For some reason, Chris Cornell‘s world-class vocal range just doesn’t fit with postmodern production, as evidenced by his laughably bad Timbaland team-up album, Scream, in 2009, and now this new and bizarrely lazy (yet fully authorized) Steve Aoki remix of Soundgarden‘s “Spoonman.” The 1994 Superunknown and AOR classic has been shorn of its famous spoons and rock instrumentation (which is to be expected) and replaced with EDM that doesn’t pulse or pound, but rather hovers kind of rudderless in the air while various Cornell catchphrases zoom in and out of earshot.
Worst of all, the song’s meaty riff has been treated with an oscillating effect that keeps it firmly and frustratingly behind the beat. EDM can be a euphoric, full-tent shared experience by crazed, energetic concertgoers in the middle of the night. This will never be. You can neither dance to it nor rock out. Please let this year be over before Seven Mary Three drops a footwork jawn. Play the godforsaken thing below.
