Badmotorfinger

Badmotorfinger has always been, well, outshined (yes, that is a song from the album). During grunge’s breakthrough into the mainstream in 1991, it was overshadowed by the more popular grunge releases, Nirvana’s Nevermind, and Pearl Jam’s Ten. Even in Soundgarden’s own discography, it is eclipsed by their following album (ironically titled Superunknown, since it is considered the band’s most popular and best release).

My problem with Superunknown is that some of the songs drag on for too long and there’s a bit too much filler. Badmotorfinger suffers from the issue of songs going longer than necessary, but not to the same extent. However, there are issues with filler even more than on Superunknown, and they decided on a pretty typical practice of putting all their strongest songs at the beginning.

So the first four songs are excellent. Outshined starts off violently with some metallic riffing in 7/4 and it’s a really catchy tune, also famous for its line “looking California, feeling Minnesota.” Jesus Christ Pose is also notable, a definite highlight. Beginning with explosive, fast drumming from Matt Cameron, it moves into a simple, repetitive riff, and then into a slightly evil sounding section. Chris Cornell really shows off his driving vocal style here. Probably the most metal thing Soundgarden has done alongside Gun and Black Rain; I want to headbang just thinking about it.

After this, however, the album starts to slip downhill though even the filler is mostly solid. A standout from the second portion is Searching With My Good Eye Closed, with its quirky spoken intro and spacey riff and vocals. It is a good example of Soundgarden’s building technique, in which the end of the song is a collection of shrieks from Cornell, random cymbal hits and fills, and sometimes purposeless distortion when the song goes overboard. Like I said earlier, this is a phenomenon observed more often on Superunknown, but it still occurs here. They do a better job of figuring out when to stop on this album.

Some of the other later songs are worth mentioning for good or bad reasons. Mind Riot is a nice slower piece, but the closing track, New Damage, just drags on for too long when it would have been mediocre even if it had been cut short. Soundgarden include a horn section for some of these efforts (Drawing Flies, Face Pollution), which is interesting, but it doesn’t really do much except add a bit of extra texture.

Badmotorfinger is worth checking out just for Jesus Christ Pose alone. And the rest of isn’t exactly bad either. It’s a great album, and even the filler is good. One other complaint: the cover is a real pain to draw.