Audioslave
muppet
Posts: 980
Not sure why this band gets a lot of stick around here. I think that their first album is one of the best rock records I've ever heard. The perfect album to listen to on a dark night.
Not too keen on Out Of Exile, thought that Revelations was an improvement. But their debut remains the best to me, and I even think that Cornells raspy, bluesy voice sounds better (in some cases) than his "RIIIIIIITUALLL!" 90s voice
.
They'll never beat Rage or Soundgarden, but I think this band deserves a lot more credit. They didn't break any boundaries but what they did, they did well.
Hopefully this can turn into a pretty good discussion about what people thought, instead of comments on Chris Cornells choice of jeans.
Not too keen on Out Of Exile, thought that Revelations was an improvement. But their debut remains the best to me, and I even think that Cornells raspy, bluesy voice sounds better (in some cases) than his "RIIIIIIITUALLL!" 90s voice
.They'll never beat Rage or Soundgarden, but I think this band deserves a lot more credit. They didn't break any boundaries but what they did, they did well.
Hopefully this can turn into a pretty good discussion about what people thought, instead of comments on Chris Cornells choice of jeans.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
- the great Sir Leo Harrison
http://www.myspace.com/brain_of_c
Well, I enjoy their third album a lot as well, it's just that I think their first is a classic. And no they're not as good as Rage or Soundgarden but not a lot of bands are. My point was that people seem to completely savage this band, sticking them with the likes of Creed.
I know it's different strokes for different folks and all that but still.
As supergroups go they were decent, compared to Velvet Revolver they were killer! :P
It didn't have Exploder.
Atlantic City: 09/30/05, 10/01/05
Totally agree with that! I can never understand why so many people like the debut best of the three - to me it's the weakest, apart from standout tracks like the Last Remaining Light and Shadow on the Sun. I never thought much of RATM as a band and a lot of the time it does sound like RATM with a decent singer, not much more. I also loved OOE - it seemed to have depth and showed a lot of musical development - and a lot of Revelations, too (although the RATM guys ruined some of the songs, like Until We Fall - they could be really lumpen players sometimes.)
www.chriscornell.org.uk
8/7/08, 6/9/09
But as time went on, I kinda got to like the album, thanks to songs like The Shape of Things To Come and Wide Awake. I can still barely stand to listen to Somedays and Jewel of the Summertime, but the rest of the songs grew on me. So I can look back and see a band who had a classic album - self-titled - and two decent rock records that shamed a lot of what was around at the time.
however that one album does rock. gasoline is great.
i will never forget seeing cornell marching around the mic stand at lolla 03 SCREAMING "shadow on the sun" at the top of his lungs.
also, i have never seen another crowd so hyped up as audioslave in 05, when the first little guitar part of rusty cage came on. MY GOD. the whole place went ape shit. complete strangers high fiving. that was amazing. those 4 minutes were pure mayhem.
Probably because they actually rocked and were completely unpretentious about it.
I think the first album is a masterpiece. Vocally I also think it is one of Cornell's best efforts.
If there was weakness, I actually think it was the Rage guys i.e Tom and Brad (Tim was awesome). Now Rage gets a lot of praise around here but in Audiolsave these guys just could not adapt to new directions and really held the band back. It really confirmed to me that Tom is a one trick pony.
It is then interesting to reflect on how the reputation of the Rage boys has not been as severely dented as Cornell's following the Audioslave breakup, especially given that they shared equal effort in the song writting. Yet IMO Cornell was the guy keeping this band going.
Pretty much how I rate them too.
I will strongly disagree with some opinions that the RATM guys were weak or that Morello was one trick pony. The solo in "Shadow On the Sun" should be enogh to dispel that. Also listen to their musicianship. Cornell definitely helped them develop, there is no doubt. The songs were a lot more melodic than any RATM songs. However there is not one song on Cornell's latest endeavour that compares to most of the stuff that AS put out, imo. The guys from RATM had to have SOMETHING to do with that.
I don't think that it is coincidence that Cornell's latest solo album as average as it is in parts, exhibits a lot more complexity musically than anything Audioslave produced. With rage, the simplicity works but when shifted towards a more melodic sound there was a lot of 'dead space' in the music where nothing was happening.
Morello just seemed to me, unable (or perhaps unwilling) to move beyond the big riff rockers, when I felt that there was an oppurtunity to expand on alot of the really great blues influenced stuff the band produced on the later half of the debut.
In the end it's all subjective, isn;t it, Dana...we're all looking for different things in music so different albums and songs will appeal to different people.
Tim had his instinctual moments, and he grew as a musician over the life of Audioslave, but I still think there was some lumpy playing on Revelations in places. Mostly on the traditional "songs" as opposed to the riff-based stuff. I don't think the rhythm section ever really "learned to come soft" as Rick Rubin wanted them to.
I don't agree with whoever said Tom was a one-trick pony, and I do think it's sad in some ways that the musical relationship between him and Chris had to come to an end. He was playing things in Audioslave that he'd never come near in RATM, and they were things (like the beautiful, liquid solo on Yesterday to Tomorrow) which he can't really put into his acoustic Nightwatchman stuff. I don't think they'd fit into RATM, either, unless they totally overhaul the concept. It will be a shame if we never get to hear Tom play like that again.
www.chriscornell.org.uk
Still more often than not Morello just failed to 'get' what the song was about and fit a solo appropriately. Now you can argue that its subjective, but I think that most people can agree whether a song is upbeat or whatever. Morello is a great guitarist, but too often in AS it seemed that his solo's were less about the song than a need to be the centre of attention. Was there an AS song without a guitar solo? Says something I think.
Yes, I do agree with you to some extent. Some of the solos were very "look at me" and not terribly related to the mood of the song. But I think he was improving and learning and becoming a more subtle and sensitive musician: it was the rhythm section, especially Wilk, who really let the side down.
www.chriscornell.org.uk
no more shows
no more shows
I dont think as a band they wanted to go in this direction, I agree with you, but I always got the opinion the band wanted to be a great mainstream band and tour their ass of and get back to the level of their beggining bands. chris obviously wanted more, I thought Chris could have waited aftert a small tour to break the band up.
no more shows
I personally wish PJ were *less* radio friendly.. Avocado was way too mainstream for me.
- the great Sir Leo Harrison
I don't think he was that spectacular in Rage. Rage was the sum of its parts.. the drumming in itself was far from complex.
- the great Sir Leo Harrison
I don't think the band wanted to "tour their asses off". Apart from the Cuba trip and one early Australian visit (I think they squeezed in a single show in Japan), Audioslave only ever played North America and the obvious places in Europe. CC's solo tour has been much more extensive and visited far more places, from South America and South Africa to Iceland and Northern Scandinavia, places like Tromso. CC has said the reason he didn't go to a lot of these places before was because he could never persuade the members of either Soundgarden or Audioslave to do it.
www.chriscornell.org.uk
no more shows
I though the whole image of the band exploded on the second album, they came through the philly area 3 times, comparred to sg it was alot. I got the impression the band was looking to become very popular in the mainstream circuit, they pumped up their fan club enormously. As far as europe I dont know.
no more shows