CD Odyssey Disc 528: Soundgarden

I’ve started writing my first ever song today.  Most of the tune is in my head, but I am feeling cautiously optimistic that I’ll be able to get it down on the page as well with the help of my guitar.  In the meantime, I’m focused on the lyrics and having a hell of a good time being creative.

Meanwhile, over in the land of other people’s music (aka the CD Odyssey) the reign of double album terror has finally abated with this next album.

Disc 528 is…. Louder Than Love

Artist: Soundgarden

Year of Release: 1989

What’s up with the Cover?  Chris Cornel in his long-haired youth rocks out.  I’m not a big fan of this cover, but it fits the grunge vibe of the era; it is visceral and deliberately non-pretentious (in a pretentious kind of way, of course).

How I Came To Know It:  As I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, my friend and former roommate Greg introduced me to Soundgarden, and this album was one he purchased one day.  I had never heard of them before that, but I liked what I heard.

How It Stacks Up:  I have five Soundgarden albums (still hemming and hawing about “King Animal”).  I had cleverly saved the 4^th slot for this album, forgetting how great it is.  In fact, this album is brilliant, and second only to my all-time favourite, “Badmotorfinger.”

As this is the last Soundgarden album I currently have for review, tradition dictates a quick recap in order of preference (with two albums being bumped from their original ranking):

1. Badmotorfinger: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 283)
2. Louder Than Love: 4 stars (reviewed right here)
3. Superunknown: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 481)
4. Screaming Life/Fopp:  3 stars (reviewed at Disc 393)
5. Down on the Upside:  2 stars (reviewed at Disc 304)

Rating:  4 stars

It should come as no surprise that an album titled “Louder Than Love” is going to sound better at high volumes.  What is surprising is it took me twenty years or so to properly realize this.  My friend Spence has praised it for years and once again I find upon further review that he is right.  The man knows his music.

Earlier listens to this record were generally in my house, where (apart from one exception noted below) I never really turned it up that loud or in the car, where a lot of the sound layering is lost in engine noise.  Consequently, I’ve always given “Louder Than Love” short shrift.  This listen was entirely on high quality headphones as I walked to and from work, and early in the first track, “Ugly Truth” something deep inside me told me to turn it louder.

“Ugly Truth” is a great launch point for “Louder Than Love.” It has equal parts groove-driven guitar riff, subtle but beautiful melodies and a chunky metal flavour throughout.  It is this metal element that originally had me loving Soundgarden most of all the grunge bands that emerged in the late eighties, and they have no heavier album than this.  “Badmotorfinger” comes close, and I think it is more complete overall, but for sheer visceral energy “Louder Than Love” is the bomb.

This energy is driven partly by Chris Cornell, one of rock’s all-time great vocalists.  The man can scream in three octaves and still stay in tune.  The band is extremely tight for so early in their career.  This is critical with grunge’s thick fuzzy sound to avoid a muddy result (exactly what happened to many copycat grunge bands of the time).  Fortunately Kim Thayil on guitar, Hiro Yamamoto on bass and Matt Cameron on drums are all equal to the task of holding up and augmenting Cornell’s genius.

The album has a dark quality which is pretty common for Soundgarden.  “Ugly Truth” is particularly filled with self-loathing as Cornell growls:

“I painted my eyes

Ugly isn’t what I wanted to see

I painted my mind

Ugly isn’t what I wanted to be”

And then the sad admission of how he views a relationship:

“If you were mine to give

I might throw you away.”

The self-loathing becomes menacing on track three’s “Gun” where over a pounding, plodding riff Cornell ominously opens with “I’ve got an idea of something we can with the gun.”

The album has a flavour of rage throughout, but in some of the darker moments I actually think the band is trying to be humorous.  “Full On Kevin’s Mom” is a song about three friends that have a falling out when one of them decides to hook up with one of their mom’s.  The song is filled with all the hurt and anger you’d expect from a friendship collapsing in this way.  Still, Soundgarden’s treatment of this inappropriate intergenerational relationship was strangely funny and the source of many a ribald reference for a few years.  Funny provided you weren’t Kevin, I suppose.

After the powerful “Loud Love” rages at track seven, the album has a minor let down in terms of quality, with “I Awake”, “No Wrong, No Right” and “Uncovered” all lacking the focus and direction of the earlier part of the album.

Things are recovered in the penultimate track with “Big Dumb Sex” a song about exactly what you’d imagine it would be.  On the “Screaming Life/Fopp” EPs Soundgarden had similar material with “Kingdom of Come” and “Swallow My Pride” but on “Big Dumb Sex” the band decides to abandon innuendo and clever wordplay and just get straight to the subject at hand with:

“Don’t you don’t you want to thrill me

Don’t you be afraid to tell me

Tell me if you think it’s ugly

But don’t you want to touch it anyway.”

When I was twenty I remember my blasting this song with everything our crappy ghetto blaster could unleash in our apartment.  The landlady was over about sixty seconds after it ended to deliver a terse message of “Don’t ever do that again.”  Hell of a first day in the new place.

“Louder Than Love” is brilliant overall, but being at a pretty good place in my life, I find it hard to soak that much negativity in and still feel energized the way the music intends.  I still love this record though, which is big and sexy, and only dumb when it wants to be.

Best tracks:  Ugly Truth, Hands All Over, Gun, Get on the Snake, Full on Kevin’s Mom, Loud Love, Big Dumb Sex