Your Verdict: Quillford Essentials - Week One

[Quillford]

So here we are off the tails of a fantastic 12 week orgasm of music with TCM's Your Verdict. "DAMN!"

With a hearty applause here we go.

It is time Fortress.

Time that I leave my ill-gotten musical stain on your walls.

The X Factor and it’s mob of evil musical “talent”(less) based accomplices have set out to destroy the WORLD (Musically). So far they have done alright for themselves giving us one of the worst years in the UK charts that I care to think about. We must continue to battle back like we did in the winter of ’09 when we fought the Cowell and won with Rage Against The Machine (oddly enough... we will get into why that’s relevant later). To help battle this evil monolith of gathering scum I bring you a journey. Follow it if you dare.
So to kick off this musical adventure I give you, a prologue. That prologue is none other than Alt Rock band “Soundgarden”. This band have been around for quite a while, almost as long as the likes of Metallica. They have a staggering 22 singles over 5 albums and with 12 years of inactivity from 1997 – 2010, that is not bad at all. Chris Cornell (The lead singer) has one of those voices which are recognisable from the first croak. This came to be an awesome advantage for him really as he went onto do solo work (also pretty ace, give that a listen if you love those vocals) and become the lead vocalist of Rage Against The Machine’s second phase (after Zack De La Rocha left) “Audioslave”. (See, if you fight the world with THIS music, it can and has been won before. *wink*)
Soundgarden is where this all started and is why I brought this to you, rather than any of the latter. What better place to start than the beginning. To name but a few of the best Soundgarden songs I throw out the tracks “Pretty Noose” from the album “Down on the Upside”, “The Day I Tried to Live” from the “Superunknown” album & “Somewhere” from the album “Badmotorfinger”. All three of these songs are way up there in calibre in sound and lyrically. However today the song I am going to bring to you is this little slice of debauched blasphemous orgasm. The tune is called “Jesus Christ Pose”. The album is “Badmotorfinger” that I mentioned earlier. The video is something you would expect from a bad trip with Acid. It throws out symbolism at every turn. The song is aimed at Cornell’s hatred towards Male Models and how they are perceived as Demi-Gods. He slyly does this as a slur against the Christian faith, which seems to always be a popular thing within rock. Not to mention the terminator references spliced in the footage (See Curmudgeon terminator will come true. Subliminal messaging has begun.) Anyway, enough with analysis – sink your teeth into this!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=14r7y6rM6zA
The album that this resides on is probably their best album. If you are still a fan after this song, go, go and buy this record. It could change the sinews of your being. Musically that is. Heck knows it’s accompanied me for years. It is filled with track after track of hand crafted ear shattering goodness. What’s even better (How CAN it get any better Quillford you ask? ... I know right?!) is that Soundgarden are back and aren’t bad at all. If you, here at the fortress are a Marvel fan, heh, you can hear their latest work in the credits to the latest Marvel Movie triumph. “Avengers Assemble”. “Live to Rise” is their contributing track to the soundtrack and even the video isn’t bad showing the best clips from the sex... I mean film. If you still want more I think Chris did an excellent – wait for it – James Bond song. That’s right, he is one of the elite that join the rank of musical legends such as Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Paul McCartney & The Wings, Madonna and so on and so forth, as the 21st film’s (Casino Roayle) opening tune with “You Know My Name”. Yet another tune on my iPod that makes me feel like I am spy when on my way to work. That about sums it up for this week’s battle against the dark forces of music society. Below I have left a link for “Badmotorfinger” just in case you have been swayed.
For the rest of this week I shall be warped to Balado, Kinross for my annual attendance of T in The Park music festival. Line up is well - alright. So when I return Week two shall begin.

Catch you next week. The Quill Guy.

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B000026H0H

[trashcanman]

Dude, Cornell had the BEST Bond theme. And I own them all (except the White/Keys one, which was just awful). That vid was epic wicked. The song is killer too, but I kept waiting for them to unleash that palm-muted rhythm riff and truly thrash up the place. I hold Soundgarden at about the same esteem as Nirvana, which is to say that I enjoy most of their music, but never quite enough to actually buyy an album. Quillguy, you sold the hell out of this. If you keep that level of excitement up this is going to be a hell of a run.

[The Curmudgeon]

So Soundgarden have reformed, huh? Let's go back to my 2009 Amazon review of Cornell's doomed, sell-out (sorry, SOLO) album; "Just reform Soundgarden, Chris. You know you want to." You are welcome, world.

Couple of things before I talk about this song;

1. Quillguy - you really think Cornell's "hey, I'm with Timbaland now! That makes me cool and RELEVANT!" solo project was good? I thought it was pretty embarrassing.

2. Trashy - As good a Bond theme as it is, surely Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die", a song that's actually more exciting than anything found in the film, is the best song from Bond?

Anyway, I was actually at one of the last UK gigs Soundgarden ever played (so far, they may tour again), and oddly enough, like Trashy, I don't even own a Soundgarden album. Not one track, in fact.

I did listen to them a fair old bit before that gig (my friend had all the records), but I won't lie, I certainly don't remember this song. Nice guitar riffs, but nothing that would ever make me want to listen to it again. Decent enough, I guess, and that guitar squawk during the chorus is pretty bad-ass but, well, Spoonman it ain't.

I agree with Trashy, though; excellent first week Quillguy. While I don't agree that any Soundgarden record could "change the sinew of my being", I do appreciate the enthusiasm.

Looking forward to next week.

[trashcanman]

Live and Let Die is awesome and I'm also a huge fan of You Only Live Twice, but man, You Know My Name is just freakin' killer. The perfect way to pump me up for a relaunched Bond. And don't call me Shirley. People REALLY revere Soundgarden as a legendary band. I very much prefer STP and AIC, or even Pearl Jam as far as grunge era bands go, but I was never a huge fan of the movement to begin with. I can sure as hell acknowledge that Soundgarden has many damn fine songs, though. More than Audioslave at least, and I'm a massive Rage fan.