Chris Cornell - Scream
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
Chris Cornell thought that he would enlist Timbaland to do some remixes for his 2007 album, Carry On, but once the two got together they “accidentally the whole” new album. Scream came together in only six weeks and it’s exactly what you might expect from a collaboration between Timbaland and Chris Cornell…if it had been created with instrumentals and acappellas in someone’s bedroom. It’s almost difficult to believe that these guys were in the studio at the same time because neither one of them took any risks…even though it seems like their desire was to go in a new direction musically. This album is a new direction, but it could have been so much more. Instead, the only real stretch is getting used to Cornell’s voice without a hard rock guitar in the background.
Scream is as hit-and-miss as they come…with slightly more miss than hit. It doesn’t matter which genius producer you’ve gotten to help make your song if the lyrics are going to cancel out any of their contributions…lines like “No, that bitch ain’t a part of me” (“Part of Me”) and “Why you keep screamin’ at the top o’ your head?” (“Scream”) are impossible to ignore. This works both ways though…the repetitive, birdlike “whoa / yeah” calls and the vocal drum roll in “Ground Zero” turn what could be a powerful and moving song into something annoying and silly. Similarly, in “Sweet Revenge,” background voices bounce around from speaker to speaker singing “swEEeeEEeeeEEeeeEEEeeeEEeet revenge,” turning a good song into an average one.
- Score
- 44%
This is one of the more interesting musical team-ups in quite some time, but it lacks the impact of a collaboration between two Grammy award-winning artists. With some more time and a moratorium on “playing it safe,” Cornell and Timbaland could probably make some great music, but you won’t find it on Scream.
