Backspacer: Official Album Thread

[epilogue]

In light of Backspacer's birthday, I've made stip a new avatar to celebrate:

Also,... Stip.

You only have like 30 hours left to make this your avatar or we ban you for life.

it's too big. How do I shrink it?!

GODDAMNIT SARGE, HELP STIP SHRINK IT

[epilogue]

Sure. I guess. Maybe I just don't share that sort of thinking. I don't listen to and/or process songs that way. Especially Pearl Jam songs. But I guess what you're saying makes sense in the context of your argument. It's just odd to me.

[Monkey_Driven]

I'm ready to announce I love The Fixer. It took a long while to full come to grasp with it, but now I'm here. I do wish he skipped the final chorus and let the music get weird though.

[Strat]

The fixer is great

[epilogue]

I'm ready to announce I love The Fixer. It took a long while to full come to grasp with it, but now I'm here. I do wish he skipped the final chorus and let the music get weird though.

[VinylGuy]

I recall feeling that way with Gone, for example...feeling like that one could have been something along the way of Given To Fly and it wasnt quite there.

By the way, i like Gone too.

[dimejinky99]

I've heard so many arguments and none of them hold water. There's nothing embarrassing about Amongst the Waves. There is no "failure" or reach for former glory or any of that nonsense. If that's why a listener doesn't like the song, then that's on the listener. That's the listeners own bullshit baggage that they're bringing to the experience.

Which is not to say that it's impossible to hate the song. I totally get why a person would hate it. There are legitimate reasons to dislike it. But "Reaching for and falling far short of a former brilliant place" just isn't one of them.

To be fair, sometimes its impossible not to put our own bullshit baggage to a song or a piece of art.

Very true. Good point.

I like Amongst the Waves a lot, but I think there is something to that broad critique as a style of critique. If you write a song or create any art that calls to mind similar works crafted in the past you do invite the audience to draw comparisons. It's probably impossible not to. And while it is absolutely its own song, Amongst the Wave does share a lineage with triumphant mid tempo anthems of pearl jam past. And then if you don't like the song as much as its peers it will influence how you think and talk about the song. I don't like this song, and I DO like songs on that part of the family tree, therefore there is something deficient in this particular performance.


I apply the same logic to a song like In Hiding or Faithful, rather than Amongst the Waves. Here is a mid tempo anthem in the classic pearl jam style (talky verses, soaring chorus, etc), but when I listened to them they didn't move me like Jeremy or Alive or Betterman or Given to Fly on the same album, and my enjoyment of faithful or in hiding suffered because I was reminded of other songs I like better. I'm not sure that I LIKE push me/pull me more than faithful, but I feel more warmly disposed towards it in part because it stands alone and I'm not comparing it to other songs I enjoy more.


I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing as much as it is just likely inevitable.

Hang on. Did you just diss Faithfull?

I'll fuckin end you.

[VinylGuy]

Stip has been dissing Faithful for a long time.

[dimejinky99]

This cannot be allowed stand!

Ban that man immediately!

This is an outrage!

[stip]

Stip has been dissing Faithful for a long time.

welcome to 2005, Dime

[stip]

I'm ready to announce I love The Fixer. It took a long while to full come to grasp with it, but now I'm here. I do wish he skipped the final chorus and let the music get weird though.

You've taken your first step into a larger world.

[VinylGuy]

Matt and Jeff are on fire here.

[dimejinky99]

Does nobody else but me remember how excited RM was and we all were when we got the bootleg of the recording of fixer from outside the video shoot a month or so before the album came out?

We were all fuckin ecstatic cos it sounded so good. Soon as the single dropped it was like the same bunch of guys had been caught jerking off their nephew and trying to deny it and its entire existence.

It was and still is a great fucking song. Especially for a band at that point in its career

[stip]

I have vivid memories of walking my dog and being so excited listening to that distorted audio recording.

And I was right to be!

[Strat]

Does nobody else but me remember how excited RM was and we all were when we got the bootleg of the recording of fixer from outside the video shoot a month or so before the album came out?

We were all fuckin ecstatic cos it sounded so good. Soon as the single dropped it was like the same bunch of guys had been caught jerking off their nephew and trying to deny it and its entire existence.

It was and still is a great fucking song. Especially for a band at that point in its career

Lol.

I love the fixer. That guitar riff and matts signature approach is what makes it great. The fact that ed created such a bubblegum melody over it makes it better.

[VinylGuy]

Does nobody else but me remember how excited RM was and we all were when we got the bootleg of the recording of fixer from outside the video shoot a month or so before the album came out?

We were all fuckin ecstatic cos it sounded so good. Soon as the single dropped it was like the same bunch of guys had been caught jerking off their nephew and trying to deny it and its entire existence.

It was and still is a great fucking song. Especially for a band at that point in its career

Oh yeah, that was a good moment.

I love The fixer so much...i remember being at a shooting for a commercial when it came out and going to pick up my headphones very quick, nervous just to listen to it. I listened twice and was shocked on how poppy it sound.

Man, what a cool song.

[Birds in Hell]

It's very hard to listen past the production.

[Strat]

It's very hard to listen past the production.

It sounds better on vinyl. Maybe you should try that

[dimejinky99]

I've been trying to make This renaissance for backspacer happen for a year now. I hope everyone's finally coming around. If not well doesn't matter.

[chewm]

It won't.