In your Jesus Christ POLL: BADMOTORFINGER

I mean, I'm sure that Matt Cameron noticed when he wasn't playing in 4/4 with snare hits on 2 and 4 but I do agree that Soundgarden's time changes or asymmetrical metres flow in a really intuitive way. (I feel the same way about the Beatles' "Blackbird" and Rush's "Limelight", for example.) I get what Thayil meant: he was just trying to write heavy riffs and wasn't deliberately thinking "I want to do something in 7" or "I want to do something in 6-bar phrases with 5 bars of 3 and 1 bar of 4". Those were just the things he did intuitively to write good songs.

What disturbs me is that Wikipedia states that the second part of "Rusty Cage" is in 19/8. Might have to start doing some Wikipedia editing.

Well, 5x3+1x4=19, but I wouldn't notate it as 19/8. Christ.

Well, yeah, that's what I mean. Counting the whole phrase as a single bar of 19 (!) is pretty ridiculous.

That and it doesn't feel like a single bar of 19!

I think this is the record that has by far survived the grunge era the best for me. This and maybe Meantime.

Fixed it. I wonder if someone will change it back, arguing that they really feel the 19.

xpost

Reminds me of a story my mate told me - he was watching a band with the most amazing drummer who was pulling off all kinds of ultra-technical odd time sig shit. After the gig he asked him what the time signature was on one tune, and the drummer replied, "I always play in 1/1"

Wow, I just counted the second half of "Rusty Cage": 5 bars of 3 + 1 bar of 4!

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Tuesday, July 2, 2013 10:13 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hear it as three bars of three and two bars of five fwiw

I just played it a few times at low to moderate volume (since I'm at work). I can hear it your way, although right now, I think the guitars support my analysis. I usually try to avoid analysing asymmetrical metres if there's a simpler explanation tbh. I'll listen again at home when I can play it loud enough to hear the drums really clearly.

My problem with counting it as 5 bars of 3 is that then the fourth bar of "3" doesn't have a hit on the 1.

sorry I mean the fifth bar of "3"

so counting the 5's is the only way I can come up with to avoid an awkward bar with no downbeat

OK, I listened a few times on headphones now. Basically, as I suspected, the guitars and bass do what I said and the drums do what you said, which is what gives this section its rhythmic tension. (You're a drummer, right?) In the 5/4 measures of your analysis, you're hearing the snare hit on beat 3? If I were transcribing the guitar or bass part, I'd probably notate it like I said originally. If I were transcribing a full band arrangement, I might do it your way and write in syncopations in the guitar and bass parts to avoid having to notate shifting accents in the drum line.

In the 5/4 measures of your analysis, you're hearing the snare hit on beat 3?

Actually, no. I'm not that experienced with analysing/transcribing drum parts, tbh, but I'm not sure I'm hearing a consistent 5-beat pattern for 2 bars at the end of this phrase.

Basically, I'm hearing something closer to this in the drums:
Three bars of 3/4 with the hit on 1
2 bars of 3/4 with a hit (or accent) on the & of 2 (different from the previous beat but still a 3-beat pattern)
a bar of 4/4 with the hit/accent on 3 (non-standard but with the riff, this really does feel like a bar of 4 to me)

I'll be honest, though: the riff really feels like the predominant element here so it may be distracting me from what's really going on in the drums.

The drums and guitars are accenting the same beats pretty much all the time, so just assume I am focusing on the riff. There are three bars of three where the hits are like this:

1-2-AND-3 1-2-AND-3 1-2-AND-3

After that you could count a fourth bar of three with accents on all three downbeats (1 2 3), but then the problem is that makes the next bar accent on the "and" of 1 which is very awkward (no downbeat). So instead I'm thinking of that fourth bar as a bar of five. I agree that that makes the last bar of five not really feel like a bar of five. Maybe it makes more sense to think of it as 3 - 3 - 3 - 5 - 3 - 2

Oh, I can hear that.

'outshined' is the most recent good song to get played on rock radio

haha i love this time signature convo

i totally believe that thayil and some other members of the band were only dimly aware of what time signature they were playing in -- drummers kinda HAVE to think about that stuff but ime you can trick guitarists and bassists into playing in time signatures they would claim not to understand if you just let them find the groove.

I do remember an interview (I think Guitar magazine?) with Kim Thayil where he was actually saying that Chris was telling them how to count certain phrases.

NB Chris started out as a drummer and wrote a ton of the riffs

a remaster of this could rule so hard

just louderize the shit out of it make those matt cameron drums shake the ground

i'm thinking about how massive some of the riffs would sound. in particular, Outshined and Room a Thousand Years Wide.

feelin

that verse riff for "Holy Water" don't mess around

MIIIIIIND RIOTTT

the back half of this kind of turns into an anticipation of down on the upside

in a way...abandons the Sabbath heavy dirge riffing and goes into some of that open string psychedelic noodling they'd do later. just think they did it better here than on the latter.

will say the Upside stuff sounded nice live tho lst year.

yeah i tend to think of it in my head as all sabbath heavy dirge riffing b/c of beginning and 'new damage', plus other stuff i kind of just lump together as 'not anything'

the hammer-on/pull-off riffs in weird tunings was always one of my favorite bits they did on BMF through Upside. especially the title track to Superunknown, that main riff.

It was also hella fun to be 15 years old learning the guitar and tuning a shitty Fender Squire to their weird tunings and learning to play these songs.

did not know they were remastering this!

It's already on Spotify

http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/10/soundgarden-announce-deluxe-reissue-of-badmotorfinger-for-25th-anniversary/

7 discs and no SOMMS EP? What's up with that?

That second CD also features the version of “New Damage” with Queen’s Brian May.

whaaaa

my music news pipeline has utterly failed me

it sounds good! not the revelation i would have wished, which was maybe impossible (still kind of in mark arm 'rush' territory in the drums), but the bass has more body and there's more definition and separation in the guitar parts.

the latter brings out the constant texturing and noisification they've always got going on, but it especially adds to the faster songs in the latter half, because the twistiness of the riffs is made to stand out

It will never sound better than on my 1991 cassette.

OTMFM.

Dammit, just remembered that this is one of those albums I have to listen to anytime people start discussing it.

i'm thinking about how massive some of the riffs would sound. in particular, Outshined and Room a Thousand Years Wide.

― charlie h, Thursday, June 5, 2014 8:23 PM (two years ago)

oddly, it's the buzzing thayil (i assume that's him) drone under the verses on 'room' that stands out for me—the weirdness of it definitely seems accentuated

Slaves and Bulldozers is still my fuckin fav

man I haven't listened to this since I had it on tape when it was new

still pretty fuckin good

This album will always rule, IMO. I'd love to have been in the rehearsal room when they were learning how to play 'Face Pollution' ... the second half of that track is still one of my favourite Soundgarden moments.

I had this album on really poorly pressed vinyl back in the day and was never sure all the tricky changes in Face Pollution weren't my needle skipping

hard to imagine that this and use your illusion came out in the same month

hmm I guess use your illusion was
OUTSHINED
OUTSHINED
OUTSHINED

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/18/chris-cornell-soundgarden-audioslave-dead-aged-52

But there’s no doubt that Nirvana’s success propelled them to new heights of popularity, aided by the fact that Soundgarden’s breakthrough album Badmotorfinger, was clearly their most focused and commercial to date. But Soundgarden’s oft-reviled willingness to court a mainstream rock audience – “Fuck, you sound like Rush,” offered Mudhoney’s Mark Arm disparagingly on hearing Badmotorfinger – was always balanced by a certain strangeness and desire to experiment.

From the interview Ned posted:

Regarding your own playing, some people I’ve spoken to feel that Rush’s last two albums were more commercial than usual. Was that on purpose?

NP: Well, if we were trying to be commercial, we failed.

this album fucking rules, start to finish

yes