Gigaton: Official album thread

[stip]

It’s kind of amazing to see Seven O’Clock equated to Sleight of Hand, Army Reserve, and Inside Job...but not to Down.

you know, I hadn't drawn that connection, but there is a lot of Down (and I am Mine) in there as well

[sweeper]

I think I've seen tree_ make the same post numerous times over the past 1-2 weeks about the album. I keep thinking it's a different person and then I realize it's all the same dude.

[WtOB?]

I think I've seen tree_ make the same post numerous times over the past 1-2 weeks about the album. I keep thinking it's a different person and then I realize it's all the same dude.

a lot of the clique think he's a genius.

[guitar_davey]

Anyone know more about this?

https://www.kexp.org/read/2020/5/27/all ... -and-more/

[RockPusher]

Anyone know more about this?

https://www.kexp.org/read/2020/5/27/all ... -and-more/

I really hope it's the full band somehow and they get to do at least 3-5 songs.

[Got Some]

Can’t wait to hear some Gigaton songs live.

Current ranking
Who Ever Said
SBWM
DOTC
Quick Escape
Retrograde
Never Destination
Seven Oclock
Comes Then Goes
Take The Long Way
River Cross
Buckle Up
Alright (have started to skip tbh)

[stip]

Same top 3

[guitar_davey]

This is album is really sustaining me during a challenging time.

[scrub12]

So I’ve seen a few articles about Pearl Jam playing in that concert event on June 10, but PJ hasn’t announced anything so I don’t know whether to believe it or not.

[McParadigm]

This is album is really sustaining me during a challenging time.

Still feels like a top five Pearl Jam album to me.

[digster]

What's above/below it?

I'm kind of where I was at several weeks ago. I really liked it, really enjoyed listening to it, but I haven't been getting drawn back into it. I still think it's something to do with not really wanting to hear songs in isolation and wanting to sit down for the entirety of the record. I still feel very safe in saying it's at least the best record since Riot Act.

[Rob]

double post, whoops

[Rob]

For me it's:

Vitalogy
Yield
No Code
Ten
VS
Gigaton
Binaural
RA
ST
LB
BS

[epilogue]

Two months into this release and three dozen (or so) front to back listens and I'd go:

Riot Act
Vitalogy
Ten
Yield
Gigaton
No Code
VS
Binaural
S/T
Lightning Bolt
Backspacer

[McParadigm]

I’ve never thought Ten was a great record. It’s got a few of their best songs, and it was an electric reassurance for me to hear someone else be that angry about pain and loss that wasn’t their own. But it’s not a great record.

Yield is the 1990’s album that’s fallen farthest for me. At one time it was my favorite, now it finishes the top four.

[epilogue]

There's a very good chance Gigaton could overtake Yield for me at some point. And I always struggle with Riot Act and Vitalogy as the 1/2. Both are tremendous records with some flaws that endear me even more to the whole.

Ten to me is still a great album. I love everything about it, even if it can feel a tad overwrought and/or juvenile to me now looking backwards.

[guitar_davey]

This is album is really sustaining me during a challenging time.

Still feels like a top five Pearl Jam album to me.

I feel similarly. You can quibble with all of them on some level, but for me, they're all of a certain time and place, which is pretty much why I've loved Pearl Jam since 1991. They nailed the current time and place with this one.

[stip]

Ten is actually an album that, after having dipped for a while, I have increased appreciation for. It might be that there are a few songs on there (like Jeremy) that I have reignited my love of over the last year or two. RVM is another example.


I feel pretty confident leaving Gitaton at 4

Vitalogy (just about every song is amazing)
Ten (just about every song is amazing)
Vs (half this album is full of some of their best songs. The rest of it is just pretty good, and has dated a bit)
Gigaton (like Backspacer and Lightning Bolt, not a ton of all timers, but I really like every song on here, a few top tier, and quite a few that get close)
Backspacer/Lightning Bolt (two consistently enjoyable albums from start to finish without enough top tier songs)
Yield/ST (each has 4 songs I adore surrounded by a bunch of songs that are fine. Like Vs, but VS has more highs and a stronger floor)
Binaural (strongest highs of the bottom 3, and gets bonus points for mood)
Riot Act (interesting record through Get Right, but I am exhausted by the end, and not in a good way)
No Code (a collection of interesting moments that don't often coalesce into songs I care that much for, comparatively. And the highs are lower than the highs on Binaural and Riot Act.


Reading my comments there are really 4 album categories for me

Near Perfect/Perfect: Ten/Vitalogy
Incredible highs on inconsistent albums: Vs, Yield, S/T
Super enjoyable from start to finish, but a dearth of top 25 songs (Backspacer, Lightning Bolt, Gigaton)
Albums with strong moments but the ehh overshadows the good (Binaural, Riot Act, No Code)

[Thurman Murman]

It's pretty firmly #6 for me....there's a chance with time i could have it at 5, but can't see it going any higher. Still i think its a minor miracle that the band was able to release something in 2020 that i feel rivals some of their 90s output.

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

[McParadigm]

No Code
Vitalogy
Vs
Yield
Gigaton
Ten

It’s really hard for me to rank Binaural -> Riot Act -> Pearl Jam -> Backspacer individually. They are a series of interesting recording sessions that are generally uneven, often singular, and broadly dissimilar from the band that existed in 1990-98 in ambition and artistic drive. Together they represent a sort of collapse that turned into an extended period of uncertainty. They are Pearl Jam’s lost years, flailing efforts that often come across as both dense (or, in Backspacer’s case, carefully colored) and yet somehow punctured with vacancies. In a way, they are yet another Pearl Jam survival story...another case of the band running headlong through a problem they couldn’t find a way around. I like them far more as a collection of records, or really of recording sessions, then I do as individual albums.

Lightning Bolt is a part of that story in its way, but it’s hard for me to say how. My perception of it is far too colored by how fundamentally boring I find it to be.

I think it’s fair to say LB does some treading of water, at least? I would call it their low tide...a tired-sounding record managed largely by their producer, lacking in artistic hunger and not really feeling it so much anymore. It sounds to my ears like a band with far too little pride for how far they’ve come and what they can do. A big, blustering rock record full of self-doubt, mostly hiding it but not very well. It’s like a placeholder for a Pearl Jam record, or a shadow of one. Riot Act sounded whooped but alive. Lightning Bolt sounds alive, but in stasis.