My writing is going well and I’m
getting back into a gym routine for the New Year, but now I’m having a harder time
squeezing in guitar practice. Damn, but
all this self-improvement, Renaissance-man BS is time consuming.
Disc 581 is…. Temple of the Dog (Self Titled)
Artist: Temple of
the Dog
Year of Release: 1991
What’s up with the Cover? Some sort of live
performance paired with what looks like Play-Doh lettering in a dirt box. At least I assume it is Play-Doh; when I was
a kid we only had the more generic Plasticine.
I don’t know, maybe it was cheaper.
Regardless of whether this is Play-Doh or Plasticine, it is a stupid
cover for such a good record.
How I Came To Know It: Another album my good friend and
ex-roomate Greg put me onto back in the grunge/folk wars of the early nineties
(I served in the folk army at the time, but now I play on both sides –
literally). This was an album that I loved, so it got a lot of play as one we
could both agree on.
How It Stacks Up: There is only one Temple of the Dog album, and this
is it, so it doesn’t really stack up.
Rating: 4 stars but almost 5
“Temple of the Dog” was a pre-supergroup,
a coming together of amazing artists not quite famous yet, but who would be by
the time their collaboration hit the charts.
In this case the supergroup were
four members of Pearl Jam and two more from Soundgarden. It wasn’t that either
band was unknown, but both were about to land huge records on the charts (Pearl
Jam with “Ten” and Soundgarden with “Badmotorfinger”) It is our luck that they also came together
to create the one-off that became the self-titled “Temple of the
Dog.”
Steve Gossard, Jeff Ament, Mike
McCready and Eddie Vedder came from Pearl Jam; which had recently formed out of
the remnants of Mother Love Bone following the overdose of their previous lead
singer, Andrew Wood. Two members of
Soundgarden – Matt Cameron and Chris Cornell – rounded out the lineup.
"Ten" and "Badmotorfinger" are known for their visceral energy, and this is equally true
of “Temple of the Dog,” which features the same chugging down-tuned guitars and
melody driven, throaty, fuzz-rock that now has the enduring label of ‘grunge’.
There are differences,
however. “Temple of the Dog” is
generally delivered at a slower, more deliberate tempo and the songs are
stripped right back to the bare bones. I’ve always believed you need to give
room for a song to breathe. The songs on
“Temple of the Dog” not only breathe, they take that extra room to growl and
yawp with a deep, rumbling power. In the
hands of vocal pretenders (like Creed, for example) such vocal acrobatics could
have invited overwrought disaster. Fortunately,
we are talking about Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder here, not Scott Stapp. There is a difference, and that difference is
greatness.
The album is mostly fronted by
Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, who has one of the classic rock voices of his
generation. No one can screech and yell
with as much raw emotion while never losing tune or tone like Cornell. The songs are tailor-made for him to show
off, with Mike McCready’s guitar sitting back and relaxed, giving his temporary
band mate a melody to move around in as the mood moves him.
The album is heavily tinged with
the recent death of Andrew Wood from Mother Love Bone, and the songs speak of
loss and the grief that follows from that tragedy. Cornell sums the feeling up nicely at the end
of the opening track, “Say Hello 2 Heaven”:
“I never wanted
To write these words down for you
With the pages of phrases
Of things we’ll never do
So I blow out the candle, and
I put you to bed
Since you can’t say to me
Now how the dogs broke your bone
There’s just one thing left to be said
Say hello to heaven.”
But lest I get too biographical –
which is not my way – I’ll return to the music itself.
“Reach Down” is a power-chord dirge that shows that music inspired
by sadness can still feel uplifting and empowering, as Cornell gives himself
the advice to reach down and pull the crowd up, while simultaneously doing
exactly that. “Reach Down” is over 11 minutes long, and despite crunching along
slowly and deliberately it never drags.
There are other standouts,
including the troubled description of heroin addiction in “Times of Trouble” and the indictment of religion used as a consumer
good in “Wooden Jesus” but I would be
remiss if I didn’t mention the album’s one memorable hit, “Hunger Strike.”
Hearing “Hunger Strike” for the first time on MuchMusic was a revelation. Cornell starts it off, his powerful rock
voice pushing the song out, but when Eddie Vedder takes over for the second verse
(unlike most tracks where Vedder did backing vocals, on “Hunger Strike” he shared lead with Cornell) the song takes on a
whole other quality. Vedder’s voice has
more vibrato in it; slightly higher and no less evocative and is the perfect
foil for Cornell’s, and every bit its equal.
There have been bands that mock
the back-of-the-throat singing style of Vedder, but mostly it is a complaint
against bands like Creed that followed after.
“Hunger Strike” shows Vedder’s
instrument in its un-distilled form; pure gold as it pours out the same lines
over and over again:
“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.”
The song makes you hungry for
justice to the point where the very hunger of it sustains you and paradoxically
gives you energy. Maybe it was just that
I was hungry a lot myself when this song came out, but when Vedder and Cornell organically
begin belting the song’s lines back and forth to one another it always hits me
in the gut. No surprise since that’s
where hunger – and great music – always hits you first.
Best tracks: Say Hello 2
Heaven, Reach Down, Hunger Strike, Times of Trouble, Wooden Jesus
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