Get tickets to concerts, and festivals online!
|
|
|
|
Music CD - Soundgarden: Down on the Upside
|
Music CD: Down on the Upside
Artist: Soundgarden
List Price: $11.97
Our Price: $3.80
Your Save: $ 8.17 ( 68% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: A&M
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Tracks:
|
1. Pretty Noose
2. Rhinosaur - Soundgarden, Cameron, Matt
3. Zero Chance
4. Dusty
5. Ty Cobb
6. Blow up the Outside World
7. Burden in My Hand
8. Never Named
9. Applebite - Soundgarden, Cameron, Matt
10. Never the Machine Forever - Soundgarden, Thayil, Kim
11. Tighter & Tighter
12. No Attention
13. Switch Opens
14. Overfloater
15. An Unkind - Soundgarden, Shepherd, Ben
16. Boot Camp
|
|
|
Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0731454052627
Label: A&M
Manufacturer: A&M
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: A&M
Release Date: 1996-05-21
Studio: A&M
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not one of the better Soundgarden albums
Comment: This is Soundgarden's final album and I can see why. It is depressing to see the final album of a band that had a good run from Ultramega OK, Louder Than Love, Badmotorfinger, and Superunknown, end their career together with this downer of an album.
Pretty Noose, the first single is a very energetic song but that song is contrasted by the rest of the album (except Ty Cobb) that is basically an interview to be admitted into a depression clinic. The songs are heavily produced and they seem like they were written by the band on the fly. Kim Thayill is let loose and his sonic guitar wizardry almost hurts ones ears because of it's random character. Contrast this album with Superunknown where Kim was held in check and the band sounds a lot better.
If you are a Soundgarden fanatic and you must have all of their albums then pick this up and enjoy the band unraveling before your eyes. If you're a casual fan of Soundgarden and don't have any of their albums yet I suggest picking up Superunknown or Badmotorfinger first to get a sense of what these guys are really capable of.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A great capper to a great career
Comment: An incredibly underrated record. Of course, there's no way it can compare to the double-play of the last two records, but that isn't for lack of trying. It's as ambitious as anything else the group's ever done, and it's got a lot of my favorite Soundgarden tracks: the radio-ready rocker "Pretty Noose", which nonetheless is an intelligent summary of the group's last two records; the complex funk-metal "Rhinosaur"; the Pearl Jam-like power ballads "Zero Chance"; the moody, acoustic "Dusty", the slow, trippy, almost Beatlesque "Blow up the Outside World" (the best song on the album, by the way - guitar solo, chorus, cool vocal effect in the verses, and that Beatles sound that I love because the Beatles OWN), and the mellow folk-grunge combo "Burden in My Hand", as well as some other good stuff, like the psychedelic dirges "Applebite", "Overflow" and "Tighter and Tighter". However, there is a ton of underwritten punk here ("Never Named", "Ty Cobb", with a stupid banjo; "Never the Machine Forever"; "No Attention"), and it seems like they've caught U2 Frontloading syndrome - all the absolute best tracks are found within the first eight songs. Plus I don't know what they were going for with "Boot Camp", but they struck out regardless. Despite all that, this still stands as one of Soundgarden's better records, and probably the last significant album of the grunge boom.
Customer Rating:
Summary: STILL DOWN WITH THIS SIDE.....
Comment: In my mind this is the album that closed the door on the grunge thing entirely, and may possibly be the last time a current band released an album that I sprung out to get. Oh, the days when radio music was still cool. Over and over I hear this album compared to the prior release, and whatnot. But some of you need to realize that this album was released in '96, and to many it was a whole different world than it was two years earlier when that previous record was released. Alternative rock had blazed and now was blazing out to move foward into other territories, but in the summer of that year it was like all the bands that helped it flourish put out some of their best ( even if slightly different) music; just to tip their hat to the whole scene. And is one of the fondest summers music-wise that I can remember.
Soundgarden released late in May with this gem... DOWN ON THE UPSIDE... which included some familiar grunge stuff for sure, but also took on some new territory, with the light sounding BURDEN IN MY HAND, rocked the F out with the killer BLOW UP THE OUTSIDE WORLD (which was amazing when I first watched it on MTV...ssssh, yes I did enjoy MTV once) and even got into some of that early nineties confusion/metal rock that they had slugged out earlier in the decade with tunes like TY COBB. This was a pretty solid Soundarden release for sure, unfortunately still, was also their last... but don't dwell, just put this on, and understand that for a brief moment in the nineties, rock music had reigned supreme once again, even in '96 as it was going down, it was going down on the upside.
Customer Rating:
Summary: SoundGarden Returns on the upside!!
Comment: No this isn't the "Superunknown", like every other follow up album that comes after the best album of your career everyone wants compare it to the previous album.
Instead people should judge this album on it own merits, don't get me wrong I think the "Superunknown" is probably one of if not the best album of the 90's.
But I also think this album is a good change of pace, it would get old if they made every album sound like the "Superunknown".
I think if your going to listen to this album keep a open mind and don't compare it to the "Superunknown"!!
I rate this album a 8 from 1to10!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Overlooked? Under appreciated? There is nothing down about this one
Comment: Soundgarden was the band that never quite got the props it deserved, and like the cover depicts on their final album, which was released in 1996, they often ended up in the shadows compared to Seattle Grungenauts Pearl Jam and Nirvana.
The Heavy LP "Badmotorfinger" and the breakout album "Superunknown" will always be the feathers in their hat, but for some reason there is still so much to be said about "Down on the upside", which was released at the end of the band's tenure. Vocalist Chris Cornell would later go on to release two solo albums, and in between those releases form the band Audioslave with former members of Rage Against the Machine. Cornell's efforts towards this CD was to get into a more sonic and ethereal approach, to further push away from heavy riffs and dark, moody lyrics and atmospheres that made the albums Badmotorfinger and Superunknown popular with millions of fans.
The result is an album that contains a nice dose of everything the band could offer, with sixteen tracks that range in style and substance. Take for instance, songs like "Pretty Noose", "Rhinosaur" and "Dusty" which incorporate bombastic openings and dynamite guitars, with Dusty being a slower, more reflective song of the three. The recognizable radio friendly singles found on the album are "Blow up the outside world" and "Burden in my hand" which has the signature opening lyrics of "Follow me into the desert, as thirsty as you are". Pretty Noose, which was mentioned earlier, was also a popular single at the time of the albums release. Tracks like "Ty Cobb" and "Never Named" are a trip, rocketing on a fast pace with almost humorous, light feelings to them.
The track "Applebite" is probably one of the least heard tracks from the band, and yet it is such a timeless one, with semi-haunting guitar tones and a soft, slow atmosphere that has Cornell's vocals at practically a whisper, where normally they are a signature volume of a much higher level and intensity. Parts of this song, and I mean just parts, might remind one of a Doors song like "The End" or a psychedelic instrumental from Pink Floyd in the late sixties. That is not to compare the talents and achievements of those bands to Soundgarden, but to show more how differing this band could be at times. No track listing they ever did was as varied as this one, and yet there is not a single track on the entire album that can be viewed as weak, not belonging or filler.
At times when bands are on the verge of breaking up, they tend to concentrate more on instrumental noodling instead of tight, focused lyrically based tracks. The Van Halen album Balance was evident with this with its three quickly thrown in instrumental tracks. With Soundgarden's swan song, The track "Tighter and Tighter" has vocals, but seems to drone on more in the spirit of Applebite more than say, the catchy toe-tapping beat of "Spoonman" (from the album Superunknown).
The final song of the sixteen song track listing is called Boot Camp, and it has a great emotional undertone to it that is also mixed in with a nice groove, and it is here that we hear perhaps a little bit of that Led Zeppelin influence that the band was labeled with so long ago. Down on the upside was really the end of an era, but in many ways the beginning of something else. Soundgarden will always remain one of the more under appreciated bands to emerge from the grunge days, but some fans would like to think this band, and this album, had a lot more going for it to be put into any particular label or slot.
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
Same as Us Release.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
