Rocktrospectiva: Soundgarden Major Album Debut "Louder Than Love" Turns 40

 

Released on 5 September 1989 "Louder Than Love" was the second studio album and major-label debut by American rock band Soundgarden. Soundgarden left SST, signed with A&M and began work on its first album for a major label. The songs on the album featured a metal-leaning grunge sound with some songs featuring unusual or unorthodox time signatures, the album spawned two singles "Loud Love", & "Hands All Over", the album would become the band's first album to chart on the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 108. 

 

The band supported the album with tours of North America and Europe. It was the last Soundgarden album to feature the band's original bassist, Hiro Yamamoto. The album's recording sessions took place from December 1988 to January 1989 at London Bridge Studios in Seattle, Washington. The band worked with producer Terry Date. Regarding the sessions, frontman Chris Cornell said, "At the time Hiro had excommunicated himself from the band and there wasn't a free-flowing system as far as music went, so I ended up writing a lot of it. Bassist Hiro Yamamoto left the band once the sessions were over and went back to college, frustrated that he was not contributing much.

 

Soundgarden took a step toward the metal mainstream with a slow, grinding, detuned mountain of Sabbath/Zeppelin riffs and Chris Cornell wailing, At the time the band was trying to avoid the "heavy metal" label, with guitarist Kim Thayil stating that the band's sound was as much influenced by British bands like Killing Joke and Bauhaus as it is by heavy metal.

 

Cornell said that "Hands All Over" is about how humans defile the environment, and that "Full on Kevin's Mom" is about "a friend of mine who slept with another friend of mine's mom. The lyrics of "I Awake" were originally part of a note written by Yamamoto's then girlfriend Kate McDonald. In the late 1990s, an urban legend circulated on internet message boards which stated that Yamamoto, after writing the music, wrote some lyrics on the back side of McDonald's note. When Yamamoto gave the paper containing these lyrics to Cornell, Cornell looked at the wrong side of the sheet and believed McDonald's note was the lyrics to Yamamoto's song. "Big Dumb Sex" was written as a parody of glam metal bands, who often metaphorically addressed sexual intercourse in their lyrics.

 

The critics were good back then, approved the sound and lyrics on the album, a dense metallic sheen, highlightning the voice of Cornell as muscular and intense just like The Cult's vocalist, even Kirk Hammett long-time fan of the band was impressed by the sound of the album, a big attitude, heavy riffs and intense lyrics than inspired him to write Metallica's legendary track "Enter Sandman".  

 

Louder Than Love Track List:

 

1. Ugly Truth

2. Hands All Over

3. Gun

4. Power Trip

5. Get On The Snake

6. Full On kevin's Mom

7. Loud Love

8. I Awake

9. No Wrong No Right

10. Uncovered

11. Big Dumb Sex

12. Full On