POLL it to hell and gone: DOWN ON THE UPSIDE

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!!

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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!

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