Taking Sides: Metallica vs. Soundgarden

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Inspired by the 'FormationsMutationApplication' thread, because there was something that bugged me about it and now I know what it is. Metallica's first three albums were excellent, then they did an OK marking-time follow-up, then they released the inexplicably acclaimed breakthrough that was really a murky, boring disaster, and have generally sucked since. Soundgarden released three albums of lumpy, ugly pointlessness, then a great metal record with 'Badmotorfinger', then a fantastically great 'breakthrough' (that was 10,000 times better than the 'Black Album')rock record ('Superunknown'), then a great pop record ('Down on the Upside' - note how field keeps expanding, as a metal record has potential to be a rock record which has potential to be a pop record, but it doesn't work the other way round, see?) And yet, conventional wisdom accords Soundgarden absolutely no credibility at all, while Metallica are treated like gods! S'garden release singles as wondrous, loopy (yet crushing) and enigmatic (yet primal) as "Black Hole Sun", "Pretty Noose" and the plutonium "Burden in My Hand" - yet Metallica are praised to the skies for that plodding, spastic attempt at a campfire song, "Nothing Else Matters", where you can hear the daggers being stared at Lars Shortarse, which have no effect on the final stumbling, stuporous product.
Now why would this be? I think these bands are critically shoehorned into some variation of the FMA theory, with an added twist - the almost universal belief that bands are supposed to start off brilliant and then get shitty. (This could also be an alternate answer to my FNM vs. Pixies question.) (Some people have claimed that the image of the plodder-who-makes-it is uncomfortably close to capitalist propaganda to excite media types, but that seems unlikely, as there's as many if not more left-leaing culture theorists in other media, and there's not such a fetishisation of early output of authors, directors etc.) In any case, also related to the 'influence' thing in that other thread - the zero-cred Soundgarden's influence can be still be heard (Tool?), while Metallica's first three albums, while great, influence nobody except acned thrashers, who are seen as anachronistic geeks even in extreme-metal circles. (Metallica aren't necessarily seen as such, but the retro "thrash" bands are - black or death is where it's at.) And "Burden in My Hand" is terrific!

― dave q, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tangentially - Soundgarden were always critically slammed as a "testosterone-gone-berserk" band of low-hanging nutsacks ("I want to fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck you!", C. Cornell's "Why should we be ashamed of having penises?"), while Metallica got great mainstream press from their 'glam period', which meant they were obviously more PC and media-friendly. Odd, as James Hetfield has been publicly accused of homophobia by his own drummer and extreme racism by touring partner Ice-T (in print, 'The Ice Opinion') - but then, every smarty has their pet redneck. (Also odd as Soundgarden, being from the Northwest, are pathologically incapable of having any incorrect thoughts whatever. It's been proven medically, people from the region lack the Gender Insensitivy Gene. Except for maybe Ted Bundy.)

― dave q, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nothing much to add, except that i completely agree that soundgarden's last three albums are fantastic, each better than the last. cornell's solo album is ewwwwwww, though... and i always thought that big dumb sex's chorus was (spit) ironic, and the protests of 'there's nothing wrong with having penises' some doomed rally against the music press's belief that ver 'garden were wholly sexless doom-meisters cos their lyrics were mostly absent of 'big bottom', 'sex farm' type wisdoms...

― stevie, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh, soundgarden all the way, totally—i did like metallica somewhat in high school (although '... and justice for all' maybe got about an eighth of the personal airplay that soundgarden's cover of 'swallow my pride' did) but after bob rock touched them and they decided to make videos on a regular basis they just plunged deeper and deeper into suck.

re soundgarden i'd argue that there are quite a few high spots on both 'screaming life' and 'fopp,' and that 'flower' pretty much set the pace for what made an excellent (please excuse possibly hateful phrase coming up) grunge single - the way it chugs along is absolutely monstrous. but there was definitely something missing then, and the post-hiro yamamoto period of soundgarden contains a good chunk of the best rock of the 1990s—face pollution, new damage, pretty noose, need i go on?

― maura, Sunday, 13 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

forget aesthetics when it comes to the new U2 corporate boys on the block

boycott Metallica, who pre-empted a proper assessment of Napster for their own copyright protection reasons (just so lame out-takes might not be heard for the truth about the band they represented)

Metallica, in defending their rights in oh-so-American capitalist crunch deserve the perpetual gypsy curse from everybody with half an eye for an argument that is not just Metallica-black

deliver that curse -- do not buy these people's records -- do not play them in your house -- tell your friends

tough guys, rockers, nah, corporate pawns who like to wear shiny black clothes -- you participate in Metallica and that makes you pawn g-zillion -- "listens to Metallica" = "non-thinking loser"

debate of any merits that Metallica might have here plays into the bands hand and promotes them further -- forget about them -- renounce this thread -- spit on their grave

― George Gosset, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Are you related to DJ Martian? Go to the same school or something?

― Josh, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Lack of influence, accusations of racism and homophobia, they fucked Napster, these things are all meaningless in the face of the intro to 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. So yeah Metallica not that I rate them post-Black, but they made one of my favourite metal-albums second only to 'Reign in Blood' really. It's '...And Justice for All' btw. where metal meets techno without anybody, including the players themselves (or me at the time, for that matter), knowing about it. Soundgarden? Allright, saw them play live once, they didn't suck. I always liked Mudhoney though.

― Omar, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Two things:

(1) Metallica never had a "glam period" (that was PANTERA!)

(2) Soundgarden's "Big Dumb Sex" is IRONIC!

― Alex in NYC, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Napster was cool, but they deserved to be fucked anyway. It's just a good thing that Metallica did the dirty work, as opposed to a band people actually 'liked'.

― dave q, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And everybody who says the Pixies invented the light twinkly/impossibly heavy hard rock dynamics that Nirvana eventually leveraged didn't listen to "Fade to Black" every fucking hour of the day like I did.

But nothing Metallica ever did was as loose and heavy as "Outshined". I think they really tried for that on the black album but it was beyond them. Hetfield couldn't sing about anything that was actually important to him - he went from Priest-style cliches to "issues of importance to the public at large" to fictionalized accounts of same to... who cares? Cornell and Thayil (Kim Thayil! what a figure in rock! an interview i remember: "so, Soundgarden tours must be pretty crazy, huh?" KT: "uh, I actually just visit a lot of bookstores") were tough and huge but also extremely vulnerable and intimate. The Tupac of rock.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Tupac of...I'll have to think about that one.

I never saw Metallica and I saw Soundgarden three times, so I guess them by default. Chris Cornell once landed in my friend Kris' lap. She was happier than anyone else in the entire world ever.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Big Dumb Sex" might be IRONIC (wink wink), but it's also pretty damn stupid. It's irony for kids in know-it-all college kids too busy reading about being hip & edgy to actually BE hip & edgy (which, of course, is damn near impossible). They improved on that, though - for instance, "Tighter & Tighter", the most ludicrous attempt at a meaningful, anthemic sludgy psychedelic song ever essayed by a group (I'm guessing) taking the piss out of such things. (Perhaps I'm overreaching, though).

And by Metallica going "glam", I assume we are referencing the post- Load era, where James & Co. tried to emulate Superunknown-era Soundgarden in every possible way (and fell short in every possible way, though it's not all bad).

But, c'mon - Metallica covered King Diamond, Soundgarden covered Cheech & Chong. Take a freaking GUESS who comes out on top?

I would go into something about Tool & Co. being influenced by all those neato "math-rock" Touch & Go bands, but I'm working.

And is "Fade to Black" that acoustic/RAWK song? Y'know, the one they keep on copying?

― David Raposa, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Down on the Upside would've been MUCH better if Adam Kasper didn't record it, though. He messed up that Pond record on Dreamworks (?), too.

― David Raposa, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hello, soundgarden also covered the ohio players and green river ...

― maura, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Can you really call that Green River song a "cover", though? It was more a grunge rite of passage, given that almost every Seattle band worth a thought gave it a whirl.

― David Raposa, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And that Cheech & Chong comment was meant to be PRO-Soundgarden.

― David Raposa, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm not sure from whence this conventional wisdom comes. I've never considered Soundgarden a "zero-cred" band. Metallica since The Black Album HAS been a "zero-cred" band. Other than that I agree with everything you said about the music, except for "And Justice For All" being an "OK marking-time followup". It's much better than that, for "One" alone.

― Kris, Monday, 14 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I knew this would happen - there appears to be one person from the UK (not inc. me) contributing to this thread.

― DG, Tuesday, 15 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That's because the UK was getting sideswiped by Wibbling Rivalry as the US tied dirty lumberjack shirts around the waist and dove off the stacks. Even Flow YEAH!

― David Raposa, Tuesday, 15 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

metallica have always sounded like lynyrd skynyrd speeded up to me even when they tried to get proggy . and justice for all? justice for tennis playing scando-toff's shite no-ideas band when they sue napster? "call of chtulu" is their only saving grace. at least soundgarden steered clear of the strawberry nose career path and "metallica"???????? seriously could you really live with yourself if that was the best band name you could come up with??

― bob snoom, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

four months pass...

I say Soundgarden, simply because I like their music more.

And how can James Hetfield be a homophobe when his band's lead guitarist and so-called best friend is openly bisexual?

― Jared Hecht, Wednesday, 5 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.