Chris Cornell is back

Yeah, he's back...but not solo. This time Chris Cornell is back with Soundgarden. Thank goodness! I wasn't really fond of that solo album Chris Cornell put out a year and a half ago. SCREAM really wasn't my cup of tea. I prefer Chris Cornell with that grungy rock sound of Soundgarden.

If you love video games, then you're gonna really get down with Soundgarden. The band has teamed up with Guitar Hero for the release of their new album, TELEPHANTASM. Telephantasm, by the way, is more of a retrospective look back at Soundgarden.  It features a few unreleased tracks as well as their previously released smash hits (Outshined, Spoonman, Black Hole Sun, and more).  There is also a CD/DVD combo with 20 music videos you'll love even more.

By the way, here's a recently released  video preview for the game release:

Now, is that kick ass rock or what?! Welcome back, Soundgarden! Welcome back to that hot rockin' sexy Chris Cornell we loved in Soundgarden!

Chris Cornell's SCREAM makes me wanna scream...

Well, not quite so literally...I don't get that hyped up about music. But Chris Cornell's switcheroo to R&B from his trademark rock vocal style just kinda disappointed me. I mean, I understand how artists like to branch out and develop other styles (remember Sebastian Bach going country for the CMT competition?) but I just don't see this R&B style fitting Chris very well...publicly, at least. I always thought of Chris Cornell representing this sort of sexy rock vocalist image - what with his history of past Soundgarden and Audioslave hits. But this new R&B sound - while it's creatively a great collaboration with Timbaland - just shattered that mental picture I've kept of an iconically hot rockin' Chris Cornell.

I guess I'm not the first to vocalize my disappointment with Chris Cornell's new style. Did anyone read what Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails Twittered about Scream? Here's the link to the Rolling Stone magazine article about it:

Trent Reznor Uses Twitter To Slam Chris Cornell's "Scream"

Word does get around amazingly fast. Sure enough, Chris Cornell got wind of Trent Reznor's remarks and lashed back on his own Twitter. Here's an article on what Chris responded:

Chris Cornell responds to Trent Reznor Twitter diss

Scream
(album cover found on images.google.com)

I'll leave it up to you to form your own opinion about Chris Cornell's R&B crossover. For me, it's just not my cup of tea.