DOWN ON THE UPSIDE
(1996, a&m)
Listening to Down On The Upside back in May 1996, you knew the end was nigh. By then the grunge scene’s playing field was already depleted, with Pearl Jam gone weird, Nirvana in the ground and Alice In Chains headed for hiatus. Back then this fifth album felt like a coda for Soundgarden themselves, its scattershot material hinting at the growing gulf between the members, and the relative lack of heaviosity belying the tensions that would break the band’s back. Thayil would later admit: “It was pretty obvious there was some dissatisfaction”. You heard it here first.
Two years after Superunknown’s accidental global smash, Soundgarden felt their perennial itch to “let listeners know they’re not getting the same album over and over”. Changes were made. Taskmaster producer Michael Beinhorn was not asked back. Instead the band themselves produced the sessions in Seattle, bottling the first raw takes. “What we’ve lost in sonic precision, we’ve gained so much in terms of feeling,”Cornell told Spin.
Cornell described the writing process as “anything goes”, with all four members bringing in completed material, for better and worse. Certainly there were moments of brilliance, such as the galloping profanity of Ty Cobb, the accessible Pretty Noose and the woozy Blow Up The Outside World. But the once-prolific Thayil, reportedly unhappy with Cornell’s poppier bent, was credited only for the clattering Never The Machine Forever. “I think with Down On The Upside,” he reflected in Ultimate Guitar, “there are just varying degrees of participation and sharing amongst the collective that was sort of dysfunctional.”
Thayil’s assessment that “it’s not my favourite Soundgarden album, but it’s a good Soundgarden album” was echoed across the rock press. Entertainment Weekly deemed Down On The Upside “as powerful as anything the band has done”, while Rolling Stone noted that “Soundgarden seem to be digging in their heels rather than kicking up dirt”. Whatever, after a “tedious” and “repetitive” world tour during which Cornell told critical fans to “shut the fuck up”, the band were done. Not a whimper, then, but not quite a bang. HY