MUSIC!
Chris Cornell, playing acoustic guitar only, in a small club in Sweden. This was his only his second ever run through of this this song supposedly!
The song was written while Audioslave were touring and Hurricane Katrina hit. If you listen to the lyrics of the song this is obvious, as is the indictment of FEMA and the White House for "sleeping at a time, when you should have been wide awake."
Cornell's voice is hard to find adjectives for. There are all kinds of voices in rock - smooth like Jack Johnson, heavenly like Jeff Buckley, full of gravitas like Leonard Cohen, crooning like Mozzer's. But Cornell's... Well, just listen. The only person I think can give him a run for his money is Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
I'll give you his revamped version of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" as a bonus and as Exhibit #2 of his voice and sheer emotiveness.
These versions are both from the album "Chris Cornell: Unplugged in Sweden (2006)" by the way. I can't recommend that album highly enough. 12 of the 13 tracks are nearly perfect. One of my favorite CDs in the last year or two (since I discovered it).
Thursday, June 26
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4 comments:
Speaking of his voice, what a difference between his singing (which you could also compare to James Dean Bradfield) and his speaking at the end of the first track.
Yeah, if I tried to sing like he does for 30 seconds I'd be on Ricolas for a month. You can't hear it here so much but he can be crystal smooth too and has a range supposedly equal to that of the late Jeff and Tim Buckley - 8 octaves or something. And I don't mean cheating my going into a falsetto, he can transition (I've heard it) from deeper than I can go to way higher without a hitch.
This particular album is cool because it's got a little of everything - stuff from his time with Temple of the Dog (with Vedder), Soundgarden, Audioslave, and solo, plus covers of Michael Jackson, Elvis Costello, Led Zeppelin, and Bob Marley. A real variety of sounds, and the recording quality is impeccable.
I only came to appreciate Soundgarden and Chris Cornell in particular a few years ago, well after their heyday (though of course I liked Black Hole Sun and Fell On Black Days - even had the album), but I regarded them like Pearl Jam and STP - grunge acts that sounded similar while I was still into the cleaner late-80s (or early 80s for that matter) sound.
Just goes to show if you keep an open mind and are always willing to give things another try at another date, you may find yourself pleasantly surprised. This goes for loads of other 80s and 90s bands too. In general, I don't like bands when I first hear them (there are exceptions). Some of my favorites in fact were ones I absolutely couldn't stand at first, but things have a way of growing on a person. Well, hopefully not literally. That's why we take showers.
http://chriscornell.org.uk/bio.htm
Sorry, make that 4-octaves. I'm a musical idiot. Still, if you listen to old Soundgarden songs like "Beyond the Wheel" and such, you'll hear all four octaves in their majesty. I actually prefer his voice now that he's older, it's so much more gravelly (like Cohen's got).
And by the way, I learned that he and Jeff Buckley were very good friends and Chris was really torn up when Jeff died and wrote several songs specifically to him. I didn't know they had a close connection. Two of the generation's best rock voices!
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