I HAD AN AWESOME TIME: Is Chris Cornell Headed Back In The Right Direction?

Chris Cornell hopped on stage with Pearl Jam this past Tuesday, October 6th to perform the Temple Of The Dog song "Hunger Strike":

That takes me back to the glory days when Cornell was kicking major ass with Soundgarden. Soundgarden is one of my favorite bands of the '90s. Louder Than Love, Badmotorfinger and Superunknown are all superb albums. Their final release, Down On The Upside doesn't quite live up to it's predecessors, but is still a fine album nonetheless. After Soundgarden broke up, Cornell released a solo record Euphoria Morning which I thought was just abysmal and apparently the general public agreed with my take as it was a commercial flop. He then went on to join up with the band members of the recently singer-less Rage Against The Machine to form Audioslave. Their self-titled debut and second album Out Of Exile are both awesome straight up hard rock records (that aren't derivative of the members previous bands' sound), but their third and final album, Revelations sounded like a band that wasn't happy playing with each other anymore. Apparently they weren't since they didn't tour on the record and Cornell split about a year later to pursue his solo career again. That was the point that I completely gave up on the guy. I don't know why, but I had a feeling he would not be creating music I would enjoy. Do you ever get that sense with a band or artist? You just get this gut feeling that an album is going to be awful, so you don't even bother with it? I've had it quite a few times and have been right more often than I've been wrong. Cornell has released two solo albums since leaving Audioslave and I haven't heard either, nor do I care to. By all accounts, anyone who is a fan of his work with Soundgarden and Audioslave would be/was grossly offended by his 2009 effort Scream. As soon as I heard he was collaborating with Timbaland, I knew there was no way it was going to be anything but awful and that Chris Cornell had officially gone off the deep end. No disrespect to Timbaland who is obviously a talented guy, but do I want him producing solo efforts for one of the greatest rock singers of all time? No thanks.

I think there will be a Soundgarden reunion sooner rather than later because Cornell will want to wash the stink of his solo career off. Or maybe he doesn't realize that everybody thinks he sucks now.

"Jesus Christ Pose"