..:: audio-music dot info ::..


Main Page      The Desert Island      Copyright Notice
 Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz


Soundgarden: Telephantasm

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: A&M Records
Released: 2010.09.28
Time:
 59:40
Category: Grunge, Heavy Metal, Alternative Metal
Producer(s): Michael Beinhorn, Drew Canulette, Terry Date, Jack Endino, Adam Kasper, Brendan O'Brien, Soundgarden
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.soundgardenworld.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Hunted Down [Screaming Life EP] (Thayil) - 2:41
[2] Hands All Over [Louder Than Love] (Thayil) - 5:58
[3] Outshined [Badmotorfinger] (Cornell) - 5:11
[4] Rusty Cage [Badmotorfinger] (Cornell) - 4:25
[5] Birth Ritual [Singles (soundtrack)] (Cornell, Thayil, Cameron) - 6:05
[6] My Wave [Superunknown] (Cornell, Thayil) - 5:13
[7] Spoonman [Superunknown] (Cornell) - 4:08
[8] Black Hole Sun [Superunknown] (Cornell) - 5:19
[9] Fell on Black Days [Superunknown] (Cornell) - 4:39
[10] Burden in My Hand [Down on the Upside] (Cornell) - 4:50
[11] Blow Up the Outside World [Down on the Upside] (Cornell) - 5:46
[12] Black Rain [Previously Unreleased] (Thayil, Shepherd) - 5:25

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Chris Cornell - Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Mixing, Producer
Kim Thayil - Lead Guitar, Liner Notes, Mixing, Producer
Ben Shepherd - Bass on [3-12], Mixing, Producer
Matt Cameron - Percussion, Drums, Mixing, Producer
Hiro Yamamoto - Bass on [1-2], Mixing, Producer

Michael Beinhorn - Producer
Drew Canulette - Producer
Terry Date - Engineer, Producer
Jack Endino - Engineer, Producer, Studio Assistant
Adam Kasper - Assistant, Engineer, Mixing, Producer
Brendan O'Brien - Engineer, Mixing, Producer
Larry Brewer - Production Assistant
Shannon Steckloff - Production Manager
Jason Corsaro - Engineer
Stuart Hallerman - Engineer, Studio Assistant
Matt Bayles - Assistant Engineer
Sam Hofstedt - Assistant, Assistant Engineer
Ron St. Germaine - Mixing
Steve Thompson - Mixing
Michael Barbiero - Mixing
Bob Ludwig - Mastering
Efren Herrera - Assistant
Seth Waldman - Assistant
Josh Graham - Artwork, Design, Layout
Ryan Null - Photo Coordination
Charles Peterson - Photography
Cam Garrett - Photography
Jay Blakesberg - Photography
Marty Temme - Photography
Kevin Westenberg - Photography
Roy Wilkinson - Photography
Jo Almeida - Photo Research
Adam Starr - Product Manager
Jeff Ament - Title
Artis the Spoon Man - Spoons
Nelson Ayres - Studio Assistant
Jeff Fura - A&R
Jeff Gilbert - Liner Notes

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Since so much of Soundgarden’s legacy lay in the years before their superstardom, their major label-oriented 1997 A-Sides compilation didn’t quite do them justice. Although it contained cuts from the years before they signed to A&M, A-Sides downplayed the first act of their story, so the 2010 compilation Telephantasm is quite welcome, at least in its double disc incarnation where there’s enough room to capture the entire arc of the group’s career. Not only is there a heavy dose of their SST and SubPop recordings but there is a strategic deployment of live cuts, BBC sessions, single versions and rarities, including the previously unreleased outtake “Black Rain,” all of which capture the band at their heaviest, a shift that’s particularly notable toward the end of their career, with “Pretty Noose” and “Blow Up The Outside World” present in rawer versions than their studio incarnations. This may not satisfy a casual fan who wants to hear versions played on the radio, but the entirety of Telephantasm winds up being something better than a hits collection: it captures the essence of the band, why they were important and why they still sound powerful some twenty years later.

Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



On its first day out, Soundgarden's new album, "Telephantasm," has already scored a platinum award from the Recording Industry Assn of America, which hands out such distinctions. It's not unheard of for bands to get gold or platinum awards before a single copy has been sold. That's because they're based on the number of copies of an album shipped into stores, not sold. What's unusual about "Telephantasm" is that its platinum award is based on the 1 million discs that are included in packages for the video game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, released Tuesday at the same time as the album's 2-CD plus DVD deluxe edition.

Isn't that cheating? Not quite, because the music discs technically have been shipped into stores. But more significantly, Soundgarden is getting an undisclosed licensing fee from the game's publisher, Activision Blizzard Inc. The Seattle grunge band's promoters are billing the release as a "groundbreaking partnership" because it's the first time the RIAA has recognized a sale of "non-returnable units from a music label to a gaming company." And to some in the embattled music industry, cold, hard cash can be, in Soundgarden's words, "louder than love."

Alex Pham - September 28, 2010
Los Angeles Times



When Soundgarden split up in 1997, the press didn’t canonize the band like it did to fellow ‘90s grunge casualty Nirvana. The group’s demise was merely mourned with sad platitudes, marked as yet another nail in the coffin that was alternative rock’s declining mainstream power at the end of the decade. Since then, it’s been easy to take the band’s existence for granted, reserved for obligatory acknowledgment in grunge histories and by the continued presence of select Soundgarden hits on rock radio stations. However, steps are being taken to rectify that, as earlier this year, the group’s classic quartet of Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Ben Shepherd, and Matt Cameron has taken cues from other major alt-rock bands that imploded around the lean years where nu-metal and teen pop dominated popular music (Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Blur, etc.) by reforming for a spate of touring.

To commemorate (or cash in on, depending on how cynical you are) this development, A&M has issued a new deluxe-sized retrospective, Telephantasm (a bare bones 12-track single-disc edition is also available). The immediate question raised is whether or not there is actually a need for a second Soundgarden compilation. After all, the 1998 singles collection A-Sides issued following the group’s initial demise hit pretty much all the high points one would expect a Soundgarden collection to cover. Ah, but what people often forget when it comes to compilation albums is that context is key. By stretching out, roping in key non-single cuts, and providing a bonus DVD loaded with all the group’s videos, Telephantasm not only supplants A-Sides as the definitive Soundgarden compilation, but it emerges as one of the most thrilling, effective band retrospectives to come out in years.

I like Soundgarden as much as any other rock fan probably does (tracks from the band’s 1994 masterpiece Superunknown still figure into my personal listening rotation), but what’s astounding about Telephantasm is how its presentation of the band’s material makes it compulsively listenable. Upon first receiving a copy of the album, I popped the second disc into my computer merely to see if the live version of “Jesus Christ Pose” included was really worthy of replacing its studio counterpart (which, in my mind, is one of the most confounding, yet exhilarating, singles ever released by a major record label) on the record’s running order. Five or six tracks later, I had to forcefully pull myself away in order to complete my errands for the day. Once this record starts, you do not want to hit the stop button. Furthermore, the record never lets up in regard to either infectiousness or visceral-ness: akin to my first experience listening to the 1997 remix of the Stooges’ classic album Raw Power, the thought that constantly ran through me during my initial examination was “I think this album is actually trying to murder me”.

The deluxe version of Telephantasm stretches from “All Your Lies” from the seminal 1986 Deep Six compilation, on through to the new single “Black Rain”, which is actually a previously unreleased song recorded during sessions for Soundgarden’s 1991 breakthrough Badmotorfinger. Early on, Soundgarden was already compelling, even if a little too conventionally metal in places. Built out of spiraling hypno-riffs, “All Your Lies” showcases a raw, sinewy Soundgarden featuring vocals by a fresh-faced Cornell that surprisingly recall Judas Priest’s Rob Halford. Although one of the founders of grunge in the mid 1980s, Soundgarden was always more complicated than the conventional shorthand description of the genre as a simple mash-up of punk and heavy metal: aside from an audible Black Flag influence, the group evidenced more of a desire to mix arty, dissonant post-punk (Bauhaus and Gang of Four) and “pigfuck” noise rock (Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers) than standard hardcore with its ’70 metal riffing.

“All Your Lies” is a hell of a start, and Telephantasm continues to impress over the course of the first disc as the group finds its voice and hones its attack. Even as early as “Beyond the Wheel”, Soundgarden was demonstrating how adept it was at delivering awe-inspiring apocalyptic doom dirges. Another important development was the gradual introduction of psychedelic influences, which added color to Soundgarden’s monochrome angst. Relative weak spots like “Fopp” (wah-wah pedal heavy-funk that only really clicks whenever it gets to the chorus) and “Big Dumb Sex” (a crass pseudo-anthem that isn’t really good enough to make up for its ham-fisted attempt at irony) do emerge, but these are minor concerns as the disc is able to regain its momentum after each misstep, and the disc ends stronger than it begins as it concludes with A-rate cuts from Badmotorfinger like the downer-than-down rock radio staple “Outshined” and the appropriately-descriptive “Slaves and Bulldozers”. While the initial major label positioning of Soundgarden as the next Guns ‘N Roses seemed at odds with its roots in the Sub Pop-dominated Seattle alt-rock scene, there is no such ideological conflict contained in the music itself, which posits the group as a perfect mixture of metal and alternative sensibilities, able to straddle both genres as if they were one integrated whole.

If the first disc made the case that the band hit the ground running creatively from the outset, by the second disc, Telephantasm convincingly argues for the band’s place alongside metal icons Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, the two bands it was most often compared to. Kicking off with the phenomenal 1993 live rendition of “Jesus Christ Pose” (a superheated cauldron of metal and alternative rock that constantly threatens to scorch your face off, ending with over a minute of post-trauma guitar feedback), the disc runs through the Singles soundtrack contribution “Birth Ritual” before making its way through a hefty chunk of Superunknown. When the band’s biggest hit, “Black Hole Sun”, finally shows up, the mood is serene yet disconcerting, like being passed over by the eye of a devastating hurricane. As the album reaches the cuts culled from the band’s final album, Down on the Upside (1996), the group has finally shaken off its remaining Zeppelisms (aside from Cornell’s eternally Robert Plant-flavored wail) in favor of casting itself as a sort of grunge Beatles, all Lennonesque melodies intertwined with Soundgarden’s customary detuned, odd-meter riffs. It’s certainly more melodic than what have come before, but the intensity remains. After all that, the newly-released “Black Rain” has a lot to live up to. Refreshingly, the track is vintage Soundgarden, a perfectly acceptable addition to the set even if its psychedelic Sabbath-isms become a bit repetitive.

If that wasn’t enough, the bonus DVD rounds up every Soundgarden promo video, including alternate and uncensored versions. The visuals are less cohesive than the musical assemblage, as the rock vid clichés of the Louder than Love promos (large spot-lit soundstages and lots of hard rock posturing) stand at odds with the seemingly mandatory surreal imagery of 1990s alternative rock videos that dominates the rest of the clips. Nothing exemplifies this aesthetic shift better than how Chris Cornell (grunge’s only true sex symbol) appears in full bare-chested and long-haired glory up until the Superunknown era, where he opts for a more post-Alternative Nation-friendly messy crop and t-shirts. If you can forgive the dated computer special effects (particularly on the “Superunknown” video included in the Bonus section), many of the videos still hold up to a modern viewing.

What prevents Telephantasm from being absolutely perfect is some rather boneheaded tracklist decisions. The biggest omission is the harrowing Superunknown single “The Day I Tried to Live”, truly one of the band’s bleakest and most powerful moments. Several tracks see their studio incarnations replaced by previously-unreleased live renditions. The material is certainly appreciated, but not at the expense of the regular versions. While the live version of “Jesus Christ Pose” unequivocally earns its keep, other substitutions don’t fare as well, being hampered by poor recording quality (“Get on the Snake”), subpar performance (the Saturday Night Live broadcast of “Pretty Noose”), or utter pointlessness (why include the music video take of “Fell on Black Days” when the video itself is included in the set?).

There’s so much exemplary material stuffed inside the dodgy artwork that adorns Telephantasm (seriously, it looks like something befitting a Creed album) that the overall picture that emerges makes up for any smaller slights that can be found within. Here is a compilation that moves from strength to strength, constantly ratcheting up expectations and delivering on them. There are several points throughout the set—be it “Beyond the Wheel” or “Rusty Cage” or “Birth Ritual” or “Superunknown”—where it feels as if you have just heard the ultimate Soundgarden song, and that the band couldn’t possibly produce anything that could top what has come before. And then it does. Telephantasm is a profound argument for Soundgarden’s mastery of writing heavy rock music, where song structures are engagingly unconventional and every tune has at minimum two classic riffs. Furthermore, Telephantasm is a potent reminder that heavy music can be brutal yet intelligent, that music that’s dissonant and gnarly can achieve mainstream acceptance, and that it’s been far, far too long since most alternative/indie rock has rocked this hard so well. Whatever the reformed Soundgarden is currently cooking up is ultimately irrelevant, for Telephantasm is an astonishing document that effectively summarizes the group’s past career and subsequently confirms its status as a true legend in modern rock music.

Rating: 9/10

AJ Ramirez 14 October 2010
© 1999-2015 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.


 
Unlike a fair number of their PacNW peers, Soundgarden suffered through some growing pains. The problem wasn't so much that the band was trying to find its own voice, but that Chris Cornell wasn't always sure how to best utilize his. Cornell's apocalyptic shriek is the sort of weapon of mass destruction that needs to be implemented with care and precision. Letting it run free on the sludgy metal-punk of "All Your Lies" or faking the funk on a cover of the Ohio Players' "Fopp" were baby steps. And yet, getting to hear songs like these - and, more importantly, to hear the band hit its stride on "Hunted Down" (from the Screaming Life EP) or "Beyond the Wheel" (from their first full-length, Ultramega OK) - alongside the alt-rock standards, is a big part of the hook for Telephantasm.

This new career-spanning collection comes in a few packages - the woefully skint single-disc version that will be packaged with copies of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, the collector-baiting 2xCD/DVD/3xLP/book-and-pictures version, and a 2xCD version that serves as a somewhat serviceable overview of Soundgarden's career. For most people, the one to consider is the 2xCD version, and if there's one thing it does better than its best-of predecessor (1997's now-deleted A-Sides), it's acknowledging that the band released a fair amount of music before signing with A&M Records.

The potential displayed in their early years, coupled with the group's impeccable pedigree - not many bands can say they released records on both Sub Pop and SST - made that major-label jump a foregone conclusion. When Soundgarden did issue their A&M debut, 1989's Louder Than Love, they were still trying to figure things out. A track like "Hands All Over" has Cornell and friends striking the sort of po-faced martyrs' pose they'd later mock mercilessly, while "Big Dumb Sex" (the "I wanna fuck fuck fuck fuck you" song) seems to confuse being a parody of overblown cock rock with being the real thing. Group those two tracks with a half-decent live version of the half-decent "Get on the Snake" (speaking of cock rock) and a sloppy pre-Badmotorfinger take on "Room a Thousand Years Wide", and that's a third of Telephantasm out of the way without much of note happening.

Thankfully, the Telephantasm compilers (mostly) get out of their own way when picking what to include from 1991's Badmotorfinger - they simply run with the album's first four tracks, and it's by far the best stretch of music on Telephantasm's first disc. By now, Kim Thayil's thick yet fluid guitar leads meet up with an equally heavy and flexible rhythm section to create a menacing backdrop that's perfect for Cornell's ungodly holler. Even better, Cornell's learned that the nuclear option works just as well as an implied threat - and that makes his shriek that much more effective when it's let off the leash. On tracks like "Outshined" and "Jesus Christ Pose", Soundgarden figured out how to balance their messianic metallic tendencies with both a sizable helping of self-awareness and a fondness for off-kilter time signatures. The addition of bassist Ben Shepherd gave the group both a strong foundation and an off-kilter songwriting voice to add to the mix.

Alas, Telephantasm aims to bait fans by including a live version of "Jesus Christ Pose" instead of the album cut - a pattern repeated too often on Disc Two, which (aside from the group's contribution to the Singles soundtrack, "Birth Ritual") covers Soundgarden's final two albums. 1994's Superunknown is, of course, the record that transformed the group into alt-rock superstars, so of course "Black Hole Sun" and "Spoonman" are here. Two of the album's other singles, the surf-flavored "My Wave" and the fittingly pessimistic "Fell on Black Days", are also in the mix, though "Black Days" is represented by its lesser video-edit version. Down on the Upside - Superunknown's gentler and more unfocused sibling - has both of its most notable singles ("Pretty Noose", "Blow Up the Outside World") repped by live versions, the former represented by its performance on "Saturday Night Live", a venue infamous for making almost every musical performer that's graced its stage sound like ass. Also here is the album version of "Burden in My Hand" and "Dusty", an unremarkable album track that gave their final record its title.

Finally, as with every career-spanning compilation looking to make a buck, there's the rare or unreleased track: Where A-Sides offered an import B-side ("Bleed Together"), Telephantasm unearths a Badmotorfinger outtake, "Black Rain", which sounds exactly like... a Badmotorfinger outtake.

Even if you're not specifically on one of the group's many wavelengths, there's plenty to enjoy on Telephantasm - fans whose tastes lean towards heavier stuff might find something to like in the Badmotorfinger tracks, while folks whose rock sensibilities are more melodic can dip their toes in the Superunknown. That said, for one extra dollar, curious iTunes shoppers can bypass the middle man and just buy copies of Badmotorfinger and Superunknown - those albums' deep cuts are much better than most of the tunes on Telephantasm, and you'll get studio singles rather than cut-rate bootlegs.

Telephantasm was an opportunity to redefine Soundgarden's somewhat disparate career: to better illustrate the stylistic throughlines that connect Screaming Life to Down on the Upside; to take cuts from their neglected albums and place them in a more forgiving context; to breathe new life into well-known singles. It's a trick the band itself managed to turn with its first post-reunion gig. Performing as Nudedragons, the group took the stage at the Showbox in Seattle this past April and played a set that showed as much love to Louder Than Love and Ultramega OK as any other album in their catalog, giving each portion of their career equal respect without resorting to simply playing just the hits. Succeeding at this sort of task is easier said than done, but it would've been nice if Telephantasm at least tried.

David Raposa - October 4, 2010
© 2015 Pitchfork Media Inc.



Telephantasm is a compilation album by the American rock band Soundgarden. Featuring songs spanning the band's 13-year career, it was released on September 28, 2010 through A&M Records. The album was certified platinum by RIAA after its first day of retail availability based on the one million discs that were included in packages for the video game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.

The album was released in September 2010 on A&M Records following the band's reunion earlier that year. The career-spanning retrospective album includes an unreleased track, "Black Rain", taken from the Badmotorfinger recording sessions. In late August 2010, "Black Rain" reached #44 on the Canadian Hot 100 and #96 on the US Billboard Hot 100. "Black Rain" peaked at #14 on the Billboard Rock Songs chart.

The album is featured in the music video game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, with "Black Rain" available on the disc, and the remaining eleven tracks available as downloadable content alongside release of the game. The album features artwork by Josh Graham, who handles the visual arts for Neurosis, as well as artwork for other artists.

Wikipedia.org
 

 L y r i c s


Currently no Lyrics available!

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


Currently no Samples available!