Monday, 11 December 2017
739 Hello Soundgarden -Jesus Christ Pose
Chart entered : 11 April 1992
Chart peak : 30
Number of hits : 10
The second grunge outfit to appear here were formed in Seattle in 1984 by singer/drummer Chris Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayall and bassist Hiro Yamamoto who had all been in a band called The Shemps though not all at the same time. They named themselves after a local sculpture. A year later, Scott Sundquist joined on drums freeing Chris to concentrate on vocals. In 1986 they recorded three tracks for a local compilation Deep Six which also featured Green River and The Melvins. "Heretic", "Tears To Forget" and "All Your Lies" are all marked by bleak lyrics, little trace of melody and extreme vocals from Chris although the latter track has a decent bass line. Shortly afterwards Sunquist quit and Matt Cameron was poached from local rivals Skin Yard.
Their live performances impressed local DJ Jonathan Poneman who volunteered to fund a single on fledgling label Sub Pop. The result was "Hunted Down" in June 1987, a track that owes a lot to Black Sabbath with Chris sounding quite similar to Ozzy Osbourne. Five months later it was the opening track on their EP, "Screaming Life" which doesn't have any great tunes but indicates the fast development of the band in both the playing and Chris's singing. "Little Joe" sounds very like The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
That was also true of the next EP, "Fopp" in 1988. The title song was a cover of an Ohio Players track. There was also a Dub version of the song and the other tracks "Kingdom of Come" and a cover of Green River's "Swallow My Pride" also have traces of funk influence.
Later in the year they released their debut album "Ultramega OK". It's a dreary dark metal album again owing much to Black Sabbath. The band blamed producer Drew Canulette for its lack of success but the complete lack of a decent tune probably had more to do with it.
Shortly afterwards they signed with A & M and toured with Guns 'n' Roses, to the dismay of much of their Seattle fanbase. Their first LP for the label was "Louder Than Love" in September 1989 which is better produced but treads much the same ground as its predecessor. The only track which stands out, in large part due to its expletives , is the hair metal parody "Big Dumb Sex". Nevertheless major label muscle got it into the lower reaches of the US album chart and the two singles "Hands All Over" and "Loud Love" came close to charting here.
After the sessions ended Yamamoto, who felt he was being sidelined by Chris and Kim in the writing, left to go to college. He was replaced for the tour by early Nirvana member Jason Everman but when the tour ended the others felt he didn't fit in the group and he was replaced by Ben Shepherd, a long time friend of the group.
"Jesus Christ Pose" was the lead single from their next album, "Badmotorfinger". As it was worked up from a jam, all four members are credited as writing it. Chris later said it was about public figures claiming persecution but it seems more personal than that to me like it's addressed to someone who's always playing the victim. As if the title wasn't enough to present problems getting airplay, it's musically challenging , nearly six minutes long with super-fast playing and not even a hint of a tune. It almost certainly owed its high position to the sudden spotlight on Seattle following Nirvana's commercial breakthrough.
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I imagine the title seemed fairly tame when compared to the lyrics of the Jesus and Mary Chain's "Reverence", released just a few months before - which still managed to go top ten.
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