tunesiloved-blog

[tunesiloved-blog]

Chris Cornell - a 24 year soundtrack to my life

I don’t think that there has been a week in the last 24 years when I haven’t listened to Chris Cornell’s voice. His music has been the soundtrack to my life and listening to his songs conjures up vivid memories - sitting in a field watching bats at twilight, bouncing around in a darkened club with sticky floors, sitting in the car listening to just one more song before going to the office, his screams drowning out the clanging in a MRI scanner… Knowing we’re in a post Cornell world has made everything feel off kilter. I won’t grow old together with his music; instead he now occupies the same space as Jeff Buckley. A music catalogue that is beloved yet tinged with sadness and what could have beens.

At first I didn’t know the song that was playing when I first heard him. I was listening to John Peel on my Walkman in 1993 and his voice stopped me in my tracks. It was days later before I found out it was Rusty Cage. His music meant a lot to me because from that night, before I knew who or what it was, it spoke to me on a visceral level. Something in me recognised itself in the music and it was like coming home. As simple as that.

Finding out about bands, especially the ‘grunge’ ones in the 90s involved a lot of detective work, you were reliant on the weekly music press, radio, and friends who had access to MTV. I remember waiting weeks for the Louder than Love, Temple of the Dog and Singles CDs to arrive from the US and had a tape of Badmotorfinger that I literally wore out. So it was surprising when I was in the US a few months after the release of Superunknown to see exactly how popular they were.

Superunknown will always be their most well known album. It showed greater sophistication than Badmotorfinger but still as heavy and fearsome, you could hear echoes of the struggle with depression and darkness in the lyrics. I also associated with it as an introvert, dealing with other people and trying (and failing) to find a way of fitting in only to be left confused and exhausted by it all.

The Day I Tried to Live is a perfect example of this frustration. It starts out ‘I woke the same as any other day/Except a voice was in my head/It said seize the day, pull the trigger, drop the blade/And watch the rolling heads’ but then by the end of the song ‘I woke the same as any other day, you know/I should have stayed in bed’. And who hasn’t felt like that? Other stand outs were Mailman as the perfect ‘fuck you’ song, My Wave, Fell on Black Days and of course Black Hole Sun.

However Down on the Upside is my favourite album; it’s complex and dark and I have a greater understanding of it as I have grown older. Jason Heller from Pitchfork said that it is “every inch as dense and harrowing as In Utero” and he’s right. It starts off with Pretty Noose, a track that could have been on Superunknown, then by the third song you are swept into Zero Chance starting with the poetic ‘I think I know the answer/I stumbled on and all the world fell down/And all the sky went silent/Cracked like glass and slowly/Tumbled to the ground.’ Then it hits you in the gut with ‘They say if you look hard/You’ll find your way back home/Born without a friend/And bound to die alone.’ You are then promptly thrown into Dusty where you are ‘back on the upside’.

This rollercoaster goes throughout the album – and it’s worth noting that this is an album that you need to listen in its entirety and not cherry pick. Grab a drink, sit down and truly immerse yourself in it. After all these years Tighter and Tighter still makes me tingle down to my toes and Blow up the Outside World is now desperately sad.

Temple of a Dog was an album that simply ached with longing and grief (Reach Down and Hello 2 Heaven), but valiantly tried to pull you into a celebration of life and love too (All Night Thing and Call Me a Dog). It was completely different to Badmotorfinger and gave a hint of what would be found in his solo albums. Euphoria Morning felt like an explosion of everything that he was keeping to himself since Seasons. You can’t miss the sense of grief for Jeff Buckley threaded among the songs about alienation and relationships in Wave Goodbye and When I’m Down, where he says ‘I’m always drowning in my grief’. In fact I think that the loss of his friends had a greater impact upon him than anyone realised.

In 2015 in a one off gig called Sonic Evolution, Cornell joined the remaining members of Mad Season and accompanied by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. I can’t think of anyone else who could do justice to Layne Staley’s lyrics and make it sound less like an elaborate karaoke and more a celebration of his work. Once again, he sang some Temple of the Dog songs and you just knew that there was so much musical potential in that room just waiting to explode.

King Animal showed that Soundgarden weren’t reforming just to make money off the old back catalogue, with an album that was a solid progression from Down on the Upside, borrowing influences for Cornell’s time with Audioslave and Timbaland as well as Matt Cameron’s experience with Pearl Jam. One song in particular stands out for me and has been the perfect kick up the ass track. Rowing is powerful with its mantra like simplicity, pulled along by a bass line that is reminiscent of Rusty Cage, complemented with some mixing that he clearly picked up from making Scream. ‘Don’t know where I’m going I just keep on rowing/I just keep on polling, gotta row Moving is breathing and breathing is life/stopping is dying/you’ll be alright/Life is a hammer waiting to drop/Drifting the shallows and the rowing won’t stop… Rowing is bleeding, bleeding is breathing/Breathing is feeling, running and freezing We’re getting dirty but I stared out clean/Keep on Rowing.’

I was lucky enough to see him twice, once with Audioslave in 2003 and the other in 2013 with Soundgarden. Each time was truly exceptional and were the best gigs I have ever seen. They both simultaneously gave me goosebumps and also bought me to tears more often than I’d like to admit. Hearing Tighter and Tighter, Cochise, Rusty Cage and Outshined were some of the highlights. I don’t think I’ll ever attend a better concert, what’s more I think that everyone attending knew they were witnessing something special.

He left such an extensive back catalogue, but also worked not only with his friends from Seattle, but further afield. The three Audioslave albums were inspiring with a shift towards a Morello style rock where he was able to showcase another aspect of his voice. Scream with Timbaland was …. interesting (although the title track is an insistent ear worm). He also helped produce the posthumous Jeff Buckley albums, and showed great sensitivity handling the unfinished work. It makes me wonder what will stem from his death, you cannot be such an integral part of a musical scene without shockwaves being felt far and wide. When that happens, the safety valve is to make music. Even in death, he will be the source of musical inspiration.

While I’ve been writing this it has been thundering for most of the time, as if the music is reaching the heavens and the sky itself is shaking with frustration of the unfairness of it all. A friend said we shouldn’t have been surprised that it ended as it did, in retrospect we were warned - and we were. Yet in listening back (and some of the songs are exceptionally hard to do so) I feel that he was often recognising his depression and the darkness that haunted him, yet he said he’d carry on and still got up every day – until he didn’t.

My heart hurts for his family and how much pain he must have been in, and how hard he fought it for so long. His was a talent that only happens once in a lifetime and only truly recognised now he is gone. We as a society let him, and so many others like him down. We need to end the stigma of mental illness, especially for men. He did warn us and carrying on with that burden must have been exhausting, I hope he is at rest now.

[tunesiloved-blog]

I didn’t really get into classical music until I hit my late teens. The Sunday papers had been giving away free classical CDs, one of which was ‘Classics for all seasons’ and Gynmopedie was one of the tracks. So I trundled off to the library to check out their classical CDs and discovered a Satie album by Klára Körmendi which also included Gnossienne, and I was hooked. I think that often classical music can be more accessible as you don’t have lyrics getting in the way – you can imprint your own personal thoughts and feelings directly onto it; which is why in those scary times of my life I’ve always turned to classical music.

Both pieces are my ‘go to’ and always intrinsically linked together like two sides of the coin, Gnossiennes is the dark, while the Gymnopedies is the light. Satie is part of a movement called musical impressionism, creating the same sense as the art movement. With his work, it seems that the ambient nature where the notes are almost jarring against each other can give a sense of fluidity and life.

Most people have heard both pieces, they’ve been in films and TV programmes, everything from Poirot to Chocolat to Man on Wire. Even though it was written at the tail end of the 19th Century, it’s often associated with the interwar period as it perfectly sums up an almost heady ethereal sensation; teetering on the edge of confusion and bewilderment. Just like those odd summer days when it’s really hot and the light changes to that peculiar dark grey with an orange glow from the sun and you’re not sure if the storm will pass over or if there’ll be a torrential downpour. Like that.

So there you go, a malleable piece of music that seems to shape itself to your mood. Clever eh?

[tunesiloved-blog]

I wasn’t sure whether to start off with the album I had been listening to most recently or the track that marked the turning point in my life, so I went for the latter. It was back in the dark ages, I was 17 and at the end of my first year at sixth form. Strangely, the same time I had found out that my platelet level was plummeting, I was also asked out on a date by the recently transferred Mr Popular; which always seemed odd as I spent most of my time trying to blend into the shadow. I was hanging out at his house, looking through his CDs – you know, the way that you search for those tenuous connections to see if there’s any indication of compatibility when you first get to know someone, and Pearl Jam’s Alive came on the radio. Thrilled, I remember saying how much I loved the song. In fact, I had the album which I listened to on repeat for months, the liner notes already starting to show signs of wear no matter how carefully I unfolded it. To which he butted in and said. “Oh yeah, you won’t like the rest of their stuff, you’re a girl, it’s a lot of guitars.” o.O I was shocked, this guy (who was into Janet Jackson and Prince) was telling me what I should think and it didn’t sit well, but instead of confronting him I nodded quietly and went home soon after. Needless to say, we didn’t last long after that, but it was a key moment for me. See this music, this band spoke to me. The strength and sensitivity all wrapped up in crunchy guitars and poetic lyrics was near on perfection. It felt that someone had opened up my soul and put what they saw into musical form. Not only that, but ethically and politically they matched the views I was starting to form. They were my band and not even Mr Popular could tell me otherwise. I had been quite private about the music that I listened to; with the earnestness of youth, I didn’t want to share it with anyone in case they ruined it for me. But after this, I realised that a passion for music was something that I didn’t want to compromise on and I certainly didn’t want someone to tell me what I should or shouldn’t like – although I am sorry to say, it was not the last time someone demanded proof of liking a certain band. This song still fills me with goosebumps, even 20+ years later I adore it and when it comes up on my shuffle playlist I stop what I’m doing to listen to it. I’m definitely still alive.

[tunesiloved-blog]

Hello

I've always loved music. As a highly introverted kid I'd use it to escape and then as a teen it started to shape my identity, often recording John Peel's show then buying the albums which I'd listen to on repeat. Back in another lifetime I moonlighted as a gig reviewer, but I rarely go now as I want to listen to the music not having it drowned out some dude who is drunk and his girlfriend who is complaining that she'd rather be elsewhere. It's old age. Now, as I'm moving my CDs to my laptop, I'm rediscovering these albums as well as the odd mix tape. So this is a journey into the past and tip toeing into the future.