Artist: Chris Cornell
Album: Scream
Year: 2009
Grade: 1.5 pretzels
Weezer’s “Pork And Beans” was a great little song that more-or-less flew under the radar last year. One verse had a particularly funny concept behind it:
Everyone likes to dance to a happy song
With a catchy chorus and beat so they can sing along
Timbaland knows the way to reach the top of the charts
Maybe if I work with him I can perfect the art
Now, Rivers Cuomo meant those words ironically, especially since they were inspired by a rough meeting with record label execs, who asked him to write more commercially minded material. Of course Weezer wasn’t going to record with Timbaland. C’mon now, that’d be silly.
Apparently, Chris Cornell missed the irony here. Scream is the former Soundgarden/Audioslave singer’s third solo album, coming on the heels of 2007’s forgettable Carry On. However, for this one, he apparently decided to jettison everything that had won him legions of fans over the years, instead opting for a bizarre, pop-R&B clusterfuck, produced by --- you guessed it --- Timbaland. In the history of unnecessary pairings in music (Lennon & Yoko, David Bowie & Tina Turner, Axl Rose & anybody not named Axl Rose), this desperate attempt to weld Timbaland’s pop sensibilities onto Cornell’s over-earnest rock tendencies ranks as one of the worst.
Now, there could have been something great here. A real rock-R&B crossover hit would have been an interesting creature indeed. However, in order for that to work, both Timbaland and Cornell would have needed to adjust and find some sort of a middle ground where their musical styles can relate to each other. Unfortunately, on Scream, neither seems willing to give an inch. Timbaland’s beats sound like they were imported from a Justin Timberlake album, while Cornell just keeps doing the throat-shredding screams he’s been doing since the mid-80s. Instead of a genuine artistic collaboration, it sounds like a rough mixtape Timbaland made with old Soundgarden records.
It also doesn’t help that the songs blow viciously. Cornell has never been an upper-echelon songwriter, but his work with Soundgarden (and even occasionally with Audioslave) still had a unique and recognizable edge to it. However, over a decade down the line, his songs have been reduced to excruciating metaphors (“you are the ocean I will swallow, you are the wind that I will ride”) and bland platitudes. The leadoff track, “Part Of Me”, seems like a microcosm for everything that’s wrong with these new songs. It relies too heavily on electronic effects and production, hoping that they will disguise the fact that the chorus is just one, horribly written line: “that bitch ain’t a part of me.” This is the kind of writing I expect from the acoustic guitar guy at my old high school, not one of Seattle’s most revered rock gods. Cornell, buddy, what happened?
As if that wasn’t enough, Cornell and Timbaland throw one last screwball your way by insisting that each track finish with a thirty-second preview of the very next track. If you had to read that sentence a couple times to understand it, I don’t blame you, because it sounds just as weird on record as it does when written out. Apparently, Cornell wanted something reminiscent of old psychedelic records, but if that’s what he was going for here, it failed completely. Hearing a quick jumble of the riffs and themes from the next song doesn’t create any kind of interesting continuity over the course if the record. It just leaves me scratching my head in confusion, wondering who in their right mind signed off on this god-forsaken album.
Everyone likes to dance to a happy song
With a catchy chorus and beat so they can sing along
Timbaland knows the way to reach the top of the charts
Maybe if I work with him I can perfect the art
Now, Rivers Cuomo meant those words ironically, especially since they were inspired by a rough meeting with record label execs, who asked him to write more commercially minded material. Of course Weezer wasn’t going to record with Timbaland. C’mon now, that’d be silly.
Apparently, Chris Cornell missed the irony here. Scream is the former Soundgarden/Audioslave singer’s third solo album, coming on the heels of 2007’s forgettable Carry On. However, for this one, he apparently decided to jettison everything that had won him legions of fans over the years, instead opting for a bizarre, pop-R&B clusterfuck, produced by --- you guessed it --- Timbaland. In the history of unnecessary pairings in music (Lennon & Yoko, David Bowie & Tina Turner, Axl Rose & anybody not named Axl Rose), this desperate attempt to weld Timbaland’s pop sensibilities onto Cornell’s over-earnest rock tendencies ranks as one of the worst.
Now, there could have been something great here. A real rock-R&B crossover hit would have been an interesting creature indeed. However, in order for that to work, both Timbaland and Cornell would have needed to adjust and find some sort of a middle ground where their musical styles can relate to each other. Unfortunately, on Scream, neither seems willing to give an inch. Timbaland’s beats sound like they were imported from a Justin Timberlake album, while Cornell just keeps doing the throat-shredding screams he’s been doing since the mid-80s. Instead of a genuine artistic collaboration, it sounds like a rough mixtape Timbaland made with old Soundgarden records.
It also doesn’t help that the songs blow viciously. Cornell has never been an upper-echelon songwriter, but his work with Soundgarden (and even occasionally with Audioslave) still had a unique and recognizable edge to it. However, over a decade down the line, his songs have been reduced to excruciating metaphors (“you are the ocean I will swallow, you are the wind that I will ride”) and bland platitudes. The leadoff track, “Part Of Me”, seems like a microcosm for everything that’s wrong with these new songs. It relies too heavily on electronic effects and production, hoping that they will disguise the fact that the chorus is just one, horribly written line: “that bitch ain’t a part of me.” This is the kind of writing I expect from the acoustic guitar guy at my old high school, not one of Seattle’s most revered rock gods. Cornell, buddy, what happened?
As if that wasn’t enough, Cornell and Timbaland throw one last screwball your way by insisting that each track finish with a thirty-second preview of the very next track. If you had to read that sentence a couple times to understand it, I don’t blame you, because it sounds just as weird on record as it does when written out. Apparently, Cornell wanted something reminiscent of old psychedelic records, but if that’s what he was going for here, it failed completely. Hearing a quick jumble of the riffs and themes from the next song doesn’t create any kind of interesting continuity over the course if the record. It just leaves me scratching my head in confusion, wondering who in their right mind signed off on this god-forsaken album.
Can you imagine the amount of ego that was involved in this album? Sure, it doesn't even compare to pairings like Axl Rose and anyone not named Axl Rose, but those guys both think they're way more important/influential/talented than they really are.
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