Pearl Jam (self titled): Official Album Thread

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[E.H. Ruddock]

BO'B's remix of S/T managed the unbelievable, making an already-bad sounding record sound somehow even worse. I'm convinced his ears are completely shot. If it's not that, he's definitely lost his touch in the digital world.

The only good sounding version of S/T is the dynamic mastering of the (superior) original mix which somehow wound up on Spotify.

Here here

Is that the brickwallhater version?

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Anders]

Severed Hand is so great.

Listening to it now. Really love the last minute.

[stip]

gonna give s/t and backspacer a listen.

[stip]

i love how raw and explosive the start of this album is. maybe my favorite 3 song sequence in the catalog.


Especially after how subdued Riot Act (and Binaural to a lesser extent) were. It has always been the sound of the band roaring back to life.


Life Wasted sounds so huge, and Eddie has that desperate energy

[stip]

those mini pockets of silence throughout Life Wasted give the song a cool, unsettled feeling


One of my favorite mike solos. that f’ing fade though

[stip]

WWS has one of my favorite matt performances.

[stip]

that another waaaaayyyyyy transition out of the bridge. so good

[stip]

a lot of habit/brain of J style screaming on these first few tracks but he sounds more in control of them. you get the savagery with less shrieking.

[stip]

comatose is the primal scream I needed on riot act but never got (and in hindsight would not have fit).

[stip]

I really dig the way the choruses on severed hand drop down into that lower register. and that great staccato guitar part between the the first chorus/second verse.

having said that, Ive never quite liked severed hand as much I think I should. It is fine, but I dont love it. Feels like it should be a little louder/huger, and the outro solo is busy without too much of an emotional core, which Mike’s solos usually have

[stip]

marker really suffers from being on S/T. Eddie is too scratchy for the song, and the chorus guitars in particular should be a bit cleaner. The songs has all the elements of a soaring classic but its being played in a garage, not a stadium. This could have been an all timer.

the keys at the end work well.

i wish it was captured during yield. or gigaton

[stip]

I would probably hate parachutes if it was a beatles song, but it isnt and I love it.


such a lovely quirky oddity.

the way ‘parachutes have opened now’ floats into the next verse is so good.

but still, as good as it is, not sure rubbing the song down with s/t’s sandpaper production needed to happen. another song that would have been better elsewhere. not sure which album, though

[stip]

unemployable is right down there at the bottom of their studio tracks. I like almost nothing about it. The shiny sound of Eddie’s voice, the pop affectations of the chorus (so much worse here than infallible or ltrp), the surprisingly condescending lyrics. none of it works for me, and the music doesn’t grab me at all.

I kind of like the outro a bit

[stip]

big wave is a rollicking good time that should have been a b-side. Sticks out like a sore thumb on one of their otherwise most thematically consistent records

[stip]

the lyrics drop this down in ways that the song never recovers from. I might feel the same way about SBWM if it wasnt so smart

[Ms Harmless]

unemployable is right down there at the bottom of their studio tracks. I like almost nothing about it. The shiny sound of Eddie’s voice, the pop affectations of the chorus (so much worse here than infallible or ltrp), the surprisingly condescending lyrics. none of it works for me, and the music doesn’t grab me at all.

I kind of like the outro a bit

I agree with your last sentence

[stip]

pearl jam’s dreary acoustic numbers (all or none, thumbing my way, dead man) usually dont work for me. gone fares a little bit better, mostly because the chorus is really catchy and Eddie hadnt really done this kind of clean soaring chorus since Yield- and I do prefer this to In Hiding

yeah, gone is a bit of a pearl jam guilty pleasure. the ‘if nothing is everything’ sequence makes me smile

[stip]

unemployable is right down there at the bottom of their studio tracks. I like almost nothing about it. The shiny sound of Eddie’s voice, the pop affectations of the chorus (so much worse here than infallible or ltrp), the surprisingly condescending lyrics. none of it works for me, and the music doesn’t grab me at all.

I kind of like the outro a bit

I agree with your last sentence

in a divided world I thank god unemployable is here to bring people together