Song of the Moment: Sirens

[solace]

Excellent use of the Drudge siren gif, Solace.

[doug rr]

I wonder if people's opinions of this song would change if they realized that it was written about Chris Chelios

he's gonna sing it at Ernie Banks next bbq

[stupidmop]

I wonder if people's opinions of this song would change if they realized that it was written about Chris Chelios

I bet its about johnny ramone.

Again.

[stip]

By the way...have you noticed that one of Matt's intro fills is not in time ?
The fill at 0:13 >>>

Yep. It's what made me say "I'll keep the studio version, cheers." He frequently makes those flubs live but they allowed this one into the video... eek.

As a long time drummer and studio rat I am not hearing this as "not in time"...

He's playing pretty traditional syncopated falling intro fills. The fill at 0:13 comes in on the "a" of count 2 in measure 4 (5 if you count the intro quarters on the hats) and plays a soft sixteeenth followed by two eighth notes, two sixteenths, and an eighth to finish out the measure and the phrase ( a-3-and-4-e-and in drum speak) and lands on a half note on the middle crash cymbal to start the next measure and next phrase. Plus he's playing a straight quarter note hi-hat with the left foot through the whole thing. Even if you don't pick up the intro sixteenth note, the eighth notes are in time. One can argue that's slightly behind the true beat throughout, but that's a common complaint about Matt's playing with PJ as much as Dave A. was almost always in front of the true beat.

Just sayin'... There's room to dog him...but let's be accurate.

I know what he's doing. I play drums too. He's out of time. He comes in late, and pulls back too late, thus flubbing the fill. I'm not even getting into the groove proper, just on about the intro.

I don't play drums, and have listened to see where he makes the mistake and never really noticed anything.

[WaitingForBluey]

In retrospect, I had a very "meh" reaction to every single from Binaural and RA, especially I Am Mine and Light Years (and yes, even my first reaction to NAIS was "I dunno, kinda boring").

But I'm not getting that from Sirens, which really surprises the hell out of me. I really think most of that has to do with the fact that I didn't listen to it on Tuesday when it first leaked so I read enough reviews beforehand to set my expectations at an all-time low... I was pleasantly surprised that the song actually superseded those expectations... and it has only gotten better ever since.

[McParadigm]

Maybe they'll make an appearance on America's Next Top Model

[epilogue]

People are lumping this thing with the likes of Gone, Just Breathe, Amongst the Waves and Inside Job?

I fucking LOVE three of those. What are the chances I'll like Sirens when I finally listen to it in mid-October?

[WaitingForBluey]

I don't play drums, and have listened to see where he makes the mistake and never really noticed anything.

Oh God no!!!! Please Stip, don't get that conversation started again. That's where this thread started to take a turn for the worse....

[stupidmop]

I bet Sean Penn hates this song, but he's too nice to say anything.

He also beats women. He just might not be able to relate to it.

[harmless]

Maybe they'll make an appearance on America's Next Top Model

"Ed's Next Top Model"

[epilogue]

McP's posting today has gone a long way toward helping me understand why my friends always look at me like that.

[WaitingForBluey]

People are lumping this thing with the likes of Gone, Just Breathe, Amongst the Waves and Inside Job?

I fucking LOVE three of those. What are the chances I'll like Sirens when I finally listen to it in mid-October?

You'll definitely like it! I was wondering what your thoughts were on it. After all, you are the mixmaster right?

[stip]

Based on a lot of the reactions from Sirens (including the unexpected vitriol over at the Pit), it is clear to me that not many of you are subjected to countless hours of mindless top 40 pop radio crap every day. My co-workers love that shit and that's all we listen to at work. If Sirens came on right now it would totally blow the pants off of everything that's been played so far today (and that includes KOL's Use Somebody, which is completely inferior to Sirens at this point, it's not even close).

Why is PJ's versions of pop radio much better than pop radio? Because PJ are still craftsmen, even in their worst moments. Sirens still has substance and weight to it, regardless of whether or not it comes off as bubblegum. Hell, I would argue that Sirens has more substance to it than a song like Betterman. And even though this is brand new territory for them, at the end of the day, or at least after about 10 listens, this sounds like Pearl Jam to me.

hey, lets not go nuts

[Thejambi]

To me, this data really hammers home which album is the worst in the collection.

Which brings us back to the part where you're retardedly equaling sales with quality. Finally.

To pretend the two are unrelated is retarded.

Do you think The Who's worst selling album was the best? How about Pink Floyd's worst seller? Now, if you went to a random set of people and looked only at those who declared themselves as "fans" (nothing more, nothing less - no need for a fan club membership or spending hours of their day at a real cool website, they just said they are fans of Pink Floyd on a random survey they were given)... do you think that The Who or Pink Floyd's "fans" would rate their worst selling album as the best in terms of quality in aggregate? Do you think the worst sellers may end up at the bottom? I do - why - because I'm practical.

Sales are related to quality for ONE band's catalog. It doesn't work from band to band, or genre to genre... but, individually for one band from album to album it does.

Should that effect your thinking? No, but neither should the herd mentality of a website full of hipsters.

Sales can be inflated by circumstance, trends, a single ect. Sales have such a small bearing on the "quality" of an album.

I agree. But, in general, I think it's the best metric available particularly when discussing fan's rankings of ONE bands albums. Name an alternative.

A survey would probably be ideal, but it would have to be done on the street or something. Are you a Pearl Jam fan, ok rank these albums....

That still doesn't speak to "quality" which is a very ambiguous term.

Ten is Pearl Jams highest selling album. As a fan I put it in the middle. The only objective data from that is that I have an opinion. It has nothing to do with sales. Vitalogy-Binaural are in my opinion are the highest "quality" pearl jam albums. By sales individually and even combine they are "inferior" to Ten and Vs.

Last Kiss out sold Jeremy . What does that say?

But, you can rank quality for yourself - right?

A survey would capture your rankings, and mine and others... that would probably be the best way.

As for sales, I think sales does the same thing in a sense - admittedly not quite as well. If you don't like something, you aren't going to buy it. If you do, you will. In this day and age, it's even less cut and dry because you can now download it if you don't really like it too much or are indifferent about rewarding the artist. My point is that Backspacer, which was more negatively impacted by declining national album sales and piracy, outsold Riot Act. In that sense, sales could be used for ranking albums and would apparently show Backspacer over Riot Act.

I don't think singles can be used with the same statistical accuracy. But, in general, Last Kiss was preferred by more people to Jeremy. That's what it would say. I think the issue here is most think that they are "real fans" of Pearl Jam than some who don't come to boards like this. I disagree. A fan's a fan to me. They all count.

Backspacer had the shit promoted out of it with 2 radio "hits". Much , much, much more so than Riot Act. Doesn't not mean it ranks higher than RA except for success.

[harmless]

People are lumping this thing with the likes of Gone, Just Breathe, Amongst the Waves and Inside Job?

I fucking LOVE three of those. What are the chances I'll like Sirens when I finally listen to it in mid-October?

Pretty high, I'd imagine, but the song still doesn't sound like those.

[Heathen]

I love how stip is now going to bring every single argument back from the dead and it's all gonna start again

[harmless]

Based on a lot of the reactions from Sirens (including the unexpected vitriol over at the Pit), it is clear to me that not many of you are subjected to countless hours of mindless top 40 pop radio crap every day. My co-workers love that shit and that's all we listen to at work. If Sirens came on right now it would totally blow the pants off of everything that's been played so far today (and that includes KOL's Use Somebody, which is completely inferior to Sirens at this point, it's not even close).

Why is PJ's versions of pop radio much better than pop radio? Because PJ are still craftsmen, even in their worst moments. Sirens still has substance and weight to it, regardless of whether or not it comes off as bubblegum. Hell, I would argue that Sirens has more substance to it than a song like Betterman. And even though this is brand new territory for them, at the end of the day, or at least after about 10 listens, this sounds like Pearl Jam to me.

hey, lets not go nuts

[McParadigm]

McP's posting today has gone a long way toward helping me understand why my friends always look at me like that.

*huggles*

[WaitingForBluey]

Binaural was fairly far ahead of RA I think (close to a million). RA and S/T and Backspacer are all pretty close but I think you could argue that given the increasing move away from album staying even counts as a victory

Oh no, not again Stip! You keep doing it... we finally got that shitstorm settled down!

[Jaeti]

422,000 views of the video on YouTube. That seems like a hell-ton more than I'd've expected after 24 hours.