Track Listing

1. Flower
2. All Your Lies
3. 665
4. Beyond the Wheel
5. 667
6. Mood for Trouble
7. Circle of Power
8. He Didn't
9. Smokestack Lightning
10. Nazi Driver
11. Head Injury
12. Incessant Mace
13. One Minute of Silence

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35795 in Music
• Published on: 1988
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Customer Reviews

Quite the CD. Rock out or feel the pain, it's got it all.
Ultramega OK was Soundgarden's first full-length release, coming out on SST Records. Chris, Kim, Matt, and Hiro definitely entered with a splash. Two previous EPs (Screaming Life and Fopp) were a good indication of what was in the works for this Seattle band. This CD does have it's share of filler (i.e. a cover of Smokestack Lightning, and a cover? of Two Minutes of Silence by John Lennon and Yoko Ono..called One Minute of Silence (Soundgarden cut out Yoko Ono's half)). What it has in filler it makes up with an awesome set of songs. Flower has a wonderful power riff and touches of psychadelia. Beyond the Wheel is probably one of Soundgarden's best performances, although most people have never even heard of it. The whole thing is truly frightening. The lyrics, the dark, heavy, grinding guitars, and the vocals work together in an almost god-like fashion. I love the weird industrial sounding guitar noises that Kim makes during this song. They also flow amazingly well with the rest of the piece. Soundgarden also shows the first signs of their odd sense of humor on this CD. In the song 665, you can hear Chris singing backwards in the background of the song. A satanic message? If you can play the song backwards, you'll find that Chris is saying "Hey Santa, you're my Christmas king, Santa is king! Santa is king! Hey Santa, I love you baby! You got what I neeeeed," and so on. All in all, this album is an awesome full-length debut.

UltrmegaOK is more than okay
In 1988 I walked into Tower Records on South Street in Philadelphia sporting a mohawk, a leather, and Doc's. I was looking for the latest Charged GBH album. As I strolled the isles I heard this album playing in the background. I stopped dead in my tracks. I listened to three songs and then asked the dude at the register who was playing. He smiled, reached under the counter, and pulled out this record. I immediately bought it and life changed forever.

Disregard reviews that compare this album with Superunknown or Badmotorfinger. You simply can't compare this (or "Louder than Love" for that matter) with their later works. It's like comparing Dark Side of the Moon with The Wall and declaring one inferior.

Listen to the samples and judge for yourself. In my humble opinion this is one black, hard, and raw album and also happens to be one the best rock-n-roll records of the 1980s.

amazing
this is one of the heaviest and most original records of all time. listen to the song "beyond the wheel" and tell me those lyrics are not haunting and incredible.

you can really hear the ungodly amazingly excellent guitar playing of kim thayil on their cover of "smokestack lightning." tracks like "nazi driver" will make you want to kill someone or break something.

i would reccomend this album to anyone.