Who Ever Said

[Strat]

I think Eddie's biggest weakness is his uninventive guitar playing.

I mean, most of the greatest songs in the world are three chords.

I think eds lack of guitar knowledge is actually a strength. Im not saying he's a strong guitar player, though he's gotten much better, but a song like grievance to guaranteed, to betterman, to end of the road, 4/20, mfc, sometimes...

thats a pretty wide range of guitar song writing.

I think when he's good, he can be really good and inventive; if you just play the Insignificance parts on guitar, even though it's simple for the most part it's still pretty striking. But I think he can also be a little unimaginative, or to put it a better way, I think it can sound like he lets the first idea just be the idea without much (if any) revision. Sometimes that works, but I think sometimes things need more refinement.

Definitely. And yea, what a strange fucking riff the verse is for insignificance, and then to sing a melody over that. Its unique.

[Vindicator]

Yes, Insignificance is absolutely brilliant song writing. Ed can write great stuff. Also, even when the riff may be something simple, he has an amazing ability to come up with a non obvious counter melody to the riff. Songs like Ghost, Severed Hand, even Sirens, have unique vocal lines going over simple riffs. Maybe that's why I was a bit turned off by SBWM, I felt like the vocal line followed the main riff too closely or in an obvious way.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[FlatSideofaDog]

Fair enough. He's not as creative as say James Shaw, but works in a different genre and has become one of the better pj songwriters in the past few decades.

[tree_]

Well, yeah... if you're only counting the last 30 years, I can be on board with that.

[guitar_davey]

eddie vedder is a terrible musician

[Ms Harmless]

there is a hundred ways this song could be good, and a hundred ways it could be bad; the cool thing is that it's long and apparently goes in different directions, so I have no idea what's gonna happen around this clip

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Ms Harmless]

that's very true

[tree_]

Can you please crunch those numbers again for me?

[Anders]

How much of Insignificance is actually Ed’s writing, and not the band contributing?

[Ms Harmless]

Can you please crunch those numbers again for me?

I think you could also see it as a 50/50 chance of being good? or bad?

[tree_]

I'm leaning towards 80% chance bad, because Ed's voice will be annoying. I hope he finds a way to sing it well.

[Ms Harmless]

I'm hoping we get more low register than high, but it's good that we haven't had any AC/DC screech yet

[digster]

Yes, Insignificance is absolutely brilliant song writing. Ed can write great stuff. Also, even when the riff may be something simple, he has an amazing ability to come up with a non obvious counter melody to the riff. Songs like Ghost, Severed Hand, even Sirens, have unique vocal lines going over simple riffs. Maybe that's why I was a bit turned off by SBWM, I felt like the vocal line followed the main riff too closely or in an obvious way.

This is fairly pedantic of me, but this is something I feel like he does very often that I'm not a big fan of. It always seems like he writes the music, whatever it is, and then attaches himself to the first melody, which is most likely mirroring the guitar line. Lightning Bolt, Future Days, Just Breathe, even in good songs like Wishlist, MFC, Thumbing My Way, The End...all the melodies hew pretty stringently to what's happening on the main guitar line.

[Vindicator]

Yes, Insignificance is absolutely brilliant song writing. Ed can write great stuff. Also, even when the riff may be something simple, he has an amazing ability to come up with a non obvious counter melody to the riff. Songs like Ghost, Severed Hand, even Sirens, have unique vocal lines going over simple riffs. Maybe that's why I was a bit turned off by SBWM, I felt like the vocal line followed the main riff too closely or in an obvious way.

This is fairly pedantic of me, but this is something I feel like he does very often that I'm not a big fan of. It always seems like he writes the music, whatever it is, and then attaches himself to the first melody, which is most likely mirroring the guitar line. Lightning Bolt, Future Days, Just Breathe, even in good songs like Wishlist, MFC, Thumbing My Way, The End...all the melodies hew pretty stringently to what's happening on the main guitar line.

Yeah but not always. I remember listening to the Mike McCready snippet of Sirens before LB came out, and pretty much came up with an obvious vocal melody in my head, and then the actual song had a melody that Ed came up with that was totally different. Jeff even talked about in an interview, Ed's ability to do that, to find a melody you wouldn't think of.

But yeah, not always.

[digster]

Yeah, I find it tends to almost exclusively happen with the songs where Eddie's credited with writing the music.

[adamhewett]

I think Eddie's biggest weakness is his uninventive guitar playing.

i don't have any qualms stating vedder's (lacking) guitar work is a huge reason for my declining interest in this band.

hey ed, yes pete slammed on those first position open chords and it was grand. yes, johnny throttled those barre chords down. you ed, nor your band, are that kin to who/ramones.

can you imagine being stone gossard, a zep/riff loving guitarist stuck in the middle of an already useless 3-guitar onslaught, stuck with a vocalist that delivers this kind of nonsense album after album? i don't even believe stone in these interviews when he is boasting about 'less is more...' and blah, blah, blah. dude, shut up. you wrote fucking "apple" and "ten".

his playing and style is exactly what made me get in to pearl jam from the beginning. i'm done hearing the talk about evolving/ed's band now too. the guy has to be bored out of his fucking mind. the worst part about ed adding his guitar to the band is it somehow convinced a great guitarist like gossard that HE TOO should emulate what vedder likes.

with sbwm and the little clip of "who ever said", i seriously hear vedder's same god damn style being pushed down our throats. the progression is damn near the same.

for the past 10 or so years when other musician friends ask me to make them playlists that'd be a good introduction to the band generally a handful of them find pj's musical abilities boring af. i won't even start on mccready, i've seen that dudes face live through "not for you".

vedder's voice is already on the brink, it'd be nice to see the dude remember he actually is a baritone and focus on delivering the goods. please put down the fucking ugly ass guitars, ed.

[Strat]

Yea but that is forgetting the point that stone hasn't wrote a great riff in 20 years. Rival.

Maybe

[FlatSideofaDog]

It has never been Ed's band. He's not Roger Waters or Kurt Cobain. EV wrote 1/3 of Vitalogy; around 40% of No Code and Lightning Bolt; less than 20% of Yield; about 1/3 of binaural and riot act, and self-titled; about half of backspacer.