – Euphoria Mourning]

Disc 3

I Am The Highway [Audioslave]

Arms Around Your Love [Chris Cornell – Carry On]

You Know My Name [Chris Cornell – Carry On]

Can't Change Me [Chris Cornell – Songbook; original from Euphoria Mourning]

Ground Zero [Chris Cornell – Songbook; original from Scream]

Like A Stone [Chris Cornell – Songbook; original from Audioslave]

Doesn't Remind Me [Chris Cornell – Songbook; original from Out of Exile (Audioslave)]

River of Deceit (Live) [Mad Season – Sonic Evolution]

By Crooked Steps [Soundgarden – King Animal]

A Thousand Days Before [Soundgarden – King Animal]
Taree [Soundgarden – King Animal]

Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart [Chris Cornell – Higher Truth]

Dead Wishes [Chris Cornell – Higher Truth]

Worried Moon [Chris Cornell – Higher Truth]

Before We Disappear [Chris Cornell – Higher Truth]

Murderer Of Blue Skies [Chris Cornell – Higher Truth]

Our Time In The Universe [Chris Cornell – Higher Truth]

‘Til the Sun Comes Back Around [Chris Cornell – 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi OST]

The Promise [Chris Cornell – The Promise OST]

RIP Chris Cornell.

Tony's Picks 2012 - The Albums

I didn't buy very much "new" music in 2012.  Like last year, there wasn't very much that screamed at me and said "buy me."  When I did buy music in 2012, it was mostly to complete collections I had already started [Grateful Dead, old Rush, etc].  I find that the new music I buy is from old folks who I've been listening to for many years.  Some of the usual suspects have already been reviewed in these spaces

 

Soundgarden - King Animal  This is Soundgarden's first album of completely new material since 1996's Down on the Upside.  The good news:  King Animal is better than Down on the Upside.  The bad news:  it isn't as good as Superunknown, but then not many albums are.  The best songs are on the first half of the album.  Favorite songs:  A Thousand Days Before, By Crooked Steps, Non-State Actor.

Dwight Yoakam - 3 Pears  After being apart for 11 years, Dwight Yoakam comes home to Warner Brothers and releases his first album since his 2007 tribute to Buck Owens [Dwight Sings Buck].  3 Pears has lots of LOUD guitars, standard weepers, and a song with goofy-assed lyrics about jellyfish, peanut butter kisses and giraffes.  Favorite songs:  Take Hold of My Hand, It's Never Alright, A Heart Like Mine, Long Way to Go.

Mumford & Sons - Babel  The wait between 2009's Sigh No More and Babel has been worth it. Who knew that I would like a group of English folk revivalists?  These guys are loud, fiery, ballsy, and full of energy.  One thing they are NOT is "boring" [Fleet Foxes, call your office...].

Spectrum Road - Spectrum Road  This is probably as close to jazz that I will get. One hesitates to use the term "supergroup," but this one is close.  Jack Bruce [Cream], Vernon Reid [Living Color], John Medeski [Medeski, Martin & Wood], and Cindy Blackman-Santana come together to pay tribute to end expand on the music of Tony Williams' Lifetime.  The bulk of the material presented here is from Lifetime's catalog, with a couple of originals and one Scottish traditional song thrown in for good measure.  These guys are no mere tribute band.

Ian Anderson - Thick as a Brick 2 Ian Anderson [Jethro Tull's guiding light] answers the musical question that nobody but a hardcore Tull fan would ask - whatever happened to Gerald Bostock?  For those who don't know, "Gerald Bostock" was a 8-year old boy who wrote an epic poem about the trials of growing up that became the lyrics to Jethro Tull's 1972 concept album Thick as a Brick.  Well, not really...Gerald Bostock was really Ian Anderson, and TAAB was a parody of concept albums then en vogue in the early 1970s.  Unlike the 1972 work, TAAB 2 wasn't recorded as a single, 40-minute song.  The arrangements are leaner, less cluttered, but still well-executed.  TAAB 2 shows five different things that could have happened to Gerald Bostock - he could have been a greedy banker, a soldier fighting in Afghanistan, a shopkeeper, a homeless man, or a preacher.

Mark Knopfler - Privateering  After over thirty years in the business, Mark Knopfler released his first double album of studio material.  If you like what you've heard from MK since he gave up Dire Straits, you get more of the same here.  Oddly enough, this album was not released in the US.  I had to get it as an import.

ZZ Top - La Futura It's been a long time since ZZ Top released anything new.  La Futura has been heralded as ZZ Top's return to their roots.  That's a true statement - the synthesizers of the Eliminator years are gone, as are the beat-box, dub experiments that ruined XXX.  La Futura isn't Tres Hombres, but it's the best thing they've done since Rhythmeen.

Bob Dylan – Tempest It wasn't "the best Dylan release since Blood on the Tracks," but Tempest does continue the musical winning streak Dylan started in 1997 with Time Out of Mind.  Favorite songs:  Pay In Blood, Early Roman Kings, Narrow Way.

http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/2012/10/bob-dylan-tempest.html

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychedelic Pill He toured three times with Crosby, Stills & Nash [2000, 2002, 2006].  He made a sequel to an album he never released [Chrome Dreams II].  He made an album-long ode to cars [Fork in the Road].  He devoted an entire album to ranting against the Iraq War [Living With War].  Finally, he got around to making a great album [that I didn't think he had in him] with Crazy Horse, and it's about damn time.  Favorite songs:  Walk Like a Giant, Psychedelic Pill, Twisted Road, She's Always Dancing.

http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/2012/11/neil-young-crazy-horse-psychedelic.html

Rush – Clockwork Angels A first in the history of Rush - a concept album.  IMHO, it is far and away the best thing they've done since 1981's Moving Pictures.  Some things do get better with age, like Rush.  Favorite songs:  Clockwork Angels, Seven Cities of Gold, The Wreckers, Headlong Flight.

http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/2012/06/rush-clockwork-angels.html

Ry Cooder – Election Special  This is Ry Cooder's contribution in kind to Barack Obama's re-election campaign.  While I don't agree with the message, I do appreciate the art.

http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/2012/08/ry-cooder-election-special.html

Things to look forward to in 2013 [assuming the Mayans are wrong]:

Black Sabbath - After 33 years, Black Sabbath are finally recording an album of new music with Ozzy Osbourne.   The original four members [Ozzy, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward] announced on 11/11/11 that they would reform, make an album and tour the world.  Things haven't quite turned out that way.  Tony Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma at this time last year, so plans had to be put on hold for him to recover.  Bill Ward told the world he's having contractual problems with band management and hasn't gotten a contract he could sign.  In 2012, the rest of the band played three shows with Ozzy's drummer, and from what I've heard of the shows Bill Ward hasn't been missed.  Tony Iommi is recovering well and recording continues on the new Sabbath album.  As yet untitled, it'll probably be out in April 2013.

Alice In Chains - These guys took everybody by surprise and released Black Gives Way to Blue in 2009 to rave reviews [including mine].  I wondered why it's been taking awhile for a follow-up, and last week I found my answer.  Guitarist Jerry Cantrell had shoulder surgery and needed to recover.  They started recording in 2011 and just finished not too long ago.  I think it will be out before Spring 2013.

Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell - They have a new album, "Old Yellow Moon," due out on Feb 26th.

We're Soundgarden - and We're Back!

Carol and I hadn’t been to a concert since our son Mark was born in 1999. Then one day I saw that Soundgarden was going to play a show at Red Rocks in July. I hadn’t been on a vacation in over three years, there was some downtime on my job, so it was time. I asked the wife “wanna see Soundgarden?” She didn’t say no, especially after I added the bit about the show being at Red Rocks in her home state.  We were way overdue to see a live show.

We got to Red Rocks about an hour and a half before showtime. After we parked the car and started walking toward the amphitheatre, we both realized we’ve been “flatlanders” for too long. So then we climbed these long steps up to the amphitheatre [and that was just to get in the place]. We both thought we needed oxygen by this time. Then we encountered the next set of steps to get to our seats. If you’ve ever seen Eisenstein’s silent movie Battleship Potempkin, you’ll recall there’s a hill with lots of steps that seems to go up forever. That’s what Red Rocks looked like to us, but we finally made it to our seats about 2/3 of the way up. Any seat in the house is good, and this show was no different.

The opening band was The Mars Volta. I’m not sure if I can say anything nice about what I heard from them. If you like them, more power to you. They did nothing for me. I’ve seen a lot of crappy bands open for bands I’ve paid to see. The Mars Volta is now one of them. Granted, I’m not a fan of theirs, I couldn’t name a single song of theirs. They just sounded terrible. The vocalist sounded like a cross-between of Perry Ferrell and 1970s-era Geddy Lee, and that’s not a compliment. Their forty-five minute set felt like it went on twice as long.

After The Mars Volta left the stage, an older woman with her 41-year old son showed up and sat next to us. She asked how the opening band was, and we told her what we thought. She said she was glad not to be sitting next to some 17-year old. I promised her we wouldn’t blow any pot smoke in her face because we don’t do that sort of thing. She asked us if we liked Soundgarden, we told her we did. She asked if it was ‘heavy metal’ and Carol told her ‘not really but it’ll probably sound that way to you.’ She was a great sport about it. I’m not sure I could sit through a two-hour show of a band whose music I never heard. One funny thing about her – there was a guy who was probably a little younger than us who was hitting on her. She was a bit creeped out, but he didn’t persist, especially after her son came back with some water.

A lot of people at the show did light up, and a lot more people got trashed on alcohol. There was a girl behind us who passed out about three songs into Soundgarden’s set, but she recovered to watch the rest of the show. I was just glad that we didn’t get high from all the second-hand smoke from everyone around us. Chris Cornell even made mention of the smoke from the stage. He said something about there being a contest the band has to see which tour stop has the most potent pot, but that the altitude at the Rocks and its lack of oxygen might make it seem stronger. He also advised the crowd to smoke what they’ve got so they wouldn’t get busted with it later. Everybody laughed at that.  He commented on Red Rocks awesome scenery:  "We played here before, and maybe a little bit was lost on us," he said. "It's f---ing amazing."  Indeed it is.  

Being back at Red Rocks to see a show 26 years after the last time [Eric Clapton – July 1985] was a wonderful experience. We arrived in daylight and were captivated by all that surrounded us. We never tire of seeing the beautiful scenery around the park. We were seated far enough above the stage where you can see the lights of Denver. There are a whole lot more now than there were 26 years ago. It also helped that the weather cooperated. I felt a grand total of three rain drops. I’ve been rained on at the Rocks before, but not so tonight so all was well with the universe. One thing that Carol noticed was that as the show progressed, everyone who had an iPod updated their playlists so they could listen to the show all over again on the ride home. Such is the time we live in. The last time we went to a concert [January 1999], the iPod was not even a gleam in Steve Jobs’ eyes.

Soundgarden’s set was outstanding – it was everything I hoped it would be. After the opening two numbers [Searching With My Good Eye Closed and Spoonman] Chris Cornell declared "We're Soundgarden, and we're back." Then he commented about Red Rocks’ legendary acoustics - "This big rock over here and this one over there," he said, referencing the two giant stones that flank the seating area, "it acts like a speaker, funnels down to my head. It's trippy." Then they launched into Let Me Drown. When I heard Chris Cornell do the same scream in the middle of the song that he did on the original recording, I knew that it was “game on.” This band was definitely “on.” I have a copy of their Live on I-5 album, and they sounded better during this show than they did on the album. I don’t say that just because I was there – Chris had trouble hitting the notes on the album. He had no such difficulty this time. I don’t know how he does it night after night, or how he even has a voice after a two-hour show. Chris Cornell’s voice is a freak of nature, but in a good way. After Let Me Drown Matt Cameron began the familiar drums of Jesus Christ Pose, which surprised me because I thought they would save it for the encore. But no matter – it was spellbinding, especially when you see 9,400 people striking the same “Jesus Christ Pose” as Chris Cornell. The crowd [and the band] got a chance to catch their breaths as the band went into Blow Up the Outside World. The cool thing about the song – the whole crowd [including yours truly] did the long “Blow up the Outside” fade for Chris. I don’t usually go for singalongs, but this was pretty cool. The biggest surprise of the evening: Mailman. I totally did not expect that one. Another surprise:  hearing Chris sing bits of Zeppelin's In My Time of Dying during Slaves & Bulldozers.  They played nine of Superunknown’s thirteen songs, six songs from Badmotorfinger, and they also went all the way back with Nothing to Say from their first EP for Sub Pop. Beyond the Wheel was otherworldly.

As for the rest of the band, they were simply amazing. Matt Cameron is a drumming machine, and I mean that in a good way. The man drums like he’s got eight arms instead of two, and he’s perfect. Pearl Jam needs to be careful. If Soundgarden decides they want to step up their pace of recording and touring, they’ll want him back full-time. There were times I thought Ben Shepard’s bass would cause an avalanche. And what can I say about Kim Thayil? If you took a rhino and fed it through stacks of Marshall amps, I think you might get the idea of Kim’s sound. It was quite the audio onslaught. The attack on our senses was complete when, at the end of the final encore song [Slaves & Bulldozers] both Ben and Kim faces their amps and unleashed a humungous torrent of feedback that lasted about five minutes.

The setlist:

Searching With My Good Eye Closed / Spoonman / Let Me Drown / Jesus Christ Pose / Blow Up the Outside World / The Day I Tried to Live / My Wave / Fell On Black Days / Ugly Truth / Big Dumb Sex / Outshined / Nothing To Say / Rusty Cage / Black Hole Sun / Burden In My Hand / Pretty Noose / Superunknown / 4th of July / Beyond the Wheel Encore: Hunted Down / Face Pollution / Mailman / Slaves & Bulldozers

As far as setlists go, I thought it was perfect. I heard everything I wanted to hear. That doesn’t happen too often. How loud was it? I saw The Who in 1982 and Deep Purple in 1985. The Soundgarden show was louder. The winner [and still heavyweight champ] is Dio’s version of Black Sabbath. We saw them in 1992 at Constitution Hall in Washington DC and we heard crickets for three days. Soundgarden wasn’t that loud, but it was close. I think I lost some hearing, but it was worth it. With the passing of Ronnie James Dio, Chris Cornell is now my favorite living hard rock/metal/grunge vocalist. As for Soundgarden, I now have a band I would walk barefoot on broken glass to see again. If you have the opportunity, this show is a must see. Oh, and don’t forget your earplugs – you’ll need them.

Soundgarden - Superunknown

Of the four big bands to come out of Seattle in the early 1990s [Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden], Soundgarden was the first to get a major label record deal, but the last to get the big break. In a strange twist of fate, Chris Cornell’s one-off tribute to Mother Love Bone’s singer Andrew Wood, Temple of the Dog, was a big hit before Soundgarden got a hit. They got people’s attention with Badmotorfinger (1991), but in 1994 Superunknown launched them into the stratosphere. Everywhere I read about these guys they’re described as “grunge.” They sound like a cross-between of metal and hardcore punk to me. Kind of Black Sabbath sludge mixed with Black Flag. Wait! I think I just unknowingly defined “grunge” [duh!]. Since I’m going to see Soundgarden in July, I’ve been listening to them a lot lately. With that said, here are my thoughts about my favorite Soundgarden album, Superunknown.

Superunknown opens with a thunderous one-two punch of Let Me Drown and My Wave. If these two songs don’t get your heart pumping, nothing will. There’s lots of monstrous fast-paced riffage [especially for Soundgarden] from Kim Thayil here. Kim is a human riff machine like Keith Richards and Tony Iommi. The rhythm section of Ben Shepard and Matt Cameron grabs you by the lapels and then kicks you in the ass. Chris Cornell’s scream at 2:33 of Let Me Drown is otherworldly. How the hell does he do that? Check out Ben Shepard rocking the wah-wah with his bass on My Wave.

Fell On Black Days is dark and very moody. It’s time to exhale. After Let Me Drown and My Wave, Fell On Black Days slows it down and turns down the volume. It doesn’t get loud until the bridge [“How will I know that this could be my fate?”]. Chris Cornell provides a very controlled vocal for this one and saves his banshee vocals for the bridge.

Mailman is one of Matt Cameron’s songs. As the title says, it’s about a mailman, only this one is about to go postal [“I know I’m headed for the bottom…”]. Kim Thayil pours the sludge on thick with his detuned guitars in a grinding riff, and Ben Shepard’s bass makes the sludge even thicker. Add to that a Mellotron to push the song into “psychedelia land.” This one has got a sinister vibe to it. Yeah I’m riding you all the waaaaaayyyyyyy…

I have no idea what Superunknown [the song] is about, and I don’t care. It’s loud, it’s fast, it’s brutal in its intensity, and it’s relentless. It absolutely has to be played LOUD! If you don’t, you’re wrong! Chris Cornell continues to amaze me. How does he sing the way he does without blowing out his voice? Much wah-wah drenched madness from Kim Thayil in the solo. Ben Shepard and Matt Cameron are kicking ass. This is Soundgarden at the top of their game. It’s my favorite from the album [My Wave is a close second]. Alive in the Superunknown indeed…

Black Hole Sun is the monster hit from Superunknown. Peter Frampton covered it on his Fingerprints instrumental album. The band made one of the strangest videos I’ve ever seen to promote it – MTV fans loved it [they still showed music videos then]. This one sounds like “Black Sabbath meets the Beatles.” Critics have said Chris Cornell has a Beatles fixation. If that’s true I must be missing something because this is the only Soundgarden song I know that has that vibe. During the chorus [“Black Hole Sun won’t you come and wash away the rain…”] the guitars sound like they’re being fed through a Leslie speaker, one of George Harrison’s favorite effects. When Kim Thayil steps up to take his solo, it’s a wah-wah drenched atonal psychedelic freak-out. Black Hole Sun is more of a mood than a song, but that’s ok.

Spoonman is another fast one…and another hit. What has gotten into these guys? Uptempo tunes just aren’t Soundgarden’s thing, except for Jesus Christ Pose from Badmotorfinger. Street musician Artis the Spoonman makes an appearance. Whoever sequenced this album knew what he was doing.

Ben Shepard contributed two songs – Head Down and Half. I guess they recorded these to show their musical diversity. It’s experimentation for experimentation’s sake. My reaction? Meh… At least Head Down provides a soft landing after the madness that is Superunknown, much in the manner of Long Long Long after Helter Skelter on the White Album. But all is not quiet for long as it goes “from a whisper to a scream” in a hurry.

Limo Wreck is more detuned sludge. Chris Cornell imagined what it would like if there was a multi-car pile-up on LA’s freeways and made a song out of it.

The Day I Tried To Live. This one goes back and forth between straight 4/4 time and 7/8 time. I thought this song was a suicide note, but I have since learned that is not the case. Chris Cornell said it was about a guy who tries to understand what is going on around him and get along with other people rather than hiding in a cave. Whatever you say Chris… Not one of my favorites.

Fresh Tendrils is another Matt Cameron song. I’ll show my ignorance here…what is a “tendril” anyway? It’s not a bad song, but it’s not essential either.

4^th of July sounds like a leftover from the Alice in Chains eponymous album. I can do without this one. I can do without Kickstand as well.

Like Suicide closes the album. It has a quiet intensity to it. Kim Thayil and Ben Shepard lock together very tightly. Soundgarden released an acoustic demo of this on the multi-media Songs From the Superunknown. I like that version better – it’s a bit more moody and intense. This version is pretty good though.

Soundgarden [and Chris Cornell in particular] likes to use different tunings for their music. Most bands stick with the standard EADGBE tuning, but not Soundgarden. I count eight different tunings on the Superunknown album. For those who are interested, here’s a breakdown song-by-song:

Let Me Drown [DADGBE “Dropped D”] / My Wave [EEBBBB – 5/4 time] / Fell On Black Days [EADGBE – 6/4 time] / Mailman [CGDGBE] / Superunknown [DADGBE “Dropped D”] / Head Down [CGCGGE] / Black Hole Sun [DADGBE “Dropped D”] / Spoonman [DADGBE “Dropped D” – intro in 7/8 time] / Limo Wreck [CGDGBE –3/4 time] / The Day I Tried To Live [EEBBBB - 4/4 and 7/8 time] / Kickstand [DADGBE “Dropped D”] / Fresh Tendrils [DGDGBE] / 4^th of July [CFCGBE] / Half [CGCGGE] / Like Suicide [DGDGBC].

When Soundgarden broke up in 1997 I thought that one of the few bands from the 1990s that was worth a damn would stay that way – broken up. Now that they’ve reunited [for how long, who knows?], I’m looking forward to hearing a lot of these songs at Red Rocks in July.