Review Summary: Chris Cornell takes a dump on his legacy with this ill-advised collaboration with pop producer Timbaland.
A quick glance at the cover of Chris Cornell’s latest album can either be horribly misleading or painfully telling, depending on how you perceive it. Those who think that the image of an airborne Cornell smashing up a guitar represents that he still has the desire and ability to rock as he has done in the past are I can tell you in for a nasty surprise. A more accurate perception would be that the cover represents Cornell ditching his guitar and past whilst taking a dump on his already threatened legacy.
Let’s get one thing straight, this is Chris Cornell, the same man who fronted Soundgarden, lending his wonderful voice to one of the most important rock bands of the nineties. At their best, Soundgarden were breathtaking, arguably reaching their peak in 1994 with
Superunknown, the last true classic from the grunge movement that the band had at one stage established themselves as the leaders of. Even after their demise, the singer has lost none of his hunger, releasing two solo albums that divided both critics and fans and returning to front supergroup Audioslave to mixed but occasionally spectacular results. Today, most of his early counterparts have either broken up or faded into obscurity, but still Cornell continues to make music, retaining a high profile in penning the theme tune to
Casino Royale.
Here he continues to add to his CV in hooking up with Timbaland, one of the most popular producers of modern times. But while his previous solo efforts have been patchy at best,
Scream represents an all time low for Cornell. Sadly, the collaboration is just as bad as it sounds, with the singer’s raspy soulful voice sounding lost amongst the producer’s trademark beats and R&B sheen. In the run up to the release, the pair has been commenting on how the album breaches the gap between rock and R&B/Hip Hop with both artists stepping out of their comfort zones and changing directions. In reality though, Cornell is the only one who has changed, and few would argue for the better. Timbaland’s mark is all over this album, so much that it sounds like little else than one of his albums with Cornell on vocals. It’s just the same, generic, insipid and one paced music that dominates today’s charts, much of which is produced by Timberland himself.
That is not to say that all of the albums problems lie with its producer. Cornell’s vocals are far past their best, and often sound weak and fragile, a far cry from the soaring screams when he was at his best. It can still be pleasant to listen to, but has been in decline over the past decade and often gets tiring here, a matter that isn’t helped by the music he’s singing to. The songs on
Scream are poor. It cannot be denied that Timbaland has been involved with some fantastic songs with the likes of Justin Timberlake (who, as it happens helped produce, write and sing backing vocals on
Take Me Alive) and Nelly Furtado. But here there is just no ambition with the songwriting, with pretty much every song keeping to a painfully generic verse/chorus/verse formula, whilst keeping to the same dull one paced tempo.
The choruses are a particular low point. Once you’ve managed to withstand all of the bland beats and sounds of the verses, you are left hugely under whelmed by the choruses, which more often than not feature the same lyrics repeated over and over again on top of predictable heightened computer effects. It’s this repetitiveness that basically ruins
Part Of Me, possibly the best song here and probably the only moment where the collaboration shows signs of working. Take
Climbing Up The Walls for example;
You’re climbing up the walls, the walls, the walls
You’re climbing up the walls, the walls, the walls
You’re just climbing up the walls, the walls, the walls
You’re climbing up the walls, the walls, the walls
You’re climbing up the walls, the walls, the walls
You’re climbing up the walls, the walls, the walls
You’re just climbing up the walls, the walls, the walls
You’re climbing up the walls, the walls, the walls
Despite all of these negatives, credit should be given where it is due. With
Scream, Cornell is at least attempting to remain relevant in hooking up with a popular modern producer. This in fairness does set him apart from his fellow grunge era musicians such as Pearl Jam in terms of ambition, with the named band continuing to live off their former glories whilst doing little to change the direction of their music. His boldness also has to be applauded, as he has risked alienation from his long term fans and ridicule from those involved in rock and metal scenes. Unfortunately for him, these risks don’t appear to have paid off, with Trent Reznor’s recent comments seemingly summing up the feelings of musicians and fans alike, and these small positives are far from enough to hide how bad
Scream is.
Of all of the bad things about the album however, possibly the worst is that
Scream will be some peoples first taste of Chris Cornell. What these people hear could turn them off to his past works, Soundgarden, Temple Of The Dog and Audioslave, and quite frankly, you can’t blame them. Scream is an ill-advised collaboration with which Cornell has risked ruining his legacy and credibility, and is almost sure to aggravate a backlash from fans. In a way, this could prove a good thing, as it could prompt him to return to his past style, which few would argue is worse than this. Yes, the songs are catchy to some extent, but they’re all just too generic, repetitive and overproduced to have any replay quality. Maybe he could even have another shot in a supergroup, with Velvet Revolver currently without a frontman. It might not be great, but surely it couldn’t be any worse than this…
