Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell Comments on Modern Rock, Praises Adele
Story by Cat Badra
Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell discusses the rise of grunge in Seattle
Soundgarden throat Chris Cornell has never been one to sugarcoat things, and when it comes to today’s modern music scene, he most certainly thinks there’s room for improvement. Following in the traditions of Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, who gave a Grammy acceptance speech last year praising music that’s crated by humans instead of computers, Cornell thinks the biggest audience responds to human beings crafting music.
“Contemporary pop music couldn’t be any worse than it is now,” Cornell told The Sun. “The one bright spot was Adele having the biggest-selling record of last year. They’re actually songs and she can really sing.
“So obviously the biggest market still responds to a human being creating music.”
Cornell went on to say that while rock is hitting a hard point right now, he believes that challenge is making the genre better. “I’ve always believed that rock music benefits from an obstacle,” he said. “The worst rock is made when everybody loves rock, like in the late Eighties. That’s the only time hard rock has been the biggest-selling genre of music — and it was mostly crap.
“The Seattle scene was the antithesis of that. Soundgarden was very instrumental in creating that shift. We were one of the first bands to be held up and looked at, where the engines of commercial rock thought, ‘This is the future. This band or bands like it can be selling millions of records.’”
He believes rock is alive and well in 2012. “A big reason grunge became so big so fast is because people were so sick of what was out there. It’s the same thing now. You have a better chance of a very healthy and vital rock scene coming out today because there’s something to react against.”
Soundgarden’s new, as-yet-untitled album is expected to drop in the fall.
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