Soundgarden Team-Up With Fat Activist Vocalist Ends With Disastrous Crowd Surf Attempt

Grunge rock band Sound Garden, popular in the 1990s after their hit album ‘Superunknown’, has been a rare feature on the live music scene since the death of lead singer Chris Cornell at age 52 in 2017.  The group has limited itself to a few shows, usually featuring a guest lead vocalist.  Some have speculated that the band has been trying out new singers for a potential return, using the name “Nudedragons” (an anagram of Soundgarden).  However, most of their team ups have been with female singers that sound nothing like Chris Cornell.

In their most recent show (part of a charity event) Soundgarden brought in a black female activist singer by the name of Shaina Shepherd, a resident of Seattle, Washington that dubs herself a mix between “gospel and garbage metal”.  Shepherd’s biography boasts:

“While finding her voice on the piano, she was finding her voice as the lead singer of Seattle prog-rock and soul band BEARAXE. BEARAXE has allowed Shepherd to hone her craft as a gospel-influenced rock artist exploring classicism, sexism, and self-care themes. And as her relationship with the piano grew, she began to weave similar themes through a lens of vulnerability and thematic strong structures akin to the operas and oratorios she studied as a new musician…”

As with most popular but aging bands, the veneer wears off dramatically over time and a desperation to try anything to breathe new life into their fading careers can lead to some disastrous choices.  Working with an overweight leftist activist with delusions of grandeur might not have been the best choice for Soundgarden.

The new sassy overweight Soundgarden singer tried to crowdsurf but the crowd wasn’t into it and let her faceplant pic.twitter.com/vwj1IJ3OfT

— Jack Poso (@JackPosobiec) January 3, 2025

Shaina Shepherd is heard exclaiming “I knew I was too heavy for you motherfuckers…” as the crowd struggled to prop her up after her embarrassing face-plant.  She then stumbled back to the stage in a daze. Shepherd’s miscalculation was one of basic physics, combined with the fact that the majority of Soundgarden fans are now in their 50s and quickly moved out of the way to avoid yet another expensive trip to their chiropractor. 

It has been noted by fans that Shepherd was not very good at singing the band’s lineup of songs, asserting that if they’re actually looking for a talented replacement for Chris Cornell they should talk to Cornell’s daughter.  

Soundgarden replaced Chris Cornell with Shaina Shepherd…a singer and community organizer. If only they had another female option that had close ties to the band’s legacy itself and possessed stellar vocals…one can only dream…oh wait.. Toni Cornell. pic.twitter.com/j3G0Ncpf50

— Johnny St.Pete (@JohnMcCloy) January 3, 2025

Though the incident is hilarious, it’s also a sad reminder of the steep downward spiral of the music industry in the past decade, as well as the slow death of the rock genre.  Popular music has become increasingly sterile and generic and a lot of that could be attributed to the effects of the woke mind virus on the industry as a whole.  There is also a laziness factor that can’t be denied, with many music personalities now incapable of playing an instrument or even singing without voice autotune software.  

Hopefully talent will make a comeback as a feature of our culture in the near future. In the meantime, people will have to cling to their nostalgia for warmth.