THE GRUNGE MATCH - 090

Match 090:

Alice In Chains "Bleed The Freak" (Live) (1990)
Nirvana "Help Me, I'm Hungry (aka: "Vendetagainst)" (1987)
Pearl Jam "Arc" (2002)
Soundgarden "Karaoke" (1996)

Not a particularly good recording on this one.  It sounds like when they would do live broadcasts of the rock stage at Summerfest.  This was done around Christmas time, 1990 at the Moore Theater in Seattle.  For a live version of a song heavily reliant on vocals, they're the one thing that sounds good on this.  Everything else sounds flat, if expertly played.

"Help Me, I'm Hungry" is by a band trying to be as in your face as possible, while working on the "quiet verse, loud chorus" dynamic thing in as primitive a matter as possible.  It's kind of fun in spite of being utter crap (which, admittedly, may have been what they were aiming for).

"Arc" is a minute long.  It's Eddie Vedder wailing while backed by the LifeSaver's Men's Choir.

"Karaoke" was a B-Side on the "Burden In My Hand" single (as was tomorrow's entry).  It sounds a lot more Soundgarden-y than most of "Down On The Upside".  It's got a creepy, biting riff and Cornell's singing through the intercom filter like most 90's rock did at one point or another.  Not sure why it's called "Karaoke", but holy shit is it so much better than everything else here today.  Not even close.

"Karaoke": 4
"Help Me, I'm Hungry": 3
"Bleed The Freak" (Live): 2
"Arc": 1

TOTALS:

Alice In Chains: 238
Soundgarden: 237
Pearl Jam: 217
Nirvana: 208

Tomorrow, we see the conclusion of Pearl Jam's second longest album (the one with the most tracks, but a few seconds shorter than "Vitalogy") and Soundgarden flips a B-Side to an A-Side.  Stay tuned.

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