Gigaton: Official album thread

[VinylGuy]

I love the last three so much. Specially Backspacer.

[Strat]

I remain optimistic that they have good music in them.

serious question: on what do you base that optimism?

16-20 of great to fucking amazing music and countless live performances and changing the landscape of our being for a large majority of their time as a band*

*the last album cycle and current lack of immediacy to do it again reduces said optimism

buuuttttt, among other things . . .

- they haven't put out a great album since 2000

- they're lazy

- they insist on working with a producer that either has terrible taste or doesn't have the balls to tell them the truth

- their recent live performances are predominately centered around songs that are nearing 20 years old

- they haven't shown a willingness to stray from their paint-by-numbers approach to recording new albums in forever

1 - Riot Act and S/T so shut up
2 - Everyone is very busy outside pearl jam, i dont think they are lazy.
3 - Yes, Fuck BOB
4 - Say what you willl about pearl jam but they do a really great job of honoring their entire career. Yes, they are generally top heavy of the earlier hits but they do a pretty great job of throwing bones out. hell, they just played most of their albums at shows at the last tour
5. Yea, thats annoying and im hoping they are sick of it too.

[Monkey_Driven]

With strat.

[bada]

Chris said great. I like Riot Act and sorta S/T but I wouldn't call them great albums.

[liebzz]

I think I had an earlier post here explaining the reasoning, which was that yes, the last two albums don’t live up to the eight before them (I would personally argue they are good albums just not great like the first eight). However, I think this is a band (and without much proof I would say more specifically Eddie Vedder) that thrives off some sort of friction. The first 5 albums tended to focus on the friction of personal growth - jumping from anger to more existential questions of being and then transitioned from Binaural to the self-titled to their reaction to outside forces (predominantly politics and current events). There are exceptions and it’s a larger arc sort of thing. I think that they lacked that sense of friction and conflict on Backspacer and Lightning Bolt, which caused a bit of a decline - maybe they weren’t as inspired, maybe it was something else...but there was nothing for Pearl Jam to butt up against. Obama was in office, the band was insanely rich and could flat out choose its own adventure and never have to worry about the consequences professionally. There was no pressure point.

With current events, politics, and some of the personal battles they’ve experienced mostly from outside events (they’ve admitted they were affected by Chris Cornell), perhaps this is where they push themselves again. That is the basis for my optimism.

Edit to include quip: besides, if something’s lost, Ed’s gonna fight to get it back again.

[Tuolumne]

Broken record, but most of the comments I'm reading here appears to assume that there is some kind of wide consensus that the last 3 albums are considered to be very sub-par compared to the rest. That is the "RM Bubble" at it's finest. I'll never win this argument around here, such is the nature of bubbles, but that consensus does not exist in the slightest. Like I've said a bunch of times around here, Backspacer has tons of fans and admirers, they're just not hanging around here......

[Strat]

i like backspacer quite a bit.

And I love Sirens.

[numbers]

Chris said great. I like Riot Act and sorta S/T but I wouldn't call them great albums.

Riot Act is their best album.

[Coach]

Paging Jonathan Cohen from Rolling Stone magazine...where are you? As I recall, he broke some PJ news back in the day and appears to still be writing. These rumors and speculation could be answered in part w/ a little rock journalism.

[epilogue]

There is not a single Pearl Jam album that I dislike. There are great songs on all of their records. I think S/T, Backspacer, and Lightning Bolt are my three least favorite albums in their canon. But I genuinely like three of them and listen to them frequently.

[Coach]

Riot Act is a great album. Save You, 1/2 Full, I am Mine. C'mon, man. Great record.

[epilogue]

Chris said great. I like Riot Act and sorta S/T but I wouldn't call them great albums.

Riot Act is their best album.

It's AT LEAST in their top 3.

[epilogue]

Just in case I haven't done this enough...

1. Vitalogy
2. Riot Act
3. Ten
4. Yield
5. No Code
6. Binaural
7. Vs
8. S/T
9. Lightning Bolt
10. Backspacer

[numbers]

1. Riot Act
2. Binaural
3. Vitalogy
4. Yield
5. Vs.
6. No Code
7. Ten
8. Avocado
9. Lightning Bolt
10. Backspacer

[Bi_3]

Riot Act is garbage. You know it and they know it (why it’s not play anymore)

Avocado over RA any day

[numbers]

Fuck that shit

[Birds in Hell]

Avocado over RA any day

I’m with you here.

No great Pearl Jam albums since Yield in my book. Binaural through Avocado are pretty good but still patchy.

[Bammer]

There is not a single Pearl Jam album that I dislike. There are great songs on all of their records. I think S/T, Backspacer, and Lightning Bolt are my three least favorite albums in their canon. But I genuinely like three of them and listen to them frequently.

I can get on board with this. Actually I am on board with this.

[dimejinky99]

Baskspacer is great and is a better record than any band has a right to release at this late stage in its career.

Even if you don’t like it, at least they tried something different and still managed to do it through their own prism. Maybe it would have been universally loved if they’d dropped their own prism entirely. But here we are.

[Strat]

Baskspacer is great and is a better record than any band has a right to release at this late stage in its career.

Even if you don’t like it, at least they tried something different and still managed to do it through their own prism. Maybe it would have been universally loved if they’d dropped their own prism entirely. But here we are.

I think Backspacer suffers only because its 1 of 2 albums in the last 10 years.

It would be like if Neil Young released Trans and then didnt release anything again until Broken Arrow