Temple of the Dog - Hunger Strike (1992)
**1/2 (of four)
Until I perused the band biography on Billboard.com, I thought Temple of the Dog was a one-off supergroup that basically merged Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. I didn't realize it was a pre-Pearl Jam, one-album project put together by the surviving members of the band Mother Love Bone, who had just lost their lead singer to a heroin overdose.
Chris Cornell was brought in to write and do pinch vocal work, Soundgarden's drummer and future Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready rounded out the band, and Eddie Vedder contributed vocals here and there on the album. Which came out in 1990 but didn't hit until two years later, when the entire nation was angst-ridden, wearing flannel and looking to Seattle for inspiration.
"Hunger Strike" is one quick verse and chorus, repeated and repeated by Cornell and Vedder, who bounce their high/operatic and low/urrrrr-sounding respective vocals off each other. The topic? Personal satisfaction in the age of money-grubbing capitalism. ("I don't mind stealing bread / From the mouths of decadence / But I can't feed on the powerless / When my cup's already overfilled.") It's a haunting, driving song that builds as it goes.
Paul Rachman's video mostly consists of outdoor shots - lighthouses, shorelines, barren trees, clouds in the sunrise, etc. Cornell sits alone somewhere, head between knees, depressed as usual, while Vedder stands in the middle of a wheatfield or something. The full band eventually joins the scene, and they play together on the beach and in the woods at night. True to the lyrics of the song, no one is ever spotted eating anything.
Until I perused the band biography on Billboard.com, I thought Temple of the Dog was a one-off supergroup that basically merged Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. I didn't realize it was a pre-Pearl Jam, one-album project put together by the surviving members of the band Mother Love Bone, who had just lost their lead singer to a heroin overdose.
Chris Cornell was brought in to write and do pinch vocal work, Soundgarden's drummer and future Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready rounded out the band, and Eddie Vedder contributed vocals here and there on the album. Which came out in 1990 but didn't hit until two years later, when the entire nation was angst-ridden, wearing flannel and looking to Seattle for inspiration.
"Hunger Strike" is one quick verse and chorus, repeated and repeated by Cornell and Vedder, who bounce their high/operatic and low/urrrrr-sounding respective vocals off each other. The topic? Personal satisfaction in the age of money-grubbing capitalism. ("I don't mind stealing bread / From the mouths of decadence / But I can't feed on the powerless / When my cup's already overfilled.") It's a haunting, driving song that builds as it goes.
Paul Rachman's video mostly consists of outdoor shots - lighthouses, shorelines, barren trees, clouds in the sunrise, etc. Cornell sits alone somewhere, head between knees, depressed as usual, while Vedder stands in the middle of a wheatfield or something. The full band eventually joins the scene, and they play together on the beach and in the woods at night. True to the lyrics of the song, no one is ever spotted eating anything.
posted by daytime at 11:45 PM
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