Slash ~ Slash (aka self-titled) (album review) ... Slashing through guests to get somewhere!

Style: hard rock
Label: EMI
Year: 2010
Home: n/a

Members: Slash ~ guitars
Chris Chaney ~ bass
Josh Freese ~ drums

Additional: Eric Valentine ~ keyboards
Big Chris Flores ~ keyboards/programming
Taylor Hawkins, Kevin Churko ~ b. vocals
Joe Sandt ~ harpsichord
Deron Johnson ~ organ
Mark Robertson, Alyssa Park, Julie Rogers, Sam Fischer, Grace Oh, Songa Lee, Maia Jasper, Lisa Li ~ violins, Anton Patzner, Lewis Patzner ~ strings
Steve Ferrone ~ drums
Lenny Castro ~ percussion

Guests: Ian Astbury ~ lead vocals/percussion
Izzy Stradlin ~ rhythm guitar
Lemmy Kilmister ~ lead vocals/bass
Kid Rock, Iggy Pop, Chris Cornell, Ozzy Osbourne, Fergie, Myles Kennedy, Andrew Stockdale, Adam Levine, M. Shadows, Rocco DeLuca ~ lead vocals
Dave Grohl ~ drums
Duff McKagan ~ bass/b. vocals


What is wrong with this album? Technically nothing. But, how come after listening to it over & over & over via a couple days I almost have to force myself to get interested? I find myself wondering what happened to the trademarked bluesy riffs I used to love by Slash? & how come the singers don't seem to sound as interesting as I know all of them are? & how come none of the songs I can remember once the album ends? & how come I'm not playing air guitar to Slash as I used to? It's as if Slash has, deliberately or not, laid his Guns N Roses roots finally to rest, only to create some new music that lacks any distinct personality or any real emotional push in any direction. Some critics have talked about how this goes back to the 90's, but for me I can't help but hear the lack of things versus what is here. While none of the participants really do anything to pull the songs in any direction, not even the main player himself I feel. It's like there's a different vocal tone on each song, but it doesn't really mean much as nothing feels distinct. It's a duets album without any interesting duets. While there's a guitarist on all the tracks, Izzy Stradlin' appears on rhythm track on the first track & is the only additional guitarist, but I'm not really that engaged by the playing & it seems to lack any distinctiveness or personality. I can only think of some interesting points to touch upon. "Ghost" with Ian Astbury of the Cult feels like it has too many layers. Is there three guitars here all at once or is it four? What is this trying to be - the new utterly cluttered Aerosmith? While I realize I've been listening to Astbury too much with the reunited Doors versus the Cult as I'm always looking for Jim Morrison in his vocals, but that's not fair to him. The tracks with Ozzy, Lemmy & Iggy Pop feel like Slash is just trying to recreate each player's individual sound versus challenging them with a new setting. None are that interesting lyrically either & like most of the singers on the album the performances aren't so hot & feel more autopilot than anything. Ozzy is great partly because of dirty & stomping guitar licks in his solo albums, but his song here is a weak imitation that is neither dirty nor stomping & imitate the notes without the essence. Which means, it would have been better not to imitate at all. The fact that Slash is a blues-based rocker not a heavy metal guitar makes it feel worse as nobody is thus in their creative zone. Fergie probably made "Beautiful Dangerous" the standout single because she's the token female & something to look at in a video, as it's not really that interesting of a song & suffers from more Aerosmith-esque too many layers that take the focus in too many directions & none are particularly good. Chris Cornell turns in a good performance on "Promise", though it sounds more like his Euphora Morning meets Time over Soundgarden. He's always a great voice, but his solo career just makes us miss the power & majesty of Soundgarden & this guest spot is no exception. No doubts why Slash chose Myles Kennedy to join him on his next album from his two tracks here, the only singer with two songs. He might be the least famous guest but turns in the best tracks & I would have grabbed him too. The only real standout, or at least in terms of what I expected to hear, might be the instrumental "Watch This" with Dave Grohl & Duff McKagan which has hints of classic Slash days. Maybe Slash could continue this duet album theme with a group of instrumentalists on some future release? A guitar fest maybe? Though, that might go in the opposite direction & not be uninspired but too inspired & in your face. Though, I'll pay for Slash & Ronnie Woods in the same song any day given their mutual blues base the sparks would surely fly. What's interesting is there's a bounce with Slash. One great outing (i.e. Guns N Roses), then one iffy outing (i.e. Slash's Snakepit), then one great outing (i.e. Velvet Revolver), then this iffy outing & now his new album with Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators is great. I might be a bit off, but that's a thought that came to me while walking down the sidewalk today trying to figure out what I think of this album after spending days listening. I put off listening to this album for awhile as the idea of Slash's debut solo album got me excited & I didn't even read the reviews to keep my ears virginal. I should have listened earlier & gotten it over with. Sadly.

Chris Cornell ~ Scream (album review) ... If a musician screams in the forest does anyone hear him?

Style: dance pop, techno, rock
Label: Interscope
Year: 2009
Home: Seattle

Members: Chris Cornell ~ lead vocals
Timbaland, Jerome Harmon ~ all instruments
Dan Warner ~ guitars
DJ Timmy T ~ DJ scratching

Additional: Demo ~ programming
Peter Thorn ~ guitars
Lasim Richards, Frank Chadwyck Bernstein, Brian Keegan,
Rashawn Ross, Phil Lassiter ~ horns
Lee Levin, Jason Sutter ~ drums
Darryl Pearson ~ bass/guitars/b. vocals
Brent Kutzle ~ cello
Justin Timberlake, Amar, Ryan Tedder, Jim Beanz, Ezekial Lewis ~ b. vocals

When artists decide to reinvent themselves in a momentary lapse of reason the results can be shocking, though honestly sometimes great and honestly sometimes just plain shocking. Though, shocking might be an understatement for Scream, the third solo album from former Audioslave-Soundgarden-Temple Of The Dog vocalist CC, perhaps one of the best rock singers to ever come out of Seattle with an instantly recognizable deep croon that is to be admired. He's never been shy about experimenting as his diverse musical catalog from day one is witness to ... but to bring on producer Timbaland to become the next dance floor Madonna is a bit too much ... to both consider & certainly to digest. Techno beats galore, loops like nobody's business, synthesized vocals intent on embarrassing & all the trademarks of the dancefloor ... not a fun one actually, but a very awkward cold one ... are here, even the profane highly repeated lyrics that may represent real emotions but are too looped & autotuned or something to be taken as honest. This is CC like you've never heard him before ... & pray that you never will again. If he had taken rock song & given them a techno background, such as Seattle's Sky Cries Mary or in an electronica direction a la Die Krupps, who are known for bringing Metallica into the electronica realm, that would be once thing & potentially something interesting to hear, but on Scream the guitars are tucked very low behind the beats & this is anything but a rock album ... in any definition of the word rock ... unless you're like the Rock'N'Roll Hall Of Fame that considers rap music to be rock. This is as straight forward dance as anything in Madonna's catalog since Ray Of Light ... but that had at least a soul & hypnotic flavor to spice up the beats which this lacks. But, one might think that CC's great powerhouse voice might be able to rescue him from the worst musical crisis ... not here. Timbaland has forgotten what makes CC so amazing. Yes, it's his songwriting ... except when looped & turned into a dance beat. But, more importantly it's his singing & that's been tucked into the mix as much as the guitars & given a synthesizer treatment more often then not. The result is like auto-tuning Streisand or Sinatra & then playing distorted guitars over them blurring almost anything that's left of their talent ... ghastly. I'm reminded of Ozzy who once said something akin to that if the most recognizable part of the song is the melody line then don't kill the melody. If the most recognizable feature is the singer, why kill the singer? Puke buckets in the lobby, free of charge, for CC fans & non CC fans alike. I honestly can not figure out the good reviews that are out there on this album. Those must be emphasizing the idea of the experiment over the outcome ... if only we could look in the drop in the stock exchange like that, as remember it's not where the numbers are today but where I wanted them to be! Though, it should be said, if this was a foundation crafted for Madonna or Rhianna or one of the many dance oriented vocalists out there, Sinatra not withstanding, even Cyndi Lauper's strange beast of a minimalist dance album a few years ago, this album might have some merit. Timbaland knows his stuff, even if he's created something a bit more cold than not & lacking enough texture to keep the album afloat above being heavily repetitious. Some of the looped choruses are actually pretty good. The music flows intricately into one long medley, though that doesn't help the suffering individuality of the songs, & some of the beats are really interesting & quite unique sounding ... if one is still awake to listen. Timbaland should be commended for making one of the more distinctive voices sound like one of the Jacksons desperate for a hit after having lost his voice. The lost & beloved CC does get a few moments to come back to earth, such as the bridge of "Get Up", "Climbing Up The Walls", "Time" & the verse of "Never Far Away", but they are few & make the torture that much worse. Sadly, by the middle of the album one is barely paying attention to those moments anymore having thoroughly lost interest in CC's experiment or a game of listenability. After this Phillip Glass, John Adams, John Cage & opera seem heartwarming. This has to be one of the oddest, most confusing & most disappointing albums of 2009 ... & certainly the worst album from one of my favorite singers. Even Jewel's foray into dance beats still kept some of the Jewel soul & cute spark of poetry. Here it seems to be a game of how to obliterate everything related to CC's personality. One can only ask what CC was aiming for here. Was he sick of his career? Was he sick of being called a rock singer or that guy from the now defunct Soundgarden? Was he so desirous to reinvent himself that he knew of no other genre? Was a country career, even, off limits or reality tv? Did he realize how alienating this would be for his fans? Is he really into techno & is doing this because he can & doesn't care what anyone thinks? Did he plan to piss off his fans who expected more great music from him? Did he really think he was pushing the definition of rock music & creating a new synthesis of rock/electronica? Is this his vision of some great musical identity change because the beats flow through him more than the grunge? Does he think he's Bowie or Madonna ... egads, a drag queen coming out of the closet ... both famous image changers who do it far better? Did he want a R&B or dance club fanbase & if so where are they going to go after this - "Black Hole Sun" ... the remix album? I shudder to think of Soundgarden Mach II - the disco era. As for Timbaland, it's said he wanted to leave R&B for a rock album ... keep trying, dude, but you might want to learn what a rock album sounds like first. The funny this is, in theory the pieces of this album, a mixing of talents & styles, isn't so bad & has been done & it works ... just not here unless you consider pain a sign of a theory gone right. The fact that this is the highest charting album of CC's solo career, hitting #10 on the Billboard 100, shows that either folks have no taste or they like to see people embarrass themselves ... which some might say is why Bill O'Reilly is so popular. The fact that the following week it dropped to #55, the second biggest drop of a Top 10 album in almost three years, shows that the album was probably a success out the door because folks wanted a new CC solo album - this guy makes great music - but joke on all of us! We don't get his definition of what great music is! Whoops!

Singles Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (comp) (album review) ... The soundtrack to end all soundtracks!

Style: grunge, hard rock
Label: Epic
Year: 1992
Home: Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago


Includes following bands: Alice In Chains

Pearl Jam

Chris Cornell

Soundgarden

The Lovemongers

Mother Love Bone

Mudhoney

Jimi Hendrix Experience

Screaming Trees

Paul Westerberg

Smashing Pumpkins

Grunge is one of the more mysterious musical movements, united by geography not sound. At least when one talks L.A. everyone thinks big hair & glam, while San Francisco brings up images of 60's flower power, New Jersey is synonymous with Springsteen, with New York conjuring up ... well, that's always been questionable outside of the Velvet Underground. When grunge first came to national attention it was via the breakthrough overnight success of Nirvana & Pearl Jam that sound nothing alike let alone other bands in the area. Let alone the Seattle music scene was doing quite well before grunge with the label actually being a mis-representation of the diversity of bands playing there, even the bands labeled as grunge. If anything is grunge it might be Mudhoney & the Screaming Trees with Mother Love Bone being the glam side, if one is limited to nationally known bands. But, what it is or is not put Seattle on the map forever. So, to then make a movie about life in the city, even though it's just another city but with a little more rain & some mountains & lots of coffee, is a bit of an odd thing. Okay, so many residents are known for being laid back poets & artists, but that's not enough to make a movie out of. Though, when it comes to music soundtracks based around a mysterious musical genre that for all intensive purposes was around before it became known & died when Nirvana did, this is one of the best rock/metal soundtracks one could ask for. Actually, if it wasn't for the soundtrack the weakness of the movie would be much more apparent. It's much like Eddie & The Cruisers in this respect. Further, this is probably one of the few compilations where every song is outstanding with no weak links. It has a stellar line-up & thus no excuses: Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Chris Chornell solo & with Soungarden, The Lovemongers featuring Ann & Nancy Wilson of Heart, Mother Love Bone, Mudhoney, Jimi Hendrix, Screaming Trees, Paul Westerberg of the Replacements & the Smashing Pumpkins, though the last two are from Minneapolis & Chicago respectively but work incredibly well in the mix let alone ending the album perfectly with the distorted "Drown" by the Pumpkins. With both well known songs & some more obscure ones this very well could be a photograph of 90's Seattle. All it's missing is Nirvana ... surprisingly ... and some lesser known bands. Though, except for Hendrix and Mother Love Bone all the bands were making music at the time Singles was released in theaters with a few bands actually finding a big career boost afterwards. The highlights are many, which is why the album is one of the best selling of soundtracks of the 90's, let alone helped solidify the grunge movement. Highlights include Chris Cornell's haunting acoustic ballad "Seasons" which shows what a great singer he is, the Lovemonger's acoustic take on Led Zeppelin's "Battle Of Evermore" that couldn't even be eclipsed by the future Page/Plant reunion, the under-rated Hendrix gem "May This Be Love" from Are You Experienced, along with songs that would become hits for Mother Love Bone ("Crown Of Thorns"), Pearl Jam ("Breathe", "State Of Love & Trust"), Screaming Trees ("Nearly Lost You") & Alice In Chains ("Would?"). Paul Westerberg's material ("Dyslexic Heart," "Waiting For Somebody") is probably the lightest stuff on the album, being his first solo material & still sounding very Replacements-esque, but it also lends a comic balance to the heavy handedness of Soundgarden ("Birth Ritual") & raw distortions of underdogs Mudhoney ("Overblown"). This is one of those rare compilations where the range of styles paints a complete picture not a broken one of mis-matched music. This will get repeated listens where not a single track will want to be missed.

Alice Cooper ~ Classicks (live, hits comp) (album review) ... Star studded & not quite classics as you know them!

Style: shock rock, heavy metal, hard rock, greatest hits, live
Label: Epic
Year: 1995
Home: Arizona

Members: Al Pitrelli, Stef Burns ~ guitar/b. vocals
John McCurry, Pete Freezin' ~ guitar
Hugh McDonald, T-Bone Caradonna ~ bass
Derek Sherinian ~ keyboards/b. vocals
Greg Smith ~ bass/b. vocals
Jonathan Mover, Bobby Chouinard, Mickey Currey, David Uosikkinen ~ drums
Robert Bailey, Alan St. John, John Webster, Steve Croes ~ keyboards

Additional: Dan Wexler ~ guitar
Zachary Nevel, Vic Pepe, Tony Palmucci, Scott Bender, Corkey McClennan, Lance Bulen, Terry Wood, Shaun Murphy, Sherwood Ball, Cali, Gary Falcone, Ian Richardson, Nick Coler, Mick Wilson, Mike Finnigan, Stan Bush ~ b. vocals

Guests: Slash, Steve Vai, Joe Perry ~ guitar
Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, Kelly Keeling, Jack Ponti ~ b. vocals
Joe Satriani ~ guitar/b. vocals
Nikki Sixx ~ bass

Before reviewing this compilation/live album let me note that this was released by the label after Alice had left & thus his involvement was minimal, so the outcome may not be exactly what he'd release if given full creative control. Like the Megadeth greatest hits albums released by Capitol Records after the band moved to Sanctuary Records in 2000 ... it's all about a label continuing to make money on an artist now making money for someone else. That being said ... how do you get fans to buy a greatest hits package that has tracks probably everyone already has in their collection? Well, you can focus the greatest hits collection on a particular theme, here being the leather era look of a now sober Alice. Next, you record a new track or two that you set beside both classic tracks & some lesser known more recent tracks. But, what do you do when your musician has left your label & thus there's no new tracks forthcoming? Of the 15 songs on Classicks, a name suggested by Alice himself, one track is a new song, albeit it's actually an underheard B-side, eight tracks are recent while six are classic tracks from the 70's but performed live by the 1989/1990 touring band. The idea is that all the tracks have the same 80's hard rock sound & not reflect the eclectic musical changes that have highlighted Alice's career. This album was looking for new generation of fans who liked one style of music & it was loud, bombastic & full of guitar. When it comes to greatest hits compilations this is one of the more unique approaches I've seen. It's right up there with Asia re-recording all their old songs for Anthology, albeit this is far more successful & enjoyable as the touring band isn't trying to duplicate which was Asia's goal. Classicks is supposed to be a greatest hits collection but the recent tracks are culled only from the then most recent Trash from 1989, Hey Stoopid & The Last Temptation, while the classic tracks are all from the Alice Cooper Band & 1975's Welcome To My Nightmare. Thus, besides lacking quite a few classic hits, there's a near fifteen year gap of recordings missing from this album making its status as a true greatest hits albums weak. Albeit, no hits really came from the ten albums released in that time, but there's a few gems such as "You & Me" that keep them from being completely forgettable though they largely are according to both fans & Alice himself in his autobiography. But, the MTV era hits are here that culled a new generation of fans, though only Trash really scored any real hits. But, though Trash spun off four videos & the most commercial success its strangely represented by the single track "Poison" while the other two albums, that might have spurred less hits but have stronger songs, are given more than their fare share of attention considering their minor commercial impact. It's almost as if Trash had gotten enough success & now the label wanted some attention on the other lesser selling albums. Alice of the late 80's/90's was a heavy metal guy, far different than his 70's/early 80's persona, brought home by the live versions on Classicks of classic Alice Cooper Band hits that are far different & more wild than their 15-20 year old studio counterparts. Taken directly from the Trashes The World video they are raw two guitar onslaughts with a high energy band including future Savatage/Megadeth/Asia/Trans-Siberian guitarist Al Pitrelli, future Dream Theater keyboardist Derek Sherinian, under-rated drummer Jonathan Mover of GTR with Steve Howe, guitarist Pete Freezin' & bassist T-Bone Caradonna. It's the band that would set the sound & look for Alice through the present day with current shows being a development of the Trash look. Eric Singer, famous for his future tenure with Kiss, would replaced Mover soon after filming the video but no official recordings of his time with the tour exist. This tour line-up, supporting the release of Trash, on this compilation only feature the band playing the classic songs. At first the live tracks sound messy & cluttered with guitars roaring in a way not heard before, though they are a perfect reflection of how Alice updated his sound for the 80's, putting aside the more prog elements of the songs for a more headbanging sound. The songs might be re-arranged but remain untouchable classics. Anyone who doesn't know the contemporary music by Alice is missing an important chunk of his career. This is a good starting point for someone unsure of if they might like his current sound, plus as a bonus it features numerous guest musicians. Personally, I'd buy The Last Temptation first, then consider this compilation or the other two studio releases if I liked what I heard. The Last Temptation has some of the most heart-breaking songs Alice ever recorded, telling the story of a boy lost in the world & eventually discovering God as this album marked Alice's Christian conversion. In many ways this is a lopsided compilation as it's featuring a studio band then a completely different live band & thus sounds like two albums. But, to hear 80's Alice one could do a lot worse. The albums on the new record label that would follow this compilation would see Alice going even heavier & into industrial & bringing the character to its scariest thus Classicks ends up the end of an era & a photograph of past glories.