Gigaton: Official album thread

[Strat]

Don't get me wrong, I love having Ed on podcasts lately, and I hope he keeps doing them. But I didn't think the Daddy Issues one was all that special. The hosts were awful, and they didn't get much interesting stuff out of Ed. I like when he compared our political situation to open hart surgery I guess. Also when he said "Instagrams and Facebooks and TikToks."

Interesting. I've never heard him speak so candidly about his family before. I thought it was a wonderful interview and discussion.

[bodysnatcher]

how many metaphors does he make?

[VinylGuy]

Don't get me wrong, I love having Ed on podcasts lately, and I hope he keeps doing them. But I didn't think the Daddy Issues one was all that special. The hosts were awful, and they didn't get much interesting stuff out of Ed. I like when he compared our political situation to open hart surgery I guess. Also when he said "Instagrams and Facebooks and TikToks."

Interesting. I've never heard him speak so candidly about his family before. I thought it was a wonderful interview and discussion.

yeah, lots of great stories about his dad, his feelings about him and his kids..i thought it was wonderful.

[Thurman Murman]

Don't get me wrong, I love having Ed on podcasts lately, and I hope he keeps doing them. But I didn't think the Daddy Issues one was all that special. The hosts were awful, and they didn't get much interesting stuff out of Ed. I like when he compared our political situation to open hart surgery I guess. Also when he said "Instagrams and Facebooks and TikToks."

Interesting. I've never heard him speak so candidly about his family before. I thought it was a wonderful interview and discussion.

I agree i really enjoyed it.

[Ms Harmless]

Stone talked about how WES is basically a fuck you to cynicism

that was The Fixer too, so yeah

it's an obsession of Ed's

[RockPusher]

Stone talked about how WES is basically a fuck you to cynicism

that was The Fixer too, so yeah

it's an obsession of Ed's

Definitely something I love about Ed that makes my connection to Pearl Jam that much stronger.

[96583UP]

do people view Ed's anti-cynicism as steady throughout his career, increasing over time, or flat-decrease-back rising higher than ever?

Spoiler: show

is positively correlated with his net worth?

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[epilogue]

There's not much cynical about Riot Act.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[McParadigm]

I don’t know that cynicism is a word I’d use much at all. I’ve always seen his writing eras as:

Ten/Vs: mostly story songs, and mostly about issues that upset him (people trapped in some form of abuse, homelessness, underprotected children, gun use, authority aggressions, etc). Only a handful of actually, purposeful songs about himself.

Vitalogy/No Code/Yield: still has some carryover of the prior era, and often leans into allegory, but otherwise really the only era when Ed nakedly wrote about Ed.

Binaural/Riot Act: difficult years. Binaural is an attempt to return to story songs, but it’s like he can’t find a new authentic way to capture the drama of the struggle. Can’t go back to being a rage-a-holic, anyways. So what does earnestness sound like otherwise, when the topics you’re drawn to are inherently about conflict? A lot of the songs he writes lyrics to on it come across as character studies, as if we’re watching him relearn an old skill. The WTO thing gives him a break from this.

Riot Act is, I think, difficult because he’s going through a LOT...but he’s not as willing to be open and honest about it all as he was on Vitalogy/No Code. Probably because he got so much shit for it, and a lot of people tuned out. Being honest with his fans made the journey harder.

The lyrics on Riot Act often feel semi-formed, tend to be broadly descriptive without much anchoring, and sometimes come across as underthought. Like the idea of really, honestly communicating to the audience through lyrics is being rejected, or just avoided.

I guess I lump everything post-Riot Act together, but mostly because he eventually found a style of passionate/compassionate writing that he could work within post-90’s and has stuck to some variation of it ever since (not to say the results have been consistent).

[mkay0]

Riot Act is probably the easiest one for me to pin down - grieving roskilde

'It's an art to live with pain, mix the light into grey' feels like a mission statement for the record.

[VinylGuy]

This is interesting to think.

I do remember when he began to sing again from the perspective of others, in avocado. It was super cool. Avocado has great lyrics.

[Jaeti]

I guess I just really don’t like anything about Backspacer as an album. The whole vision for that album is not something that would excite me even if it was talked about as a concept before a single song was written. Pop songs, and happy little punk songs, and acoustic Ed solo songs, all mashed together into a short, little, light hearted, almost surface level PJ album is my worst case scenario for a PJ vision. It focuses on all the things that they aren’t nearly as successful at doing, while tearing the soul out of everything. The soul of PJ is what makes their music different and special. And Backspacer is void of the soul and atmosphere that defines the true heart of the band I love.

I'm always open to being persuaded to see something new in Backspacer that I've previously been unable to recognize. But I find myself agreeing with almost everything J's been saying about it these past few posts.

Edit: Also, I'm coming into this days late and haven't fully caught up, so maybe the discussion got to a point where people will wish I didn't dredge it back up...

[Biff Pocoroba]

I should give this a listen again.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[VinylGuy]

i think its their best since Binaural.

Also, while Binaural is better, Gigaton´s flow is great. I dont want to skip any of the songs.

[dad]

As much as I like Gigaton more than the previous two albums I haven’t listened to it in weeks. Any pj I’ve listened to has been live or Vs.

[VinylGuy]

yeah, i took a break too but i was super immerse on it.

Been listening to Osaka 03, San Fran 06 mostly

[Birds in Hell]

I haven't felt like listening to Pearl Jam in a good while.