Chris Cornell – Scream
To put it bluntly, Chris Cornell’s latest effort is just a weird record: take a grunge god, mix in an iconic R&B/pop producer, and toss in some jungle beats and techno hooks, and basically you’ve got Scream (to be fair, we should have seen weirdness like this coming after Cornell covered Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” on his last album Carry On) – whether it works or not is a tough question to answer; songs like “Ground Zero” sound good (and not weird), but parts of “Never Far Away” sound like they are lifted from a Kelly Clarkson record, and for a guy who was always “rock star” cool but never “pop star” cool it’s too jarring to be enjoyable, because it’s pretty much impossible to forget that this is the guy who was screaming on “Pretty Noose” 13 years ago.
More »