Down on the upside

Down on the upside
Soundgarden studio album
Publication (s)	May 21, 1996
admission	November 1995 - February 1996
Label (s)	A&M Records
Format (s)	CD, LP
Genre (s)	Grunge , alternative rock
Title (number)	16
running time	65:56
occupation	Chris Cornell - vocals Ben Shepherd - bass Kim Thayil - guitar Matt Cameron - drums
production	Soundgarden Adam Kasper
Studio (s)	Studio Litho and Bad Animals Studio , Seattle , Washington
chronology Superunknown (1994) Down on the upside King Animal (2012)
Single releases March 1996 Pretty noose September 18, 1996 Burden in My Hand November 18, 1996 Blow Up the Outside World April 1997 Ty Cobb

Down on the Upside is the fifth studio album by the grunge band Soundgarden . It was released in May 1996 by A&M Records . It was the band's last studio album for many years - until King Animal was released in 2012. Although it achieved platinum status in the USA , overall it did not match the success of its predecessor Superunknown .

style

Musically, Down on the Upside was a bit slower and more experimental than the previous albums. The songs have different tempos and instrumentation, from mid-tempo groove ( Pretty Noose ) to acoustically played ballads ( Blow Up the Outside World ) to fast, more punk- inspired pieces like Ty Cobb or Never Named . Some psychedelic influences (such as Zero Chance ) and the sometimes somewhat unpolished sound are reminiscent of Louder Than Love , but singer Chris Cornell said in an interview that the band was “far more subtle” than seven years earlier. The general mood reminded him more of Ultramega OK . Cornell himself associated the last song Boot Camp with Pink Floyd . Applebite was originally conceived as a purely instrumental piece. On this album, too, the band used unusual time signatures such as a 9/8 time signature in Never the Machine Forever and different guitar tunings.

History of origin

In July 1995, the preparatory work began for the album, which was then recorded in Seattle in November 1995 , in Stone Gossard's Studio Litho and in Bad Animals Studio . For the first time the band produced an album on their own, Adam Kasper acted as co-producer and sound engineer . The band justified this with the fact that a producer often pursues his own interests in addition to the band's interests, e.g. wants to prove himself to record companies. Soundgarden had reached a "certain maturity" and wanted to do without it. The album reached number two on the Billboard 200 , in Germany number 15, but could not reach the overall sales figures of Superunknown . Pretty Noose was nominated for a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance . The album followed after appearances at the Lollapalooza festivals a. a. with Metallica a tour with Moby , during which the audience reaction for Soundgarden was muted, which contributed to the breakup of the band in 1997. The band themselves also stated that they wanted to escape the star existence, a topic that Cornell already broached in Blow Up the Outside World .

reception

The album was recorded differently. In the rock-hard magazine, Thomas Kupfer spoke of a “masterpiece” and gave it the top grade of ten. He honored, among other things, that Soundgarden had not chosen the easy way after Superunknown , although the record initially sounded “bulky”, but then developed a “hypnotic effect”. In Rolling Stone , David Fricke rated the album three out of five stars. The album lacked moments of catharsis , the band would rather “dig in their heels” than stir up dirt.

Track list

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Down on the upside   US 2 06/08/1996 (43 weeks)   UK 7th 06/01/1996 (6 weeks)   DE 15th 05/27/1996 (14 weeks)

1. Pretty Noose - 4:12
2. Rhinosaur - 3:14
3. Zero Chance - 4:18
4. Dusty - 4:34
5. Ty Cobb - 3:05
6. Blow Up the Outside World - 5:47
7. Burden in My Hand - 4:50
8. Never Named - 2:28
9. Applebite - 5:10
10. Never the Machine Forever - 3:36
11. Tighter & Tighter - 6:06
12. No Attention - 4:27
13. Switch Opens - 3:53
14. Overfloater - 5:09
15. To Unkind - 2:08
16. Boot Camp - 2:59

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Thomas Kupfer: Das Leben, das Universum & all the rest , in: Rock Hard, No. 109, 1996
2. ↑ www.rockhard.de: Review Down on the Upside by Thomas Kupfer  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ www.rollingstone.com: Review Down on the Upside by David Fricke ( Memento from July 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Charts DE Charts UK Charts US