RANK THE ALBUMS

[stip]

I meant lightning bolt - No Code is criminally overrated round these parts. It is a perfectly adequate album that, to its credit, is trying new things with varying degrees of success

[Brett]

1. Binaural
My favorite for a long time now. I've said before that I feel like it has more five star songs than any of their other releases, and other than a few issues with the overall production, I don't hear any major flaws in the album.

2. Yield
The best the band has ever sounded on a recording and another bevy of great songs. Kevin Davis recently said something about the way the songs are constructed hinting at the creative content even without lyrics, and I think I totally agree with that idea.

3. No Code
The kitchen sink album that still holds together through an overreaching theme of unchained expression. Two of my catalog favorites with "In My Tree" and "Hail, Hail," plus a bunch of other great songs.

4. Vitalogy
Probably the album that solidified my love of the band and why I still keep up on some of what they're doing to this day despite mostly disliking their last three albums. Killer songs and the most complete and compelling album concept of their discography. Everything from the sequencing through to the artwork serves the overall theme.

5. Vs.
Take everything about Ten and finetune it to perfection. This is the album that proved these guys were serious and the real deal. It also showed that they weren't afraid to stretch and try new things; dabbling with acoustic timbres, unusual song structures, and letting Vedder stretch his songwriting muscles.

6. Riot Act
This one has slipped the most over time. It's a bit too long and tends to fall apart in the latter two thirds outside of a few standouts like "You Are" and "Help Help". I'm also not real fond of the overreliance on organ in several songs. The first five songs are golden, though.

7. Ten
Like others on here, I still see the strengths of this album, but I've also outgrown a lot of it. I kind of cringe to hear "Alive," "Even Flow," or "Black" on the radio. But I also wouldn't call anything on here a weak song, even if I don't really want to listen to them most of the time.

8. Pearl Jam
I still have a hard time forgiving this album for kinda killing off my Pearl Jam fandom, but I do have to admit to liking it a little more over time. Still, though, almost all of the most off-putting aspects of the band's modern sound can be traced back to their efforts to reclaim relevance with this record.

9. Backspacer
This is always the 'forgotten' Pearl Jam album to me. It came out after I had lost interest in the band and was wholly unremarkable when I first listened to it. To this day, I can't put any songs from here near a favorites list, though there are some that I genuinely like. The album would have been better served by going all in on the new wave ideas that they flirted with on the earlier tunes, but instead they had to swerve towards adult contemporary.

10. Lightning Bolt
Despite having a few higher highs than Backspacer, the weak songs on this album and it's atrocious approach in engineering and production have currently dragged it into last place. "Future Days" is the worst mainline Pearl Jam song, full stop, "Sirens" was scientifically engineered to fit in with the safe, whitebread radio market, and "My Father's Son" has got to be the weirdest and maybe worst song Ed has written about his complex dad issues.

I'm looking forward to seeing where Gigaton will slide into this lineup. Right now, based on "Dance of the Clairvoyants," that tiny snippet of "River Cross," and some of those descriptions we got from the listening party, I think it might easily muscle past the bottom three on my list, and maybe even aim for the middle tier, a feat that I would have never thought possible a year ago.

[liebzz]

Nice ranking and review!

[stip]

thanks brett

[RAG319]

Yield
Binaural
No Code
Riot Act
Vitalogy
Vs
Ten
Avocado
[Being hit by a bus]
Lightning Bolt
Backspacer

[Brett]

Nice ranking and review!

Thanks, Liebzz!

thanks brett

Hey, Stip, how's it going?

[digster]

I wonder which albums have tended to have the most movement for people, i.e. have traveled the farthest up (or down) in estimation since you first heard it. I feel like for me, No Code might have had the most vacillation; at times it's been my favorite PJ record, and at other points I have probably preferred every album from Ten to Binaural over No Code. S/T would probably be the second; it's placement hasn't moved, but I enjoy it significantly more than I used to.

[DWFB]

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

I think my initial high placement of Lightning Bolt was just the troll in me. That or maybe because I hadn't listened to No Code and Yield in a long while.

or because it is a criminally underrated album round these parts

For me, Hail Hail, who u are, in my tree, present tense, red mos, smile and off he goes are a tough 7 to beat.

Today (bad days):

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



-------

(Good days)

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

[Pages_in_a_book]

Rank the albums and do it quickly

That was Bammer's response to my first post ever. I think my reply (which was definitely done quickly...I'm not usually a ranker) kinda broke him.

Oh god

Sorry, Bammer!
In the interest of keeping threads tidy, I'm writing my quick thoughts here:

Best to worst:
No Code--I hated No Code when it came out. H A T E D it. I was 18 and had driven across state lines to find a record store open at midnight to buy the second I could, drove back to my dorm room (no cd player in my 77 impala) to listen to it, and felt so disappointed (gutted, even, lol). The opening track felt so repetitive and I wasn't thrilled with invoking God in its closing lyrics. I didn't know what to do with Who You Are or Stone singing on Mankind. And, it just didn't seem to hold together as an album. It was past two in the morning, I had class in just a few hours, and I felt like I'd wasted the whole night.
I did a lot of growing up that year, though, and No Code grew on me. Present Tense remains my favorite song of all time. "You can spend your time alone re-digesting past regrets, or you can come to terms and realize you're the only one who cannot forgive yourself." Man, I needed to hear that. "If only he knew know what he knew then" from I'm Open really spoke to the fact that I was leaving my childhood behind, and a bit of innocence with it. Along the same line, I associated Off He Goes with a dear childhood friend who was always coming and going. It felt like I was growing up, and the band was growing up at the same time, and every year that passed showed me more of the wisdom behind No Code's lyrics.

Binaural--This is the only album that I've seen 100% live. It's the album that came out when I followed Pearl Jam on tour 14 shows in one fall. I rank this album 2nd not just because of love so many of the songs, but because it represents the time in my life when I was most involved in the Pearl Jam experience, recording soundchecks, snagging setlist sheets, making friends on the Synergy board, following Five Horizons daily.

S/T--I grew up in a working class family with military backgrounds. The plight of the protagonist in Unemployable really hits home for me, as does the family in Army Reserve. Then there's Gone, the irresistible temptation to leave all these woes behind. I feel like Avocado is an album that so many everyday people can relate to.

Yield--Though No Code is my fav now, I was still not a fan of it when Yield came out. It was mostly gathering dust on my cd shelf as I played the first 3 albums on infinite repeat. I invested a great deal of emotional energy into the months leading up to Yield's release...please don't suck, please. Don't be another No Code. It did not disappoint! Given to Fly, DTE, and MFC all brought the rock, and songs like Pilate and Low Light challenged my developing tastes without slapping me in the face.

Riot Act--I can put the album in, hit play, and not want to skip any songs. A fine middle of the list album.

Ten--So...back in the MTV days, I didn't like Alive or Evenflow. They were my piss break songs from the beginning, and I didn't even care enough about them to take note of which band sang them. I fell in love with Pearl Jam because of Jeremy, and when I bought Ten, I was actually surprised to find that they were the same band that had performed Alive and Evenflow! There were so many better songs on the album. It's a solid album, obviously, and it got me hooked, but it ranks low on my list largely because it has been played over and over so many times that I'm more fond of the newer albums.

Vs. and Vitalogy--Great albums. But, I wore them out on infinite repeat when I was young. They aren't the ones I reach for to pop in the CD player any more.

Lightning Bolt--My Father's Son is a powerful song. Pendulum is the song I most hope to hear as an opener. There are some good songs, but so many that made me want to hit the "next track" button the first several times I listened to it through. Lightning Bolt, the song, is the most boring "rock" song ever written. But, the album is growing on me, and I look forward to hearing many tracks off it live. Maybe even Lightning Bolt.

Backspacer--I don't like disliking ANY Pearl Jam. They are my favorite band, and I always assume that, like with No Code, even if I dislike it initially I will grow into it. This album, though. I just can't. The Fixer really resonates with me, and I'm always surprised to hear how many people don't like it. Unthought Known is at least interesting live. The rest of the album makes me yawn...it literally bores me.

Something I hope to gain from exploring the Red Mosquito forums is a new perspective on my least fav albums. If the album that repulsed me the most on its release can become my favorite over time, who knows? Maybe the same kind of thing can happen with Lightning Bolt and Backspacer, hopefully before I see the band live again in OKC!

[knee tunes]

Bammer was broke but now you killed him.

Services will be announced whenever.

He wasn't that great anyhow.

[Pages_in_a_book]

Bammer was broke but now you killed him.

Services will be announced whenever.

He wasn't that great anyhow.

I ....I don't know what to say. I feel like I should be disgusted and appalled that I've in any way contributed to the demise of such a beloved and esteemed RMer.

But mostly I'm amazed at the seeming power I have and I wonder at the untouched potential that I will undoubtedly tap in the coming days, months, and years.

It's on!

[Anders]

Good post Pages_in_a_book

[knee tunes]

Good post Pages_in_a_book

Which one?

[Anders]

The long one.

[knee tunes]

The long one.

Show him the ranker link

[Anders]

http://forums.theskyiscrape.com/viewtop ... &start=240

Just in case anybody wants to do some RANKING, I've uploaded my old ranker here:

https://return-to-form.surge.sh/

It's probably buggy as hell, but hey.

[Pages_in_a_book]

http://forums.theskyiscrape.com/viewtop ... &start=240

Just in case anybody wants to do some RANKING, I've uploaded my old ranker here:

https://return-to-form.surge.sh/

It's probably buggy as hell, but hey.

Oh lord, 100 clicks in and it still said I have like 196 songs left to rank. I don't think I have the stamina to complete it!

[Pages_in_a_book]

Good post Pages_in_a_book

Thanks man!

[Anders]

http://forums.theskyiscrape.com/viewtop ... &start=240

Just in case anybody wants to do some RANKING, I've uploaded my old ranker here:

https://return-to-form.surge.sh/

It's probably buggy as hell, but hey.

Oh lord, 100 clicks in and it still said I have like 196 songs left to rank. I don't think I have the stamina to complete it!

It’s very long if you do the full thing. You could start with the last three albums, and post in the thread I linked.

[Anders]

I wonder which albums have tended to have the most movement for people, i.e. have traveled the farthest up (or down) in estimation since you first heard it. I feel like for me, No Code might have had the most vacillation; at times it's been my favorite PJ record, and at other points I have probably preferred every album from Ten to Binaural over No Code. S/T would probably be the second; it's placement hasn't moved, but I enjoy it significantly more than I used to.

No Code, Binaural and Riot Act are albums that often rise up the ranks over time. While the first three and Yield get more instant love.