Chris Cornell: ... and if anyone else enjoys it, it's a bonus

Chris Cornell has issued a grumpy response to fans who don't like what he's doing now. Tough, this is Chris time:

"Older American fans don't like it because they are typically my core fans that really supported me in SOUNDGARDEN and really loved that band," Cornell said. "To them, that's kind of who I am, I'm that guy in that band, and I'm that guy who wrote those songs."

Cornell claims that he is a musician that needs to take chances to grow and be imaginative with his music.

"As a songwriter and creative person, I have to do what makes me happy. That changes, it goes into different worlds," Cornell explained. "Sometimes it's going to be in the world that those core fans of my earlier period love, and sometimes it won't."

Someone really should make "Core fan of earlier Chris Cornell period" t-shirts. They'd make a killing.

He is, of course, half right: musicians who don't adapt and change and experiment and grow will continue to just churn out decreasing-return-soundalike-stuff for the rest of their natural lives. Or "turn into Noel Gallagher" as medical people call it.

The other half of the rightness, though, is wrongness. Chris, sweetness: your core fans of your earlier work aren't recoiling in horror because you've changed. They're not afeared of your mad experimentalistics. It's because - despite swallowing Soundgarden - even the core fans can spot that your current stuff is a little ripe.