Editing Down on the Upside (section)

==Recording==
Recording sessions for the album took place between November 1995 and February 1996 at [[Studio Litho]] and [[Bad Animals Studio]]s in [[Seattle]], Washington. Studio Litho is owned by [[Pearl Jam]] guitarist [[Stone Gossard]].<ref name="blackholesons">"Black Hole Sons!". ''[[Kerrang!]]''. August 12, 1995.</ref> The members of Soundgarden produced the album themselves. On the choice of not working with a producer, frontman [[Chris Cornell]] said that "a fifth guy is too many cooks and convolutes everything. It has to go down too many mental roads, which dilutes it."<ref>{{cite book
| first       = Steven
| last        = Blush
| author-link  = Steven Blush
| title       = Soundgarden interview
| date        = 1996
| publisher   = [[Seconds (magazine)|Seconds]]
| url         = http://www.secondsmagazine.com/articles/38-sg.php
| access-date  = Aug 10, 2017}}</ref> Drummer [[Matt Cameron]] added that, while working with [[Michael Beinhorn]] on ''[[Superunknown]]'' had good results, it was "a little more of a struggle than it needed to be", and self-production would make the process go faster.<ref name=bill>McCormick, Moira. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_gwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA14 "Soundgarden Digs Down to Its Roots"]. ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]''. April 13, 1996</ref> [[Adam Kasper]], who previously had worked with Soundgarden as an assistant engineer on ''[[Superunknown]]'',<ref name="intensity">Warden, Steve. "A Degree of Intensity". ''Access''. June 1996.</ref> worked with the band as a production collaborator and mixed the album.<ref>Cross, Charles R. "The Joys of Noise: Soundgarden Throw a High-Frequency Sludgefest". ''[[Rolling Stone]]''. February 8, 1996.</ref>

Work on the album began in July 1995.<ref name="drama">"Soundgarden Man in Near Death Drama". ''[[Kerrang!]]''. March 16, 1996.</ref> The band took a break to perform at festivals in Europe, where new material was road-tested.<ref>Atkinson, Peter. "Soundgarden: From Superunknown to Superstars". ''Jam''. May 24, 1996.</ref> Afterward, the band did more songwriting for about a month and then recorded most of the album at Studio Litho.<ref name="intensity"/> The overall approach to songwriting was less collaborative than with past efforts, with the individual band members having brought in most of the songs more completely written.<ref>Zogbi, Marina. "Upshot on "The Upside" from Kim Thayil". ''Metal Edge''. August 1996.</ref> The band sought to try things it had not done before and to use a greater variety of material.<ref name="buzzword">"Down on the Upside". ''The Buzz Word''. August 1996</ref> They tried to create a live atmosphere for the album,<ref name="raygun">Appleford, Steve. "Soundgarden". ''[[Ray Gun (magazine)|Ray Gun]]''. June 1996.</ref> and looked to leave in sounds that producers would normally try to clean up, such as feedback and out-of-tune guitar parts.<ref name="controversy">"Soundgarden's New Video Causes Controversy". ''[[Toronto Sun]]''. May 10, 1996.</ref> The overall time spent working on the album was less than what the band had spent working on ''Superunknown''.<ref name="Hard Music 1996">"Soundgarden". ''Hard Music''. June 1996.</ref> Cornell described the album-making process as "way faster and way easier".<ref name="blackholesons"/>

Most of the material was written by Cornell and bassist [[Ben Shepherd]], the latter having already worked on six of the sixteen album tracks. Reportedly, tensions within the group arose during the recording sessions, with guitarist [[Kim Thayil]] and Cornell allegedly clashing over Cornell's desire to shift away from the heavy guitar riffing that had become the band's trademark.<ref name="soundgardensplit">Colopino, John. "Soundgarden Split". ''[[Rolling Stone]]''. May 29, 1997.</ref> Thayil's only contribution to the album was the song "Never the Machine Forever", for which he wrote both the lyrics and the music, and which was also the last song the band recorded.<ref>Turman, Katherine. "Soundgarden: Seattle's Sonic Boom". ''Metal Edge''. July 1996.</ref> The song initially came out of a [[jam session]] Thayil had with Seattle musician [[Greg Gilmore]].<ref name="upbeat">Maloof, Rich. "Kim Thayil of Soundgarden: Down on the Upbeat". ''Guitar Magazine''. July 1996.</ref> In the liner notes, Thayil credits Gilmore for inspiring the song. He stated that he had a lot of incomplete music ideas that were missing lyrics and were not arranged, so they did not make the album.<ref name="upbeat"/> Thayil said: "It can be a little bit discouraging if there isn't satisfactory creative input, but on the other hand, I write all the solo bits and don't really have limitations on the parts I come up with for guitar."<ref name="upbeat"/> Cornell said: "By the time we were finished, it felt like it had been kind of hard, like it was a long, hard haul. But there was stuff we were discovering."<ref name="raygun"/>