Lightning Bolt: the official album thread

[BurtReynolds]

contentment is stagnation

[stip]

that's hardly true either. Not having a drive to create things is what leads to stagnation.

[McParadigm]

The real problem with that type of writing is that it's a topic/perspective more at home in the late 70's and 80's. It sounds like a history book, now.

Even the more gripping earnest moments in the 90's tended to be about the personal struggle to find survival, direction, and something worth hanging on to in the America that was left, and people today are too fractured/distracted/jaded to be that disappointed or surprised by the absence of anything deserving to be described as a dream.

[dimejinky99]

My friend and I were talking last night. He's seen about 50 Pj shows or so from 95 onwards and he was saying how he hates that the gigs have become a celebration vibe.
I would agree that the mood/vibe that used to be there in Pj shows is gone somehow, there used to be all this energy and atmosphere created and based on set lists but now it's gone.
We were wondering how the writing in the new songs will reflect that. Are they gonna be writing from the content/peaceful place they seem to be at?
Will they still try to have something to rail against and how successful will this be if they're all blissed out?

All these questions. October is so far away

contentment is stagnation

Is it true all the best art is borne of pain?

None of those things are true

Isn't this an age long debate? I think you do have to suffer for your art. Not for it to be good but sometimes, yeah.

it is, but art does not require suffering in the slightest. What art requires is imagination and empathy--the ability to imagine something true about the world and the way people experience it, and the ability to express it in a way that seems true to others that they could not have articulated themselves. Great art requires suffering only if you are limited to writing from your own experience.

to say nothing of the fact that something being true has nothing at all to do with it being painful or dark.

I think that's where ed has been failing a bit here and there on the last few releases.
He used to be great at writing in the third person (daughter, even given to fly) sort of character based songs, but then something like Unemployable(nothing to do with me not liking the song) comes across as phoney. And in the first person, something like Gone, or even the end, can be seen as heavy handed and flawed.

He can still write a great tune and maybe he's working on bettering things he's not so strong at, but it sometimes feels like its at the expense of those he is good at.
Maybe I just don't feel he's connecting to his subjects anymore? I dunno.

writing that 'decline of the american dream' stuff is VERY hard to do well. Springsteen is one of the only people I can think of who can do it well most of the time

Agreed. He definitely should step away from the Bruce stuff for a long while. Or at least not let it come into his writing as much. Future days sounds like it could be in that vein.

[BurtReynolds]

that's hardly true either. Not having a drive to create things is what leads to stagnation.

Sure, which contentment usually drains one of. Its almost always weakens the will to do the real hard, often health and relationship destroying work necessary. I'm not talking about art being more powerful when it comes from pain (though it usually is), its about maintaining the hunger.

The purist could say "well if he was a real artist it wouldn't affect him", but thats as much BS as saying artists have to suffer for their art. Great artists are driven by many things.

Obviously a few can do it regardless of their contentment, and some means of artistic expression don't require much sacrifice anyway. I think PJs particular brand does, and they certainly haven't been doing it lately.

[bodysnatcher]

these guys might have done it this time

[harmless]

these guys might have done it this time

Oh how I'd love to play "SPIN!, SPIN!, SPIN THE LIGHTNING BOTTLE!" with that.

[harmless]

HEY HO

[BurtReynolds]

HEY HO

anyone want to guess the lyrics of Jeff's contribution to the album about Kevin Durant?

[Dr. Van Nostrand]

iTunes has the tracklisting. Looks like it got put up with those 00/03 bootlegs. Has this been posted already?

1) Operational
2) Mind Your Manners
3) Punch 'n' Judy
4) Lightning Bolt
5) Case Closed
6) Our Future Days
7) Infallible
8) The Things We Treasure Most
9) Sleeping By Myself
10) Siren
11) Bent and Broken (But Not Forgotten)
12) Slipstream
13) Betterman (live)

The best one yet id say

[harmless]

I really hope "Where's the sponge?" is written by Stone or Jeff. If it's written by Ed or Mike, it will ask the question for the purpose of soaking up all of the tears being shed for a diminishing planet.

[harmless]

iTunes has the tracklisting. Looks like it got put up with those 00/03 bootlegs. Has this been posted already?

1) Operational
2) Mind Your Manners
3) Punch 'n' Judy
4) Lightning Bolt
5) Case Closed
6) Our Future Days
7) Infallible
8) The Things We Treasure Most
9) Sleeping By Myself
10) Siren
11) Bent and Broken (But Not Forgotten)
12) Slipstream
13) Betterman (live)

The best one yet id say

This is the worst shtick of all time.

[Lament]

While I don't believe in the tortured artist myth per se, out of curiosity...

How many records can you name that you love which you would say are truly composed from a point of happiness/contentment/joy? I remember Bono at the very end of the 90's talking about how joy was the single most difficult emotion to genuinely and interestingly express in rock/pop music. Lovesexy by Prince is the only one that comes to mind for me. I'm sure some people would suggest Moondance by Van Morrison. I'm not counting things that are just a mindless good rock 'n' roll time.

I could see Pearl Jam being stuck between either trying to be mad about things that they really aren't THAT mad about just because it's what they're used to and having to make a serious artistic risk (one that more often than not fails for even the greatest artists; look at Springsteen's Human Touch/Lucky Town) and attempt to really express contentment (or joy) in a genuine and non-embarrassing way (and honestly, I don't know that they're capable of doing so for the course of an entire record, if at all).

[harmless]

While I don't believe in the tortured artist myth per se, out of curiosity...

How many records can you name that you love which you would say are truly composed from a point of happiness/contentment/joy?

I'm pretty sure the answer to this will depend entirely on the genre. As most rock albums (especially hard rock) are not created under these conditions, simply because that would subvert rock's expectations (and people have to sell records), I'm sure your answers from this board will be biased. I wonder if the answer would be different if you asked about, say, jazz or orchestral albums. 'The sublime', a mood which many more traditional artists talk about trying to achieve, including classical musicians, is an ecstatic emotion, a musical nirvana. It's not necessarily got anything to do with depression, anger, or a fight of any kind.

[stip]

While I don't believe in the tortured artist myth per se, out of curiosity...

How many records can you name that you love which you would say are truly composed from a point of happiness/contentment/joy? I remember Bono at the very end of the 90's talking about how joy was the single most difficult emotion to genuinely and interestingly express in rock/pop music. Lovesexy by Prince is the only one that comes to mind for me. I'm sure some people would suggest Moondance by Van Morrison. I'm not counting things that are just a mindless good rock 'n' roll time.

I could see Pearl Jam being stuck between either trying to be mad about things that they really aren't THAT mad about just because it's what they're used to and having to make a serious artistic risk (one that more often than not fails for even the greatest artists; look at Springsteen's Human Touch/Lucky Town) and attempt to really express contentment (or joy) in a genuine and non-embarrassing way (and honestly, I don't know that they're capable of doing so for the course of an entire record, if at all).

It is very hard to do for sure. I would have a much easier time picking particular songs than albums.


Backspacer, obviously

[bodysnatcher]

I can't wait to hear "Betterman (live)" live

[harmless]

[Lament]

I'm pretty sure the answer to this will depend entirely on the genre. As most rock albums (especially hard rock) are not created under these conditions, simply because that would subvert rock's expectations (and people have to sell records), I'm sure your answers from this board will be biased. I wonder if the answer would be different if you asked about, say, jazz or orchestral albums. 'The sublime', a mood which many more traditional artists talk about trying to achieve, including classical musicians, is an ecstatic emotion, a musical nirvana. It's not necessarily got anything to do with depression, anger, or a fight of any kind.

Yeah, but that's why I referenced Bono's comment about how difficult it is to do in a rock/pop setting. Like I said, I don't believe in the tortured artist rule per se, but as a genre, rock has proven to be a pretty brutal place for those who don't have some kind of discontentment in their work. I can see why Pearl Jam would feel the need to keep anger as a safety net.

[harmless]

I'm pretty sure the answer to this will depend entirely on the genre. As most rock albums (especially hard rock) are not created under these conditions, simply because that would subvert rock's expectations (and people have to sell records), I'm sure your answers from this board will be biased. I wonder if the answer would be different if you asked about, say, jazz or orchestral albums. 'The sublime', a mood which many more traditional artists talk about trying to achieve, including classical musicians, is an ecstatic emotion, a musical nirvana. It's not necessarily got anything to do with depression, anger, or a fight of any kind.

Yeah, but that's why I referenced Bono's comment about how difficult it is to do in a rock/pop setting. Like I said, I don't believe in the tortured artist rule per se, but as a genre, rock has proven to be a pretty brutal place for those who don't have some kind of discontentment in their work. I can see why Pearl Jam would feel the need to keep anger as a safety net.

Oops, sorry, missed that.

Post-rock, in a way, is more about evoking the sublime. 'Beauty' is just not something rock musicians tend to talk about, although some achieve it. A band like Sigur Ros will have no fear about saying that it's trying to create something beautiful, sonic poetry almost. Plenty of their music has been euphoric, free, and not tortured at all. They've done heavy, intense, even depressed, but never 'angry' as such (imo). My point (if I have one) is that rock musicians, on the whole, haven't tried to create a nuanced range of feelings and emotions in the listener. In the past, PJ have been very good at this for what, to all intents and purposes, is a plain old all-American rock band. But they're perhaps not self-aware, or aware of their process, enough to really push for something beyond the usual tortured rock music. And, well, when they've tried, have we really liked it? So you have a situation in which most great rock music is created under some tense, anxious conditions; but so is some of the worst, because in trying to create what your rock fans want, you can come off sounding contrived and forced. It's always amused me that people could call something like "Future Days" contrived or forced, because I have a hunch that it's the most honest kind of song Ed could be writing at the moment. The contented, cheeseball fans who will latch onto it know this.

Aaaaaaaaaand I wandered away from my point.

[dimejinky99]

A lot of songs on backspacer did well with maybe not joy but something like it. A sense of the carefree and even something potentially corny like love, in amongst the waves.