Album: Down on the Upside
Year: 1996
. . .
A terrific deep cut up on the backside of Down on the Upside, “No Attention” wasn’t a single or anything like that, but it showed again that Soundgarden could take their hard rock roots, shuffle them around a bit, and come up with something cool and new while still acknowledging those roots full force.
So, if “Outshined” reminded me of Black Sabbath, “Head Down” The Beatles and “My Wave,” Led Zeppelin, then “No Attention” is a pure Aerosmith homage. It easily could have fit just fine on either Toys in the Attic or Rocks. So not just Aerosmith, but fucking great Aerosmith.
And so “No Attention” starts fast, with big sustained Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil chords over a suitably speedy Matt Cameron drum beat — I love how he slams a couple of extra snare beats, continually restarting the song — as Cornell speedily sings about dealing with people’s expectations of him.
They’re going to tell you where to walk
When to smile and just what to say
They say, have your own fall, make your own mind
But don’t make no waves
And if you got a handful of change
Don’t throw it away, it’s gonna come
So say what you want, suck all my lies
Suck on my brain
And so with Kim Thayil’s guitar leading the way, Cornell snarls through the chorus with his answer. Or non-answer, as its.
No attention
I’ll pay no attention
I’ll pay no attention
I’ll pay no attention
I’ll pay no attention
I’ll pay no attention
I’ll pay no attention
No attention
I’ll pay no attention
No attention
After that, it’s time to have a rave-up with Soundgarden, and the guitars snarl and feedback while Cameron & Ben Shepherd keep things locomotivating to the point where Cornell starts screamig “no attention” over and over and over as the guitars, drums and his voice all collapse into each with a long scream of “no attentioonnnnnnnnnnnnnn.”
At this point, you’d think “No Attention” was basically over. Wrong!! At this point, Matt Cameron snare drums the song back to life, but now, it’s a mid-tempo fuck-you strut, as Cornell sings that second verse over while Thayil’s guitars detonate all around him, leading to an outro where he continues to insist he’s paying no attention while the guitars finally come up and overwhelm the song to the end. It’s fabulous.
Despite the success of Down on The Upside — it made it #2 on the Billboard album charts — and touring Lollapalooza yet once again that summer, internal band tensions were such that Soundgarden broken up in the spring in 1997, and remained dormant for well over a decade until the inevitable reunion tour and not so inevitable reunion album, which we’ll talk about tomorrow.
“No Attention”
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