Badmotorfinger

Badmotorfinger has been classified by various critics as grunge,[3][4] alternative metal,[5] heavy metal[6] and hard rock.[7] Steve Huey of AllMusic said the songwriting on the album "takes a quantum leap in focus and consistency", adding: "It's surprisingly cerebral and arty music for a band courting mainstream metal audiences, but it attacks with scientific precision."[7] Guitarist Kim Thayil jokingly called it the "Heavy Metal White Album".[8] Frontman Chris Cornell said, "I think there's songs on the new record which are almost more commercially viable because they have that memorable feel to them, and I think if anyone expected us to come out and make something more commercial than Louder Than Love [the band's previous album], then I'm glad that they were surprised."[9] He added that the album was more representative of how the band was live.[9]

Compared with Louder Than Love, the band took a more collaborative approach to the writing process for Badmotorfinger.[10] It was Soundgarden's first album with bassist Ben Shepherd, who replaced Jason Everman in April 1990,[11] and Cornell said Shepherd brought a "fresh and creative" approach to the recording sessions,[8] while the band as a whole said his knowledge of music and writing skills redefined the group.[12] Before joining, Soundgarden had been Shepherd's favorite band.[13] Shepherd contributed the song "Somewhere" and collaborated on the musical composition of several other songs on the album, as did Thayil and drummer Matt Cameron. Thayil said Shepherd's contributions helped make the album "faster" and "weirder".[14]

Several of the album's songs utilize alternative tunings, such as "Rusty Cage", "Searching with My Good Eye Closed", and "Holy Water" (on all of which the bottom E string of the guitars is tuned down to B),[15] and "Mind Riot" (on which every string is tuned to one of several octaves of E).[15] There are also some unusual time signatures on the album, with Thayil quoted as saying he didn't "push for weird time signatures", but rather "push[ed] to get the quirkiness out of things".[15]

Regarding the lyrics, Cornell said he tried to not get too specific and was more interested in letting ambiguity "[create] colourful images."[16] Thayil compared listening to the album to "reading a novel [about] man's conflict with himself and society, or the government, or his family, or the economy, or anything."[17] Cornell said "Outshined" is about going from "periods of extreme self-confidence" to "plummeting in the opposite direction".[18] "Jesus Christ Pose" was written about famous people who exploit the symbol of Jesus' crucifixion to suggest they're persecuted by the public.[19] Thayil wrote the lyrics for "Room a Thousand Years Wide", and said the song is about "experience in general".[14] "Holy Water" was written about people who force their beliefs onto others.[9] "New Damage" subtly criticizes the right-wing government of the United States.[20]

The album was recorded in the spring of 1991 at Studio D in Sausalito, California, Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, Washington, and A&M Studios in Los Angeles, California.[21] Soundgarden chose to work with producer Terry Date, as it had on Louder Than Love, because, according to Cornell, the band had a good relationship with Date and did not want to go through the pressure of trying to find a new producer.[22] One example of the innovative techniques used to record the album is that, for the opening song, "Rusty Cage", Thayil used a wah pedal as an audio filter, which resulted in an unusual guitar sound he said produced a guitar riff that "almost sounds backward".[23]

The Badmotorfinger logo on the cover of the album was drawn by guitarist Mark Dancey of the Sub Pop band Big Chief and consists of a jagged, cyclone-like design, in the center of which is a triangle that has the album's title along the interior perimeter and a spark plug in the middle. Thayil suggested the title Badmotorfinger as a joke on the Montrose song "Bad Motor Scooter"[24] and said, regarding the title: "It was sort of off the top of my head. I simply like it because it was colorful. It was kinda aggressive, too ... It conjures up a lot of different kinds of images. We like the ambiguity in it, the way it sounded and the way it looked."[14]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[7]
Blender	[25]
Christgau's Consumer Guide	B−[26]
Entertainment Weekly	B+[6]
Los Angeles Times	[27]
Mojo	[28]
Pitchfork	8.3⁄10[29]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[30]
Spin	[31]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	[32]

Badmotorfinger was scheduled for release on September 24, 1991, but A&M Records pushed it back to October 8 due to "production problems."[33][1] Coming a month and a half after Pearl Jam's Ten and just weeks after Nirvana's Nevermind and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik (both of which were released on September 24), it has been credited with helping to break alternative rock and grunge into the mainstream.[34] Although overshadowed at the time of its release by the sudden popularity of Nevermind, the attention that album brought to the Seattle music scene helped Soundgarden get broader exposure,[35] and Badmotorfinger peaked at number 39 on the Billboard 200 album chart on February 29, 1992.[36] It was among the 100 top selling albums of 1992,[37] sold a million copies in the early 1990s,[38] and was certified platinum by the RIAA in January 1993;[39] it was certified double platinum, signifying two million shipped copies, in April 1996.[39][40][41]

The album included the singles "Jesus Christ Pose", "Outshined", and "Rusty Cage", which gained considerable airtime on alternative rock radio stations. The music videos for "Outshined" and "Rusty Cage" gained considerable airtime on MTV, but the video for "Jesus Christ Pose", the album's lead single, was removed from MTV's playlist amidst widespread controversy over the perceived anti-Christian message of the song and video.[23] Promotion of the song also precipitated death threats against the band while they were on tour to support the album in the United Kingdom.[42]

In a contemporary review for Spin, Lauren Spencer hailed Badmotorfinger as a "garden of sound" that drew on older hard rock influences without sounding "derivative".[43] Ann Powers of Blender said: "Cornell strikes the perfect Jesus Christ pose on this sonic wallop",[25] while Entertainment Weekly critic Gina Arnold commended Soundgarden for writing more engagingly than their contemporaries, "who seldom get beyond extolling booze, girls, and cars". She concluded in her review that the record was more "stylishly bombastic rather than bludgeoningly bombastic. Tuneless heavy metal is, after all, still tuneless heavy metal, and in that department, Soundgarden are as functional as they make 'em."[6] In a retrospective review, AllMusic staff-writer Steve Huey deemed the album "heavy, challenging hard rock full of intellectual sensibility and complex band interplay."[7] Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic, finding it "credible" as a metal record because of Thayil's impressive use of guitar noise, but less impressive lyrically, writing: "Chris Cornell howls on about 'lookin for the paradigm' and 'your Jesus Christ pose' (I swear, that's the good stuff)".[26]

At the 1992 Grammy Awards, Badmotorfinger received a nomination for Best Metal Performance.[44] That same year, the album won a Northwest Area Music Award for Best Metal Album.[45] It was ranked number 45 in the October 2006 issue of Guitar World on the magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitar albums of all time[46] and, in April 2019, was ranked number 2 on Rolling Stone's "50 Greatest Grunge Albums" list.[47]

Buzz Osborne, whose band Melvins had a massive influence on grunge, called Badmotorfinger his favorite grunge album of all time, praising its sophistication and complex structures.[48] In 2010, singer Greg Puciato named "Room a Thousand Years Wide" his favorite song.[49]

Following the release of Badmotorfinger, Soundgarden went on a tour in North America during October and November 1991.[9] Following this tour, they were selected by Guns N' Roses for an opening slot on that band's Use Your Illusion Tour.[52] After this, Soundgarden took a slot opening for Skid Row in North America in February 1992 on that band's Slave to the Grind tour.[53] Soundgarden then headed to Europe for a month-long headlining theater tour[12] before returning to tour in the United States.[12] They rejoined Guns N' Roses and the Use Your Illusion Tour in the summer of 1992 for a tour of Europe along with fellow opening act Faith No More.[12] Regarding the time spent opening for Guns N' Roses, Cornell said: "It wasn't a whole lot of fun going out in front of 40,000 people for 35 minutes every day. Most of them hadn't heard our songs and didn't care about them. It was a bizarre thing."[42] The band would go on to play the 1992 Lollapalooza tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam, among others.[54] They later released Motorvision, which was filmed at the Paramount Theatre in 1992.[55]

The information regarding accolades attributed to Badmotorfinger is adapted in part from AcclaimedMusic.net.[89]