POLL it to hell and gone: DOWN ON THE UPSIDE

This will be even more opening-track-biased than the Massive Attack - Protection poll, I predict

That's a risk when you open with "Pretty Noose"...

"Blow Up The Outside World" and "Burden In My Hand" will get votes though, and "Never The Machine Forever" should court the Nick Oliveri crew...

Switch Opens for me.

this album is fucking awesome don't care what anyone says

I will have a hard time voting for anything other than "Burden" b/c I probably listened to that 1000 times a day when this came out but "Ty Cobb," "Pretty Noose" and "Dusty" are also faves of mine

i don't think i've ever heard this whole album but i'd be real surprised if it had a better song than pretty noose.

I've been listening to this album on Spotify but I haven't ever really gotten beyond Burden before going back to hear "Pretty Noose" again

will however give the whole thing a fair hearing...Burden is really good inna wtf-sgdn-gone-folk style

Louis, if you PM me I'll post you the LL demos.

bam, right there

Really good album, held back from greatness I think by length - unlike Superunknown, there's three or four things that could be shaved off of this for a tighter, harder-hitting record. Of course the sprawl is part of the charm (I think I namechecked this on my "Mellon Collie" thread for this reason) but the material is here for Superunknown II, it just kind of gets swamped, especially in the second half.

Uh, but yeah, "Pretty Noose" or "Ty Cobb" ftw.

I can still quote from memory my friend PJ's beautiful interpretation of "Ty Cobb" on first hearing:

I'm sitting in a magic hell
Fish wipe their mirrors
And the devil walks until he finds a pear, yeah hey yeah
One man slowing down
Sucking on a bottle Bactine
And no! more! fucking fucker teeth, yeah hey yeah

I'm here to fuck you all
I'm here to fuck you all
I'm here to fuck you all
Just say it now,
and tomorrow I'll get some

Cigarette hair, sock in the mouth
Tell me what to say
Now pimp, now you don't get a say
Got the grass, got some steam,
now I got everything
And all I need
Is your head in space

i don't think this album was ever looked at as a "big flop"...obviously it was kind of on a slope downward from the peak of Superunknown but it was well liked and had some big singles and probably would be looked at more fondly if the band had kept going for a few more albums after that. really like the midtempo stuff like "Dusty" and "Burden In My Hand," but the hard stuff and the weird stuff are really good, too.

This record is perhaps the perfect example of the overlong CD-age album. If this record was cut by a third, it would have been so much better.

Dusty

Ty Cobb

i don't think this album was ever looked at as a "big flop"

I think that perception comes from received wisdom that '96 was the year of big rock "flops" (Load, New Adventures In Hi-Fi, No Code etc)* which paved the way for the late 90s rapcore/techno/ska movement.

*All of which sold in #s labels would kill for today.

I really like Burden in My Hand. I never got that into this album and can't remember too many other songs

I've actually been reading a bunch of reviews from around that time... generally favorable though... the journalistic obsession with placing this record and band in the context of "grunge" would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic. Lots of lazy not-getting-it in re a band that sold a shit-ton of records last time out so now you have to cover them.

I should post a few of the choice quotes.

Gotta go with "Burden in My Hand," but I have huge love for "Boot Camp" as well.

this album was definitely seen as a disappointment compared to their other albums. Def the weakest album in their catalogue IMO. Still like it though, I saw them on this tour.

Do a badmotorfinger poll next!

having put more than a fair amount of effort into enjoying their pre-Badmotorfinger releases I have to say there is NO way this is their weakest album.

Do a badmotorfinger poll next!

Bank on it. Wondering if I should include SOMMS...

Don't bother, you know Jesus Christ Pose will win ;-)

(altho I'm probs voting Something...or Mind Riot)

I caned the hell out of this album in 1996, it's a toss-up between Pretty Noose, Burden In My Hand and Ty Cobb. May end up going with Ty Cobb purely for it being bonkers.

(altho it's easy to forget how kickass Slaves & Bulldozers is)

having put more than a fair amount of effort into enjoying their pre-Badmotorfinger releases I have to say there is NO way this is their weakest album.

Ultra Mega OK is great, Louder Than Love used to be my least fave but now it's the one I play the most!

*SomeWHERE, fuck me

no ta

ha

(Am now considering JCP after all...this isn't actually gonna be easy)

MTV-banned original Frank Kozik Pretty Noose vid (tiny but awesome): http://web.stargate.net/soundgarden/multimedia/video/pn2.mpg

still torn between that and Burden...

huh, i always wondered why the lead single from the album never got any video play. that probably hurt the album's sales as much as anything else.

i think "Overfloater" is the song that gets stuck in my head the most from this record, awesome riff.

TY COBB!

weirdly, I've heard this album many, many times, but have absolutely no recollection of tracks 8–16.

I listened to this again yesterday and I'd forgotten most of the second half and was surprised how good it was. Tighter & Tighter is awesome, I really want a cover version with a female vocalist.

Boot Camp is a great closer as well.

Boot Camp = Floydgarden!

Overfloater too, with a hint o'Bad Co

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wau @ lack of votes for burden

not lack of votes in general?

hmm well i thought about this for approx. 0.3 seconds and voted "pretty noose" so i dunno what everyone else was doing

i think in a way DOTU exemplifies one of my favorite kinds of albums -- a band that's already had their big pop breakthrough and is at the top of their game, just jamming a record full of weird ideas and seemingly unconcerned with making sure it's the perfect follow-up, indulgent in the best way

wau at the lack of love for soundgarden period - sample too small for anything to be Proven By Science here.

I'm the Burden vote, btw.

on some days "Burden" is my fav SG single, but i think i voted for "Dusty." i'm sure the Badmotor poll will get more votes.

Still love "Burden" but i don't know the album well so I didn't vote.

i can barely remember how a lot of those tracks go, particularly some of the ones that got no votes. and my copy of the CD is upstairs somewhere...

I had been seriously overexposed to Soundgarden by the time this came out, and I've never listened to it. Checking the tracklist, I actually don't think I've even heard any of the songs even in passing.

Didn't even see this thread till now. I need to listen to this album again, but I'm of the opinion that the best track from the album sessions is one that isn't even on the finished product - Karaoke.

TY COBB!

weirdly, I've heard this album many, many times, but have absolutely no recollection of tracks 8–16.

― m the g, Friday, 27 March 2009 17:59 (3 days ago) Bookmark

---- Haha, yeah me too! It's a really frontloaded album.

also, the songs here seem to have fairly cleasr equivalents on superunknown - Blow Up The Outside World = The Day I Tried To Live; Ty Cobb = Spoonman; Pretty Noose = Black Hole Sun.

How does Ty Cobb equal Spoonman?

how on earth does pretty noose = black hole sun?

i dunno... i'm trying to be clever. i'll get back in me box.

i think Kim's pretty brilliant on it, but to these ears, "Burden" is where we start approaching Audioslave territory...

I think you people need to go back and listen to Dusty again. Or maybe I do.

@kornrulez I just went back and listened to Dusty again. It's still great. This whole record is so goddamn good.

@kanye Not hearing the Audioslave in Burden. It swings, and Matt Cameron is in the fullness of his power throughout, but esp. on the triplets following the epic "moon is glued to a picture of heaven" line and thereafter. What am I not hearing?

on further review, Overfloater feels like a riff on No Quarter

Recent Superunknown revive got me thinking about this album again. Listening to it probably for the first time since this poll. Sounding really huge, kickass and awesome but also with more texture maybe than Superunknown? The groove on "Dusty," the layered strumming on "Burden in my Hand" that almost sounds like a honky-tonk piano or something, the MASSIVE chorus on "Blow Up The Outside World" (which bored me at the time but now just sounds amazing, bombs going off in dude's voice). Totally defensible follow-up though I stand by my comments about it being too long.

yeah it's one of those really solid records that just had the wrong timing, the wrong singles, a sense that their time had passed, etc.

They also broke up while still touring on it, right? Not sure if that made a difference though.

i don't think it made a difference per se -- the album had been out for like 9 months and the singles had pretty much run their course. but it definitely cemented that feeling at the time that it was part of the general commercially disappointing major label rock/alternative albums of 1996 malaise.

A long trip into alt-rock New Jersey, that thread.

(i kid, i kid, most of them emphatically fail basic tests of new-jerseytude)

it is good. i played it a lot at the time, even if it seemed to fall short of the legendary status they'd achieved.

i wonder now if there are any songs that compete with the best superunknown songs (of which there are many).

at many points they seem like they're returning to some of their pre-superunknown rock-it-out moves, more screaming, with less long-considered songwriting.

This is definitely my favourite Soundgarden album. Even if the second half dissolves into nothing, the singles and highlights more than prop it up.

This record is perhaps the perfect example of the overlong CD-age album.

It's an ok example.

good thread idea imo

I would have voted for 'Never The Machine Forever', seriously can't believe that that didn't get a vote!

Tighter & Tighter is a great tucked-away track, and maybe the most Superunknown-sounding thing in sight here.

the problem is that there are simply too many songs on here, not that any of them are particularly forgettable.

lol @ the overt nod to No Quarter on Boot Camp

Superunknown is a bit too long too tbh, I'd ditch "Limo Wreck" and maybe "Fresh Tendrils"

savages itt

agreed that Superunknown is a a couple of tracks too long, but would never ditch Limo or Tendrils. :)

Superunknown is a bit too long too tbh, I'd ditch "Limo Wreck" and maybe "Fresh Tendrils"

u monster

yes!! fresh fucking tendrils!!

― forkshighwaytopoopon (some dude), Tuesday, August 16, 2011 11:01 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

― i wanna be a gabbneb baby (Hungry4Ass), Sunday, June 30, 2013 5:58 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday, July 2, 2013 9:29 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark

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― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Sunday, September 28, 2014 3:39 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Saturday, February 7, 2015 2:50 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

DITCH "LIMO WRECK??????

To be honest, I'd ditch 'Limo Wreck' and 'Fresh Tendrils' too, and probably 'Mailman' while I'm at it!

I definitely agree that Down On The Upside is a bit on the overlong side, although apart from 'Applebite' (which I've never liked) I'm not sure what I'd cut from the record.

woah woah woah. i mean we can maybe have a reasoned discussion about cutting "half" or "head down" but... fresh tendrils?!

I like 'Half' and 'Head Down', though... they're kinda like the "psychedelic" moments on the record!

Head Down, Mailman and Limo Wreck are my favourite Superunknown tracks

When I was 12 and I bought Superunknown about half of it bored me - didn't have the attention span for getting into the slower album tracks, and with no ear for metal at the time, its unrelenting guitar churn wore on me over 70 minutes - I routinely skipped over "4th of July," which doom metallers adore, until revisiting the album a few years back. I had less trouble embracing Down on the Upside as an album when it came out a couple years later - it's punkier and lighter on its feet. It's also (even) more blatantly Zeppelinesque than its predecessor, which I guess no one else ever notices. I mean, at least three tracks on Down on the Upside channel Houses of the Holy directly (and pretty brilliantly): "The Ocean" for "Rhinosaur," "Over the Hills and Far Away" for "Zero Chance," and "No Quarter" for "Boot Camp."

These days I'd probably agree that Superunknown is the better record, but this -

DOTU exemplifies one of my favorite kinds of albums -- a band that's already had their big pop breakthrough and is at the top of their game, just jamming a record full of weird ideas and seemingly unconcerned with making sure it's the perfect follow-up, indulgent in the best way

strikes me as totally OTM. Also, you all are fucking nuts for even entertaining the possibility of dropping "Limo Wreck" from Superunknown - that's like the best track!

Superunknown is a bit too long too tbh, I'd ditch "Limo Wreck" and maybe "Fresh Tendrils"

― Simon H., Thursday, February 26, 2015 10:06 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fp

^otfm. Can we NOT excise tracks from Superunknown?

i even feel sorry for people in countries that don't get to have She Likes Suprises in their Superunknown

"Never the Machine Forever" sounds like a Torche precursor

everybody who shat on Limo Wreck upthread can get fucked

Hard headed fuck you all

why didnt i vote for Burden why

WE ARE NOT DROPPING LIMO WRECK

also 'i'm here to fuck you all' is better than 'hard-headed fuck you all'

cigarette hair, sock in the mouth, tell me what to say

but also with more texture maybe than Superunknown

it does have a lot more, thayil and cornell (assuming it's ever him) have a lot more wailing-out time, and the lines in general are just a lot more hairy, less streamlined than superunknown - but the production is really flat and hollow, does a disservice to the texturizing

'Never the Machine Forever' is still my favourite thing on this. Wish Thayil had written more stuff towards the back end of the original run. Shepherd's handprints are all over this record - not that this is a bad thing of course, but he seemed to be (by this stage) a dominant creative force in the band along with Cornell, whereas Thayil just kinda faded into the background songwriting wise.

I'm here to fuck you all
I'm here to fuck you all
I'm here to fuck you all

Man do I love the drumming in the chorus of "burden"

I'm relistening to my shortened version w/ "Bleed Together" and "Karaoke" swapped in and it sounds real good. and I stand by my Superunknown statements

fp

is there a reliable way to tell cornell and thayil's parts apart on record? i read something about 'tighter and tighter' that implied that cornell was the soloist through the end, which surprised me, so i guess aside from the more sonic youth string-disturbance bits that i usually attribute to thayil, i still have no idea what thayil's part playing sounds like, and not always soloing either

http://bravewords.com/news/trouble-s-bruce-franklin-pays-tribute-to-chris-cornell-with-cover-of-soundgarden-s-tighter-tighter-video

it's interesting to hear a slightly undercooked performance of this by a competent peer, it really highlights how important every single person's contributions were to their sound

it's a bit long but this is my favourite SG album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upC4NytWCLI

i read something about 'tighter and tighter' that implied that cornell was the soloist through the end, which surprised me

live at least - uploader sez 'first live tighter & tighter', tho cornell's stage banter suggests they played it live during the DOTU touring - thayil takes the theme the whole time he's not soloing, and he takes all the solos, and when he solos cornell usually covers the theme, but shakier than thayil does. which seems typical for all their performances i've seen, for other songs. thayil tends to shift back and forth depending on what the song needs to be covered by one main part, with cornell picking up slack.

I' M HERET OFUCK YOUALL

AS YOUR HEAD OF STATE! YEAH YEAHYEAH

YEAHYEAH YEAHH!!!!!

HARDHEADED FUCK YOU ALL

I recently made up a version of “blow up the outside” on piano and damn what a crazy chord progression. I’m not that great on piano but it sounds really nice! Kinda shocked someone like the bad plus haven’t taken it on

Feels like I spent my young life just about missing the boat with these US alternate and grunge acts, as this is another example of owning the "wrong" album at the time. So this is the Soundgarden album I know best and I really like oooohhh about 65% of it. But yeah, very frontloaded with high quality tracks