Soundgarden

[Pekka]

The new album is coming out next week and I've heard that it's a logical continuation of "Down On The Upside" which is a good thing for me since it's my favourite. I especially like Ben Shepherd's and Matt Cameron's more experimental stuff on it.


Any fans?

[Basvarken]

Yeah what I've heard sounds good.
Except that Chris Cornell's voice sounds thin and squeezed in the higher parts.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Everything I've heard from the new one except for the song on the Avengers soundtrack has been great.

[uwe]

European rules of harmony and scales, here you go ... Wonder what vile combinations they will come up with this time.

[Dave W]

One of my friends, re the $60 ticket price for their show here, said he saw them for $5 in 1991 and doesn't think they've gotten $55 better since.

[Pekka]

European rules of harmony and scales, here you go ... Wonder what vile combinations they will come up with this time.

Rules? I thought this was rock'n'roll...

If those vile combinations prevent them sounding like the other band Matt Cameron plays with it's a good thing, and I like Pearl Jam.

[uwe]

A semblance of harmonic cohesion should be retained, I'm old fashioned that way and still wince when I hear Nirvana or Soundgarden. It's ok to play a chord not within a harmonic scale if you sneak it in in a way it doesn't sound like you accidentally hit the wrong fret.  Soundgarden never quite mastered that art (and it is one) like, eg, Albert Hammond did whose "Air that I breathe" has weird chords not really in any common major or minor scale yet the song sounds blissfully harmonic. Soundgarden's atrocious change from verse to chorus in Black Hole Sun doesn't. It sounds like someone learning to play shifting bar chords at random on his guitar. But I accept that I'm a negligible minority in this view. In my band I've even written a song whose chorus moves from D major to F# minor to - ouch! - C major and then to A major. It sounds suitably harmonic, even poppy, but whenever I play it I hold my breath when I change from the F# sharp to the C major.  And people with harmonic knowledge always smile at that part and say, "ah, that's grungy". It was intended to be because when I wrote it I made a conscious effort to move outside scale-prescribed harmonies (for once). But I feel guilty about it to this day. 

[nofi]

always following the rules, uwe. how german of you. i thought the whole seatle grunge thing was a bit contrived and those bands took themselves too seriously. plus you were expected to sing in that eddie vetter 'yaral, mouth full of marbles style.'

[Basvarken]

Alles Ordentlich, oder? 

[uwe]

  Touché!!! But in general I'm more



It's alright to break the rules you know. With Soundgarden and Nirvana I had the feeling they didn't even know them. Maybe it's my Yuropean background - all that classical music that has left an imprint even though I don't listen too classical music much at  all. Unless weird harmonies are done well, they bug me. A lot of Led Zep bugged me in that way, very often I found them harmonically neither here nor there (probably their blues background) whereas with Purple they never left you doubting whether what they played was in major or minor. You hear a track like Burn, you know that riff is in a minor key, no two ways about it. Of course there is also the view that DP were tied down in harmonic tradition while Led Zep was breaking boundaries.

I'll work at my hearing habits, I promise! I even bought the Nirvana album in its anniversary remaster and keep it in the car so I listen to it more often. Except that I don't and then end up listening to Taylor Swift's new album instead. I'm all weird I know!

[4stringer77]

A lot of that Sound Garden tune sounds like Dinosaur Jr. to me. Speaking of the Purple, didn't they throw in some wacky diminished altered stuff on "Super Trouper"?

[Dave W]

Soundgarden were on Letterman Monday night. I'm not a fan, but for you fans who might have missed this, they did an extended (53 minute) concert at the Ed Sullivan Theater that you can watch online - might be US only: http://www.cbs.com/shows/liveonletterman/artist/194340/soundgarden/

[clankenstein]

i can see it in new zealand,thanks.

[uwe]

A lot of that Sound Garden tune sounds like Dinosaur Jr. to me. Speaking of the Purple, didn't they throw in some wacky diminished altered stuff on "Super Trouper"?

I've never played that song, even though I like it. Maybe that is why I never played it, because I avoid playing or even knowing Purple songs - takes away the magic for me! That said the chorus before the Smoke on the Water riff (C amd G#) isn't traditional harmony thinking for a song in G minor either.  <neither is the fact that Woman from Tokyo has a G major and F major verse, yet an E major riff/chorus. But in those songs the chord changes didn't sound mannered.

For all you Soundgarden fans: I'll buy the new CD of your heroes just to know what they are doing!