Gigaton: Official album thread

[Jaeti]

Retrograde = a Bruce Hornsby song? Steve Winwood?

I dunno, that's stuff my parents used to put on in the car on road trips and feels vaguely apt.

[McParadigm]

That bridge on seven o clock

I dunno. It’s out of place kinda

Good god no

[dimejinky99]

That bridge on seven o clock

I dunno. It’s out of place kinda

Good god no

I’ll grow into it. Just feels odd

[Juvenal]

Well, I don’t feel humiliated about it yet, but I did add a few notes while listening this morning. I think this is more or less how I’m gonna feel about this record for a while. Maybe in a few years, with the benefit of having outlasted the times, I’ll feel differently. Maybe.

I might add to this tomorrow, or just wish I never wrote it instead. One or the other. Or neither. But this is something I like about the record.

This is an album about surviving past the end. It’s an unexpectedly appropriate subject for this day and age, and Pearl Jam is a uniquely authentic musical voice for it. They are capable of capturing, without fetishistic assumption or romanticism, the real experience of survival. They know what it means to live with losses that you can’t outdistance. They know it’s not always going to feel like it was worth it.

So save your predictions, and burn your assumptions. But the band also wants you to feel the natural jubilance of the phrase “there’s much to be done.” Their reaction to the bitter end isn’t trademark fury, but just the same I’m still alive, different day.

In some ways this record reminds me of albums that came out in and were colored by the shadow of 9/11, even though they were recorded well before. It’s a happy accident without the happy: the little band from Seattle calling out, offering one last bit of song before vanishing into the strangled contractions of the city’s newest epidemic. One last pep talk to carry into isolation with you, a final rendition of their favorite promise: you’re not alone, not really. “I can hear you singing in the distance,” they assure the listener. “I can see you when I close my eyes.”

The lyrics spend less time than usual seeking answers to trademark big questions, and focus instead on offering whatever small lessons the band picked up along the way. It makes for a less optimistic listen, with fewer pie in the sky assurances of inevitable redemption, but it also leaves you with the sense that those small lessons might actually have been the answers all along. Simple rules to live by: stand back when the spirit comes. It’s alright to say no to something if it makes you feel less safe, even if saying no means being seen as a disappointment in your own home. Turn sideways from a dangerous undertow, but do not be deterred by it.

Lessons on surviving, from a band that had to learn each of the above rules the hard way. The first song says it directly, acknowledging perhaps the most universal truth: “the answers will be found in the mistakes that we have made.”

The inspirations were clearly (primarily) Trump and climate change, but the band’s empathetic fixation on surviving hardships (both physically and spiritually) make this the ideal album to carry into uncertain quarantine. It’s an album that wants you to feel less alone. First, do no harm. Then: buckle up.

Even the president, lazily disparaged, is subsequently sympathized with in terms the band cannot help but understand. “His best days gone, hard to admit,” and here the smugly-strutting song becomes a mother’s hug. “Angry punches, with nothing to hit.” It’s like a Riot Act song all grown up...still furious for all of the denied and powerless, but now able to find its own reflection in the failures of the powerful.

Pearl Jam used to make albums about surviving the moment. Then, for a while there, they sort of made albums about remembering what it was like to be surviving the moment. Now, they’re finally ready to talk about you do next. Which in its way is just another kind of promise to survive. Whoever said it’s all been said gave up on satisfaction.

I could very well end up humiliated by how much I like this. I’ll live with it. Because whether or not this is a great record, it hits me right now because I’m pretty scared but hoping, and a hope dies last.

Why do you say you could be humiliated? Who would be the person to humiliate you?
I’m enjoying it and don’t give a fuck what others think

[EJ]

Retrograde = a Bruce Hornsby song? Steve Winwood?

I dunno, that's stuff my parents used to put on in the car on road trips and feels vaguely apt.

bwahahaha

I can't argue with that. And, yet somehow I still like this song.

[Jaeti]

Retrograde = a Bruce Hornsby song? Steve Winwood?

I dunno, that's stuff my parents used to put on in the car on road trips and feels vaguely apt.

bwahahaha

I can't argue with that. And, yet somehow I still like this song.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's gonna grow on me. May then fade again, for the above reason or for others.

[scrub12]

I put the album at a solid B, maybe a B+. Retrograde is a major drag on everything. I was never big into Soundgarden, so Take the Long Way hasn't clicked with me (although it's growing), and Never Destination, while fun, is more of the same. Lots of good and great on this album, though. Very happy with it and a clear step up from BS and LB. Probably a small step above Self-titled too.

I still say Comes then Goes is the biggest surprise from the album. It's six minutes but it doesn't feel like it to me.

[evenslow]

TOP FUCKING SHELF AND I WON'T HEAR OTHERWISE
Dance of the Clairvoyants - we've been over this.
Quick Escape - Rage Against the Zeppelin That Bullets the Blue Sky
Alright - warm blanket I need.
Buckle Up - why I'm Stone's Bitch.
Comes Then Goes - this is somehow kind of a masterpiece (of mic'ing and singing and lyrics - a wrenching tribute to Chris.)
River Cross - Pearl Jam IS Peter Gabriel.

GROWING
7 O'Clock

A TOUCH BETTER THAN MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
Never Destination

MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
Superblood Wolfmoon
Take the Long Way

MEH WITH A MASTERPIECE FINAL MINUTE I NEED TO HEAR IN DOLBY FUCKING ATMOS
Retrograde

[stip]

that's about right - though SBWM is better than that

[scrub12]

TOP FUCKING SHELF AND I WON'T HEAR OTHERWISE
Dance of the Clairvoyants - we've been over this.
Quick Escape - Rage Against the Zeppelin That Bullets the Blue Sky
Alright - warm blanket I need.
Buckle Up - why I'm Stone's Bitch.
Comes Then Goes - this is somehow kind of a masterpiece (of mic'ing and singing and lyrics - a wrenching tribute to Chris.)
River Cross - Pearl Jam IS Peter Gabriel.

GROWING
7 O'Clock

A TOUCH BETTER THAN MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
Never Destination

MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
Superblood Wolfmoon
Take the Long Way

MEH WITH A MASTERPIECE FINAL MINUTE I NEED TO HEAR IN DOLBY FUCKING ATMOS
Retrograde

Who Ever Said is the only one missing.

[VinylGuy]

Im surprised you dont like Take the Long Way

[evenslow]

TOP FUCKING SHELF AND I WON'T HEAR OTHERWISE
Dance of the Clairvoyants - we've been over this.
Quick Escape - Rage Against the Zeppelin That Bullets the Blue Sky
Alright - warm blanket I need.
Buckle Up - why I'm Stone's Bitch.
Comes Then Goes - this is somehow kind of a masterpiece (of mic'ing and singing and lyrics - a wrenching tribute to Chris.)
River Cross - Pearl Jam IS Peter Gabriel.

GROWING
7 O'Clock

A TOUCH BETTER THAN MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
Never Destination

MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
Superblood Wolfmoon
Take the Long Way

MEH WITH A MASTERPIECE FINAL MINUTE I NEED TO HEAR IN DOLBY FUCKING ATMOS
Retrograde

Who Ever Said is the only one missing.

who ever said i'm not a fucking dumbass??

[evenslow]

Fixed This For Me

TOP FUCKING SHELF AND I WON'T HEAR OTHERWISE
Dance of the Clairvoyants - we've been over this.
Quick Escape - Rage Against the Zeppelin That Bullets the Blue Sky
Alright - warm blanket I need.
Buckle Up - why I'm Stone's Bitch.
Comes Then Goes - this is somehow kind of a masterpiece (of mic'ing and singing and lyrics - a wrenching tribute to Chris.)
River Cross - Pearl Jam IS Peter Gabriel.

GROWING
7 O'Clock

A TOUCH BETTER THAN MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
Who Ever Said
Never Destination

MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
Superblood Wolfmoon
Take the Long Way

MEH WITH A MASTERPIECE FINAL MINUTE I NEED TO HEAR IN DOLBY FUCKING ATMOS
Retrograde

[evenslow]

Im surprised you dont like Take the Long Way

I am too. To be fair, I "like" it, it just doesn't levitate for me. Need to hear without the blanket on top.

[metaphysically redeemed]

Any chance someone can share a link with a long-time lurker?

[FirstMammal]

I’d also love a link, if someone would be so kind.

[Lostdog]

I listened to it on a four-speaker system and the mp3 doesn't play at full capacity.

[DeeDee]

Retrograde is poignant, very beautiful.

[Vindicator]

Despise the verses on Seven O Clock, ruins every other redeeming thing the song has for me. The outro is pretty horribly cheesy too, Ed even had to throw some "Heee Heee's" in there.

[EJ]

Who Ever Said and Alright are my early frontrunners for immediate replays.