"You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell's record? Jesus."
Trent Reznor's tweet on the evening of March 11, 2009 was as savage as it was unexpected. Scream, the third solo album released by Cornell, Soundgarden's former frontman, had been in stores for exactly one day when Nine Inch Nails' mastermind offered his scathing critique. As retweets spread Reznor's opinion on the collection, made in collaboration with hip hop producer Timbaland, across the internet, there must surely have been some heads in hands in the marketing and promotion departments of Suretone Records, the recently launched label founded by former Geffen/Interscope CEO Jordan Schur. And this wasn't even the worst review that Scream would receive.
NME called Scream "depressingly castrated". Blender called it "nearly awful". PopMatters suggested that the album exhibited "absolutely no artistic aspirations beyond chart-topping success".
"Sometimes it's good bizarre," acknowledged music industry bible Billboard. "Other times it's bad bizarre."
To be fair, Cornell had already demonstrated that he wasn't afraid to take artistic risks with his solo career. And having fronted one of the greatest rock bands of the '90s it was entirely understandable that the singer would want to explore new territory. He covered Michael Jackson's Thriller-era classic Billie Jean on his second solo record, 2007's Carry On, which also features his James Bond theme, You Know My Name, co-written with British composer David Arnold for 2006's Casino Royale.. But that didn't mean that the grunge loyalists who stuck with him post-Soundgarden, whether embracing his solo recordings or the three records he made with Audioslave, were ready for what would come next.
The revelation that Cornell was working with Timbaland, the gifted producer who'd worked with Missy Elliott, Ginuwine and Justin Timberlake, on his third solo album, caused many Soundgarden to bristle with 'concerns', in the same way that Metallica's fanbase reacted to the news that the band were to work with Motley Crue/Bon Jovi producer Bob Rock on their self-titled fifth record.
“Is Chris Cornell going crunk?” Metal Hammer wondered.
The first single from Scream did little to allay such fears. In fact, it was worse than anyone had anticipated.
"That bitch ain't a part of me," Cornell sang over and over on Part Of Me, an awkward, embarrassing attempt at a club 'banger', laden with squelching synths and electronic beats.
"She was so friendly, I had one too many,
And now that they tell she was rubbing up against me.
But I swear, never meant a thing, she was just a fling,
There's no other woman who does it like you."
From the man who once mocked mainstream hard rock's adolescent preoccupation with, and drooling desire for, sexually-liberated women on Big Dumb Sex, this was genuinely grim, depressing listening.
And rock fans had questions.
With Scream, are you leaving your comfort zone or are you re-inventing Chris Cornell?" asked Classic Rock writer Marcel Anders asked Cornell on the eve of the albums release.
"I don’t think it’s either, to be honest," he replied. "I suppose to the outside world it’s kind of a reinvention. I’ve done so many different things musically and experimentally, and a lot of things people have heard and a lot of things people haven’t heard.
"It reminds me of when Temple Of The Dog was released and – this really irritated me for some reason [chuckles] – people would come up to me and say, 'Wow, I had no idea that you could sing like that or write melodies like that or write lyrics like that.' At first I thought: Why not? And it took me a while to realise that I had done a lot of different types of songwriting that just didn’t end up on Soundgarden albums, because it didn’t fit. Some people had heard it, my friends had heard it, the local college station in Seattle would sometimes play some of my solo songs on the radio that were completely different. But in the big picture, yeah, nobody had really known that, so it was a fair thing to say."
In every interview there is always the question, Are you alienating your audience? Anders continued. "But you’ve done everything – so who is your audience?
"It’s been presented to me that way most of the time in interviews, as if I have kind of one audience," the singer admitted. "I tour a lot, and there are clearly different members of the audience that like me for different parts of my career. There’s always a big reaction to older Soundgarden songs and then as you get into obscure Soundgarden songs, you’ll see even less people who will react even more aggressively, you know, because that’s the one they wanted to hear. That tends to be an older audience. But sometimes it’s not, sometimes it’s really young guys who discovered Soundgarden recently and really got into it.
There is also what I think of as the Euphoria Morning audience, but it’s an audience that really just seems to like what I do solo versus anything else. They prefer that to the heavier rock that I’ve done – there’s more females in that group definitely [laughs].
And then there’s an audience of rock fans, but who are younger and they really focus on Audioslave songs a lot. You put all of those people together in a room and they all seem to enjoy the whole show, they just emote more during different particular songs."
On the ground though, it was rare to meet anyone who genuinely embraced Scream, or wasn't genuinely confused by it. For the percentage of Soundgarden and Audioslave fans who wanted to hear Cornell do smooth R&B, or horny love songs, or Prince-inspired electronic funk/soul was vanishingly small.
"Maybe I’m an optimist or just an idiot but I really think the fans will come around to the concept," Cornell suggested somewhat optimistically to Rolling Stone ahead of the album's release.
In this belief, he wasn't entirely incorrect - you'll see various defences of Scream on Reddit posters - but equally, there was little wailing and gnashing of teeth when, on January 1, 2010, Cornell broke the news of Soundgarden's reformation with a tweet reading, "The 12-year break is over and school is back in session... Knights of the Soundtable ride again!"
To his credit, Trent Reznor later got in touch with Chris Cornell to apologise for his damning tweet. before Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden embarked on a co-headline tour in 2014.
He was very cool and generous about it – ‘It’s the past, fuck it. Let’s go on,'” Reznor told Rolling Stone in 2017, adding that he "immediately regretted" his comment. He also reflected on what inspired his criticism.
"Seeing Chris do that record felt like a blow to me," he admitted. "I thought, He’s above that, man. He’s one of the 10 best vocalists of our time."
"I know it's a great album," Cornell stated bullishly, regretting nothing. "I also know it's an easy target... I made an album that isn't a guitar-based, heavy, hard rock album, so that's pretty simple math. I'm just a fan of a lot of different kinds of music and I want to be able to experiment with a lot of different stuff. I'm not running around trying to make the same album 25 times."
Time to give the record another chance, or perhaps a first listen? Maaaaaybe. Just don't say you haven't been warned.
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