"Jesus Christ Pose"

Soundgarden
(A&M, 1991)

This from an album whose title was an amalgam of Motörhead and Badfinger, even though the somewhat dubious promise of spiking the poor man's Beatles with a schnozz fulla amphetamines wouldn't come to fruition till Soundgarden's big breakthrough, "Black Hole Sun." "Jesus Christ Pose" is still, blissfully, all speed-induced paranoia -- clacking down the tracks with an epileptic twitch, casting evil eyes and quaking like a Shaker. The funny thing was how that ol' longhaired, chest-bared soprano hesher Chris Cornell didn't seem to realize he was singing about himself in the title.

-- Carly Carioli