Chris Cornell Working On Solo LP - “Carry On” to arrive in spring 2007
From VH1.com news:

“Since March, when Audioslave wrapped the recording and mixing sessions for Revelations (a process that took all of five weeks), Cornell’s had a lot of spare time on his hands.”And I spent that time writing,” he said.Cornell said the LP will be more or less an acoustic effort and “not so much straight-up guitar, bass, drums and vocals — just kind of layerings of acoustic guitar and sounds.” And fans should expect a few surprises from his second solo studio LP — like, say, his cover of Michael Jackson’s 1982 hit Billie Jean. “This coming year will be the 20th anniversary of me being a recording artist, so I am looking forward to the idea of putting out another record and going out, doing my own tour and playing everything from my entire history. There’s a lot there. It’s actually staggering when I think about it.”

Okay, this is likely old news to all you who haven’t been under a rock all winter like me, but still, YAY!

Check out this posting by Stereogum at Prefixmag.com for a live version of Chris doing “Billie Jean” - I actually like it, minus the Mariachi strums, but he has apparently dropped them for the recorded version. It kind of gives you a new appreciation for the base musicality of the song, which is often lost in the relentless beat and synth of pop songs. But I have found Jackson to be a touchy subject with most “I was a child of the ’80’s” home music critics and I can say for sure that you are either gonna really love it, or really hate it.