February 29 - Slaves and Bulldozers

For this year's bonus day, I thought I'd go heavy. Really heavy. I still remember the very first time I heard Soundgarden. It was 1990, and my very good friend Sissel had come home after spending a year in Marietta, Georgia, where her father had worked during a sabbatical. She brought home three CDs that I really liked: Primus' Sailing the Seas of Cheese, Ministry's In The Land of Rape and Honey, and Soundgarden's Louder Than Love. While all these three albums had an impact, Soundgarden left the most lasting mark with me. I remember sitting in the den in the basement of my parents' house as Sissel brought out the CDs, and the song Hands All Over really blew me away!

In 1991, one of the albums I was most eagerly anticipating was Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger, and it did not disappoint. If it hadn't been for U2's spectacular Achtung Baby!, it would easily have been my pick for album of the year (and what a year that was, with Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten also being released). At this point in their career, Soundgarden was seen as part of the grunge movement and lumped in with the other band from the Seattle scene; however, all three bands were clearly different - with geography as the only common denominator at this point in their career (the connection between Pearl Jam and Soundgarden can be traced to the Temple of the Dog project, but they were clearly different from Nirvana).

I purchased Badmotorfinger on cassette, and it was on very heavy rotation when I went to England that year - I can distinctly remember listening to it taking the tube around London on my way to St. Ives (I believe I already talked a little bit about that trip). For me, the highlight of the album is also the longest song, a sludgy and heavy song called Slaves and Bulldozers.