In your Jesus Christ POLL: BADMOTORFINGER

I suppose I could have just stopped with the tracklist at 4...

(ps oh dear mods plz fix title)

Outshined

JESUS CHRIS

(is that better)

I haven't listened in ages, but I seem to remember frequently stopping and rewinding to listen to Room A Thousand Years Wide.

Hey Seuss Christo

Anyway, "Mind Riot" in early 1992 with only guitar and vocals on the first leg of their tour.

haha yeah those first four tracks are basically the whole album for me

don't understand all the 'first four' talk really, never was huge into the singles so when i heard the whole thing i was kinda blown away by how consistent it is. "Somewhere" is probably the all-time favorite, but i haven't listened to the album in years, really should.

i hadnt even heard the singles when i first listened to this bitch, i just notice my attention wanders after JCP every time

Went back and listened to "Room..." now and HELLYESTHISSONGISAMOTHERFUCKER

Jesus Christ Posse, although Slaves & Bulldozers kills live...

Slaves & Bulldozers kills live...

I was really torn on including SOMMS, but feared

a) splitting the slaves and bulldozers vote
b) inability to resist voting for stray cat blues

seriously epic shit here \m/

(also seriously lolgrunge shants'n'boots... cornell rocked those pretty much nonstop 1991/1992)

Room a thousand years wide has always been my go-to-track.

satanoscillatemymetallicsonatas!

I always liked that "feeling Minnesota" lyric, shitty Keanu movie be damned.

Digging this out right now to listen to it for the first time in years.

i guess it's gotta be 'outshined' but 'room a thousand years wide' has one of the best opening riffs of the genre.

lol is he singing 'alive' in the middle of that vid???

goddamn that ownes

it's between Slaves/Jesus/Somewhere/Mind for me

I first thought this was a "Jesus Christ Superstar" poll. :)

Hard choice for me, one of my favorite albums ever. Didn't hear much in the the cursory listen I'd given the their early records. Did not like this one at all when my younger brother's buddy were played it in the living room. All I could hear was churning songs with too many parts that went on too long. But my brother borrowed it, and I gave it a few more chances, and it was "Drawing Flies" that drew me in- 'cause it was fast, 'cause I thought the "x's in my eyes" wordplay and imagery was funny. (The whole record has great lyrics, something they aren't recognized for, 'cause their other discs aren't as tightly written.) With each subsequent play, another song would click for me. By the time the second release came out with SOMMS, there's was no question I'd be buying this disc for the second time in in six months.

All of their other albums try a lot harder for hooks- this one is more gnarled. Seems to force together guitar tones, time signatures, vocal imagery. But the chemistry of the band makes it work. Seems like getting a new member just as they were on the precipice of "making it" added the spark they needed. The credits suggest there was a division of labor on Badmotorfinger that doesn't happen in the rest of their catalog.

I'm gonna have to go with "Drawing Flies", as it was the gateway, and it might not get a lot of other votes. Take Sides: Soundgarden mood-lighteners: Kevin's Mom vs. Drawing Flies vs. Spoonman vs. Ty Cobb.

Definitely regard this as their best album.

I vote for Outshined but really I could vote for most of these tracks on any given day.

FACE POLLUTION

last 1/3 of that song ^ is probably my all-time fave soundgarden moment

"face pollution" is such a grunge song title XD

more epic rocking + lolgrunge fashions

LOVE Drawing Flies...but it's not really representative of the album, dunno

NEW DAMAGE also destroys. But it'll have to be Mind Riot.

Jesus Christ Pose is amazing...the album is amazing...but I think Slaves and Bulldozers is my song.

Just for the ferocity of Cornell's (once) amazing shrieks...NOWWWWWWWW I KNOW WHY YOU'VE BEEN TAKKKKKKKKKENNNNNNNN!!!!!

Room a Thousand Years Wide has such an enormous riff, but it's gotta be JCP.

Listening to this now on Spotify, rather than digging out the cd, and it just got interrupted by an advert for his new album which apparently includes his "groundbreaking single". How the mighty have fallen.

Are you doing all the Soundgarden albums?

I have some cracking bootlegs on mp3 of early Soundgarden somewhere.

Are you doing all the Soundgarden albums?

Ultramega YouBetcha, though I suspect attendance for the next couple is going to be pretty sparse.

What's in it for me?

Slaves and Bulldozers

top 4 going to get all the votes then?

every song deserves a vote

i actually never quite dug rusty cage. kind of plods a bit for me, and i always found it a bit of an unrepresentative track to start the album. the closing two tracks are actually outstanding - i normally never make it that far, because i'm so comprehensively pummeled by some of the earlier tracks.

voted 'Face Pollution' for the hell of it.

this was my absolute favorite band in the world from '89 to late '91. must have seen them literally 8 or 9 times during that span (in which they toured CONSTANTLY)

disagree about "Rusty Cage" ... being a massive 'Louder Than Love' fan, I had so much anticipation for this album, first time I heard "RC" i got goosebumps: they were actually getting *better*. rest of the album didn't really maintain that level, except for JCP, for me

i'm going to go back and listen to 'louder than love'. seems there's much more to it than i initially tapped found.

anyone hear a prelude to 'fresh tendrils' in 'mind riot'? or a precursor to 'mailman' in 'holy water'?

no but i hear a precursor to 'holy water' in 'incessant mace'...

the song that starts out with "this is a pig" and "this is the sound the devil makes" is also a good one. This whole thing is great, with special mention to "Drawing Flies". I love when the whole band drops out and its just Cornell and the bass. Very nice.

I feel like "Outshined" is not going to do that well. I love that song, though.

we're way too indie around here for Outshined to win this, but it burns... it's between that and Slaves & Bulldozers for me

more badmotorfinger video lulz

it's worth remembering that Soundgarden got their major label deal years before "grunge" broke, and it would be years more still before "stoner" had a section at the record store. A&M was selling them as a straight-up metal act.

yeah i saw Soundgarden on Headbanger's Ball more than 120 Minutes, even after grunge hit, definitely.

the "Outshined" video always reminds me of Beavis & Butthead, who thought the bearded dude was the singer from the Spin Doctors. still a great song, don't think it'll suffer too much in the poll since it's by far the album's biggest hit.

Drawing Flies

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I adored this album when it came out, but I re-visited it again the other day and it didn't retain the same punch for me. Alas.

That all said, I'll go with "Searching with My Good Eye Closed," as Cornell's voice is unstoppable on that one. Shame about that solo career.

Rusty Cage is a great opener and I love that slow middle section. This album trails off pretty quickly for me after the first few songs.

Searching With My Good Eye Closed is a dark horse. Hope it gets more than a couple of votes:

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

I feel like "Outshined" is not going to do that well.

whoops

You know an album kicks ass when every single track gets at least two votes.

I was always partial to the Devo cover on SOMMS.

"You know an album kicks ass when every single track gets at least two votes."

truth^

the song that starts out with "this is a pig"

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00004SPXP.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

The "See 'n' Say"! One of my favourite toys as a toddler

You should have photoshopped a picture of Cornell as the farmer

Loud Love poll?

forthcoming... been crazy frazzled with the working

POLL on Kevin's Mom: LOUDER THAN LOVE

woo

finally bought a copy of this on cd after only having a tape for years. it's held up well. I wish stuff like this had mainstream presence nowadays. so creative.

It's exhilirating to hear Cornell utter every verse lyric in "Outshined", with complete and utter conviction.

Funny thing was as a kid, I never really got the 'stoner' connection, but it's clearly there, perhaps moreso than on their later works....

I'm all about Mind Riot at the moment. I think I currently prefer this album to Superunkown - it's dirtier.

Heard this album for the first time in probably 20 years and thought it had aged quite terribly... until I got to side 2.

Searching With My Good Eye Closed -> Room A 1000 Years Wide -> Mind Riot is a killer run.

Sections of Mind Riot reminded me of a Sun City Girls' "Imam" (musically at least)... #seattle

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

Would have voted either 'Outshined' or 'Face Pollution'. Still love this album.

Outshined shouldn't have won. I probably would've gone with Mind Riot, the opening build up is genius.

I can't remember what I voted for. "Jesus Christ Pose" and "Face Pollution" are my favourites but I really think the whole album is amazing.

I just put on "Outshined" and remembered one of the things that made this band stand out. Even though I think of this as one of the more standard post-Zep songs, the verses are in 7, which many heavy rock/stoner rock/grunge bands would not even consider doing. Great verse/pre-chorus/two-part-chorus build-up too (and it's still not close to being my favourite!).

There's a great bit in 'Outshined' during the last "show me the power child", where they keep the "outshined! outshined!" rhythm going... puts a bit of an unexpected slant on that part of the song, IMO.

Wow, I just counted the second half of "Rusty Cage": 5 bars of 3 + 1 bar of 4!

I don't know if you'll agree with me on this, Sund4r, but I always felt there was something about Soundgarden's use of odd time signatures and time signature changes that felt incredibly natural. Like, sometimes when I hear pieces of music that utilise time signature changes, I get the impression that the time sig changes have been shoehorned in just for the sake of it, but with a lot of Soundgarden songs it just feels like the riffs actually came out that way without any planning. I'm sure there was some thought put into that stuff, of course, but with this band it just feels like a lot of their stuff was written naturally and just happened to be in an odd time sig or have time sig changes in it, whether they wrote them in consciously or not.

I remember reading an interview with Thayil in which he said half the time they weren't even aware they were using weird time sigs, they just thought it sounded cool.

Slaves and Bulldozers is the jam from this one. the part where he goes from shrilly screaming NOW I KNOW WHY YOU'VE BEEN SHAKING to pulling back into a more Robert Plant vocal in the chorus is just so awes.

I mean, I'm sure that Matt Cameron noticed when he wasn't playing in 4/4 with snare hits on 2 and 4 but I do agree that Soundgarden's time changes or asymmetrical metres flow in a really intuitive way. (I feel the same way about the Beatles' "Blackbird" and Rush's "Limelight", for example.) I get what Thayil meant: he was just trying to write heavy riffs and wasn't deliberately thinking "I want to do something in 7" or "I want to do something in 6-bar phrases with 5 bars of 3 and 1 bar of 4". Those were just the things he did intuitively to write good songs.

What disturbs me is that Wikipedia states that the second part of "Rusty Cage" is in 19/8. Might have to start doing some Wikipedia editing.

Well, 5x3+1x4=19, but I wouldn't notate it as 19/8. Christ.

Well, yeah, that's what I mean. Counting the whole phrase as a single bar of 19 (!) is pretty ridiculous.

That and it doesn't feel like a single bar of 19!

I think this is the record that has by far survived the grunge era the best for me. This and maybe Meantime.

Fixed it. I wonder if someone will change it back, arguing that they really feel the 19.

xpost

Reminds me of a story my mate told me - he was watching a band with the most amazing drummer who was pulling off all kinds of ultra-technical odd time sig shit. After the gig he asked him what the time signature was on one tune, and the drummer replied, "I always play in 1/1"

Wow, I just counted the second half of "Rusty Cage": 5 bars of 3 + 1 bar of 4!

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Tuesday, July 2, 2013 10:13 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hear it as three bars of three and two bars of five fwiw

I just played it a few times at low to moderate volume (since I'm at work). I can hear it your way, although right now, I think the guitars support my analysis. I usually try to avoid analysing asymmetrical metres if there's a simpler explanation tbh. I'll listen again at home when I can play it loud enough to hear the drums really clearly.

My problem with counting it as 5 bars of 3 is that then the fourth bar of "3" doesn't have a hit on the 1.

sorry I mean the fifth bar of "3"

so counting the 5's is the only way I can come up with to avoid an awkward bar with no downbeat

OK, I listened a few times on headphones now. Basically, as I suspected, the guitars and bass do what I said and the drums do what you said, which is what gives this section its rhythmic tension. (You're a drummer, right?) In the 5/4 measures of your analysis, you're hearing the snare hit on beat 3? If I were transcribing the guitar or bass part, I'd probably notate it like I said originally. If I were transcribing a full band arrangement, I might do it your way and write in syncopations in the guitar and bass parts to avoid having to notate shifting accents in the drum line.

In the 5/4 measures of your analysis, you're hearing the snare hit on beat 3?

Actually, no. I'm not that experienced with analysing/transcribing drum parts, tbh, but I'm not sure I'm hearing a consistent 5-beat pattern for 2 bars at the end of this phrase.

Basically, I'm hearing something closer to this in the drums:
Three bars of 3/4 with the hit on 1
2 bars of 3/4 with a hit (or accent) on the & of 2 (different from the previous beat but still a 3-beat pattern)
a bar of 4/4 with the hit/accent on 3 (non-standard but with the riff, this really does feel like a bar of 4 to me)

I'll be honest, though: the riff really feels like the predominant element here so it may be distracting me from what's really going on in the drums.

The drums and guitars are accenting the same beats pretty much all the time, so just assume I am focusing on the riff. There are three bars of three where the hits are like this:

1-2-AND-3 1-2-AND-3 1-2-AND-3

After that you could count a fourth bar of three with accents on all three downbeats (1 2 3), but then the problem is that makes the next bar accent on the "and" of 1 which is very awkward (no downbeat). So instead I'm thinking of that fourth bar as a bar of five. I agree that that makes the last bar of five not really feel like a bar of five. Maybe it makes more sense to think of it as 3 - 3 - 3 - 5 - 3 - 2

Oh, I can hear that.

'outshined' is the most recent good song to get played on rock radio

haha i love this time signature convo

i totally believe that thayil and some other members of the band were only dimly aware of what time signature they were playing in -- drummers kinda HAVE to think about that stuff but ime you can trick guitarists and bassists into playing in time signatures they would claim not to understand if you just let them find the groove.

I do remember an interview (I think Guitar magazine?) with Kim Thayil where he was actually saying that Chris was telling them how to count certain phrases.

NB Chris started out as a drummer and wrote a ton of the riffs

a remaster of this could rule so hard

just louderize the shit out of it make those matt cameron drums shake the ground

i'm thinking about how massive some of the riffs would sound. in particular, Outshined and Room a Thousand Years Wide.

feelin

that verse riff for "Holy Water" don't mess around

MIIIIIIND RIOTTT

the back half of this kind of turns into an anticipation of down on the upside

in a way...abandons the Sabbath heavy dirge riffing and goes into some of that open string psychedelic noodling they'd do later. just think they did it better here than on the latter.

will say the Upside stuff sounded nice live tho lst year.

yeah i tend to think of it in my head as all sabbath heavy dirge riffing b/c of beginning and 'new damage', plus other stuff i kind of just lump together as 'not anything'

the hammer-on/pull-off riffs in weird tunings was always one of my favorite bits they did on BMF through Upside. especially the title track to Superunknown, that main riff.

It was also hella fun to be 15 years old learning the guitar and tuning a shitty Fender Squire to their weird tunings and learning to play these songs.

did not know they were remastering this!

It's already on Spotify

http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/10/soundgarden-announce-deluxe-reissue-of-badmotorfinger-for-25th-anniversary/

7 discs and no SOMMS EP? What's up with that?

That second CD also features the version of “New Damage” with Queen’s Brian May.

whaaaa

my music news pipeline has utterly failed me

it sounds good! not the revelation i would have wished, which was maybe impossible (still kind of in mark arm 'rush' territory in the drums), but the bass has more body and there's more definition and separation in the guitar parts.

the latter brings out the constant texturing and noisification they've always got going on, but it especially adds to the faster songs in the latter half, because the twistiness of the riffs is made to stand out

It will never sound better than on my 1991 cassette.

OTMFM.

Dammit, just remembered that this is one of those albums I have to listen to anytime people start discussing it.

i'm thinking about how massive some of the riffs would sound. in particular, Outshined and Room a Thousand Years Wide.

― charlie h, Thursday, June 5, 2014 8:23 PM (two years ago)

oddly, it's the buzzing thayil (i assume that's him) drone under the verses on 'room' that stands out for me—the weirdness of it definitely seems accentuated

Slaves and Bulldozers is still my fuckin fav

man I haven't listened to this since I had it on tape when it was new

still pretty fuckin good

This album will always rule, IMO. I'd love to have been in the rehearsal room when they were learning how to play 'Face Pollution' ... the second half of that track is still one of my favourite Soundgarden moments.

I had this album on really poorly pressed vinyl back in the day and was never sure all the tricky changes in Face Pollution weren't my needle skipping

hard to imagine that this and use your illusion came out in the same month

hmm I guess use your illusion was
OUTSHINED
OUTSHINED
OUTSHINED

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/18/chris-cornell-soundgarden-audioslave-dead-aged-52

But there’s no doubt that Nirvana’s success propelled them to new heights of popularity, aided by the fact that Soundgarden’s breakthrough album Badmotorfinger, was clearly their most focused and commercial to date. But Soundgarden’s oft-reviled willingness to court a mainstream rock audience – “Fuck, you sound like Rush,” offered Mudhoney’s Mark Arm disparagingly on hearing Badmotorfinger – was always balanced by a certain strangeness and desire to experiment.

From the interview Ned posted:

Regarding your own playing, some people I’ve spoken to feel that Rush’s last two albums were more commercial than usual. Was that on purpose?

NP: Well, if we were trying to be commercial, we failed.

this album fucking rules, start to finish

yes

love that every song got a vote

This is the only Soundgarden album I ever put on.

I got to see Johnny Cash play around the time of the second American album. It was right after Soundgarden broke up, and I vividly remember him introducing "Rusty Cage" is his trademark baritone. "I sure hope those boys get back together again."

30 years old!

now i know why you've been taken

Slaves and Bulldozers is the fuckin best

This album has aged really well.

otm

NOW I KNOW WHEN YOUVE BEEN TAKEN

why

Slaves and Bulldozers is the fuckin best

― Gardyloominati (Neanderthal), Friday, October 8, 2021 7:36 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

best cornell vocal performance?

So many tropes of the Mainstream Rock Format come together here - drop D, jagged time signatures, over-the-top self pity and self aggrandizement, but yeah, it has so much going on and such sly humor it has really aged well. It's not brickwall compressed, so it does sound like four guys in a room, which helps. Secret weapon: horns.

While I don't like this album quite as much as "Superunknown", I will say that "Outshined" is among their best songs.

the highs are HIGH

i much prefer this to superunknown but idk, i guess i formed that opinion when i was 14 and have stuck by it without really revisiting

yeah same but in reverse

(but i have revisited)

the devil says
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

the amount of time i spent with this cassette it would count as one of my best friends

wdyll in a badmotorfinger shirt on my 16th (?) bday

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154912576217912&set=a.426357297911&type=3

shit

try that again

https://i.imgur.com/k9isJOC.jpg

That photo rules.

I'm all in with Badmotorfinger over Superunknown and I'd still vote Jesus Christ Pose in this poll. I still don't really understand how they make the noise they make.

A new daaaaaaamaaaaaaage

I vividly remember driving through the woods in the middle of nowhere with some friends looking for a party as a senior in high school listening to this a few days after it came out and REALLY digging "searching with my good eye closed" when it came on, all swirly and heavy and shit.

I also really wish someone in louisiana would stage some sort of 5k fun run and call it the 'rusty cajun run' which is the only way I hear that line these days.

also i fucking LOVE the horns on drawing flies

xpost lol rusty cajun run

I saw them a few years later with blind melon and neil young (with booker t & the mgs) which is maybe the most wtf 90s lineup I can think of.

Room a Thousand Years Wide is an all-time song

is there really any bad ones on this?

"Searching with my Good Eye Closed" is what they began the first show I saw of theirs with

yes, same for my first soundarden show

such a beast of an opener

this is really the album where Cornell's voice got body to it. his mid-range really became more of a weapon so he wasn't just an air raid siren all of the time. just funny how different he sounded in the early days - like he sounded great, don't get me wrong, but he sometimes lived in the stratosphere ("Nothing to Say", "Beyond the Wheel"), and his mid to lower range wasn't used as well - and the music was a bit noisier, rubbery and less dense idea-wise pre-Shepherd.

here he really added dynamics and become a multi-pronged weapon. some of my favorite vocal performances from him on here.

Mind Riot isn't the greatest song on this necessarily but it's the one I spend the most time thinking about when I'm not listening to the album

I owned it on cassette at first, so I always think of “Rusty Cage” thru “Jesus Christ Pose” as basically one long song.

Mind Riot isn't the greatest song on this necessarily but it's the one I spend the most time thinking about when I'm not listening to the album

― thing that i used to think was cool but now i just don't have time for (stevie),

That build up! It's got a totally mental tuning as well, every string is 'e'.

I really don't think there's a bad song on this.

Mind Riot has one of the nicest melodic riffs on the entire album.

Holy Water is also sinister af

I have a distinct memory of hearing Outshined for the first time on my grandmother’s clock radio and feeling like “Whoa, this is so badass, but also nerdy at the same time! Someone made metal just for me!”

tbc I was like 11 years old

You know an album kicks ass when every single track gets at least two votes.

― butt-rock miyagi (rogermexico.), Sunday, April 5, 2009

as true now as it was then \m/

Tomorrow begat tomorrow...

was this posted?

An Oral History Of Badmotorfinger.
How are you celebrating 30 years of 'Badmotorfinger?' https://t.co/7pph0DA6zd

— Chris Cornell (@chriscornell) October 12, 2021

There’s a picture in there of them at the Lollapalooza show I saw in Chicago. My friends and I had gotten way into the Ohio Players and somehow discovered that Soundgarden had covered “Fopp” which of course we never actually heard because it was a small town in 1992.

Anyway we painted FOPP on a bedsheet and snuck it in and unfurled it in the middle of their set and Chris Cornell started laughing and sang a line from it and we were super stoked.

Later RHCP actually covered it and we thought perhaps we had inspired them to learn it backstage on a whim but it turns out they played it pretty frequently.

Heh, someone posted "Drawing Flies" to a xenharmonic/microtonal FB group I read.