Released: 1994
Tracks: Let Me Drown; My Wave; Fell on Black Days; Mailman; Superunknown; Head Down; Black Hole Sun; Spoonman; Limo Wreck; The Day I Tried to Live; Kickstand; Fresh Tendrils; 4th of July; Half; Like Suicide
Best track: either My Wave or Spoonman
Tracks to skip: Mailman, Superunknown, Head Down, Fresh Tendrils, Half, Like Suicide
5 pretty big singles on this album, those being My Wave, Fell on Black Days, Black Hole Sun, Spoonman and The Day I Tried to Live. I think all 5 of these are great songs. The bad thing is, the rest of this album doesn’t hold up very well. OK, Let Me Drown, 4th of July and Limo Wreck are all pretty good, but they don’t sustain this whole album. Of the ‘tracks I skip’, Head Down has some cool bits, but it just really doesn’t go anywhere. Half is a strange mixture of grunge and Indian music, but for all it’s good points it just doesn’t hold up as a composition. It’s kinda like, hey it’s an interesting idea, but…
Obviously when 6 of the 15 songs are skipped, then it’s not going to be a cohesive album. And without the 5 hit singles, this album is really forgettable. Besides a lot of boring songs that drag it down (and there’s nothing worse than heavy boring songs) there isn’t any sort of flow from one song to the next. Soundgarden could write some great songs (OK, Chris Cornell wrote the best ones) and they were a great live band, but a lot of these songs are indistinguishable from each other. And it makes sitting through this album in one sitting rather difficult.
Rating: 69
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