Lightning Bolt: the official album thread

[Birds in Hell]

The only problem with the maths approach is that there are some sequencing moments that are brilliant that don't necessarily translate. I really like the opening 6 of Riot Act but on paper they don't add up. Whereas Binaural is better on paper as I feel it just loses momentum again and again. The songs are good but the tracklist suffers.

The approach doesn't work for me either. When I listen to a record, I don't think of it as a collection of individual songs so much as one long piece with varying moods, ebbs and flows. The idea of listening to music on shuffle seems positively ghastly to me. My favourite records are those that, for want of a less hackneyed term, take me on an enjoyable journey rather than those with the highest ratio of "5-star" songs.

[harmless]

After my little crisis of confidence last night I realised something; this album *feels* to me like another Ten. There won't be another Ten in terms of quality, but it's the tenth album, and like Ten, it's going to be an overt, big-gesture, outward-focussed album (could PJ have written a bigger outward-gesture song in 2013 than "Sirens"?). When I first heard the leaked tunes, my first thought was "I wish my dad didn't live hundreds of miles away so I could drive around in his car blaring this out." That was the ritual between me and my dad with every new Pearl Jam album when I was a child. And back then, Pearl Jam's music wasn't the deeply intelligent, thought-provoking, insular and *shy* music it began to be at No Code. It was big, loud, somewhat cliched, grand rock songs (this is an arguable point of course, but this is an admittedly broad statement for time's sake). Now, this is 2013 and that was a long time ago. There's every chance that I could play this album to my dad and he'd go "Meh." I'm sort of glad he's not around daily for that to happen, because I think the truth is, my strongest reaction to these new songs is emotional. I'm forgiving the obvious flaws of these songs. I know they're replete with flaws, and I know that I wish Brendan O'Brien hadn't put his classic-schmaltz-rock-juice all over them. But it's that same slick production that's made me respond emotionally to these songs, because they remind me of my father, and my changing music taste coming out of the 80s (when I loved Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi) into the 90s (when PJ turned up), and even -- given the themes of the songs we have -- my changing spirituality growing up, which is as much to do with my love for, and frustrations with, my dad's religious beliefs. I feel as if this album is becoming important to me for those reasons, almost regardless of the songs' flaws. The songs have proven themselves good enough for me to develop a strong emotional attachment to this album and from this point on, everything else will be a bonus. If I get to hear anything with the defensible quality of that middle-period, I'll be happy about it, but if not, never mind.

This is album Ten and I'm feeling like just turning it up loud and enjoying it. Now I'm secretly hoping that the track "My Father's Son" goes beyond Ed and can say something to me / us... but fingers crossed.

[harmless]

The only problem with the maths approach is that there are some sequencing moments that are brilliant that don't necessarily translate. I really like the opening 6 of Riot Act but on paper they don't add up. Whereas Binaural is better on paper as I feel it just loses momentum again and again. The songs are good but the tracklist suffers.

Hopefully LB has a great track sequence with well thought out transitions. I already think it doesn't with Sirens ending not fading and with LB doing the opposite. We'll soon see/hear though.

The good thing about the LB ending (I know you know this, but) is the fade-in to Infallible. That could be very cool indeed.

[ABNorman]

The idea of listening to music on shuffle seems positively ghastly to me.

This is the way music is trending, though. In the internet age, the album is an outdated concept. It's increasingly becoming just a "thing that is done", rather than the primary means to listen to music. In 20-30 years, I'd say a band that puts out a cohesive album as its main output will be judged as unfairly as a band that did full on concept albums in the 90's/00's.

I'm not saying this is the best trend (I still prefer albums), just that it's definitely happening, and most kids grown up on smartphones and iTunes won't care nearly as much about the album experience (though obviously, you'll always get people who enjoy the smell of a book, the experience of a big screen movie, the sound of a record slipping out of its cover, holding liner notes/art in their hands, etc).

The one exciting thing is that it won't be long until bands find new and exciting ways to contextualise their music. What was that one band who released a music video where you entered your home town and it used Google Street View to personalise it to you? Those kind of things are where the context and atmosphere for music is going to come from in the future.

[stip]

The only problem with the maths approach is that there are some sequencing moments that are brilliant that don't necessarily translate. I really like the opening 6 of Riot Act but on paper they don't add up. Whereas Binaural is better on paper as I feel it just loses momentum again and again. The songs are good but the tracklist suffers.

The approach doesn't work for me either. When I listen to a record, I don't think of it as a collection of individual songs so much as one long piece with varying moods, ebbs and flows. The idea of listening to music on shuffle seems positively ghastly to me. My favourite records are those that, for want of a less hackneyed term, take me on an enjoyable journey rather than those with the highest ratio of "5-star" songs.

That makes sense. Certainly that approach makes it harder to absorb weaker songs, but it also gives the context the chance to elevate them

[stip]

After my little crisis of confidence last night I realised something; this album *feels* to me like another Ten. There won't be another Ten in terms of quality, but it's the tenth album, and like Ten, it's going to be an overt, big-gesture, outward-focussed album (could PJ have written a bigger outward-gesture song in 2013 than "Sirens"?). When I first heard the leaked tunes, my first thought was "I wish my dad didn't live hundreds of miles away so I could drive around in his car blaring this out." That was the ritual between me and my dad with every new Pearl Jam album when I was a child. And back then, Pearl Jam's music wasn't the deeply intelligent, thought-provoking, insular and *shy* music it began to be at No Code. It was big, loud, somewhat cliched, grand rock songs (this is an arguable point of course, but this is an admittedly broad statement for time's sake). Now, this is 2013 and that was a long time ago. There's every chance that I could play this album to my dad and he'd go "Meh." I'm sort of glad he's not around daily for that to happen, because I think the truth is, my strongest reaction to these new songs is emotional. I'm forgiving the obvious flaws of these songs. I know they're replete with flaws, and I know that I wish Brendan O'Brien hadn't put his classic-schmaltz-rock-juice all over them. But it's that same slick production that's made me respond emotionally to these songs, because they remind me of my father, and my changing music taste coming out of the 80s (when I loved Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi) into the 90s (when PJ turned up), and even -- given the themes of the songs we have -- my changing spirituality growing up, which is as much to do with my love for, and frustrations with, my dad's religious beliefs. I feel as if this album is becoming important to me for those reasons, almost regardless of the songs' flaws. The songs have proven themselves good enough for me to develop a strong emotional attachment to this album and from this point on, everything else will be a bonus. If I get to hear anything with the defensible quality of that middle-period, I'll be happy about it, but if not, never mind.

This is album Ten and I'm feeling like just turning it up loud and enjoying it. Now I'm secretly hoping that the track "My Father's Son" goes beyond Ed and can say something to me / us... but fingers crossed.

I hope so

[LetMeSleep]

After my little crisis of confidence last night I realised something; this album *feels* to me like another Ten. There won't be another Ten in terms of quality, but it's the tenth album, and like Ten, it's going to be an overt, big-gesture, outward-focussed album (could PJ have written a bigger outward-gesture song in 2013 than "Sirens"?). When I first heard the leaked tunes, my first thought was "I wish my dad didn't live hundreds of miles away so I could drive around in his car blaring this out." That was the ritual between me and my dad with every new Pearl Jam album when I was a child. And back then, Pearl Jam's music wasn't the deeply intelligent, thought-provoking, insular and *shy* music it began to be at No Code. It was big, loud, somewhat cliched, grand rock songs (this is an arguable point of course, but this is an admittedly broad statement for time's sake). Now, this is 2013 and that was a long time ago. There's every chance that I could play this album to my dad and he'd go "Meh." I'm sort of glad he's not around daily for that to happen, because I think the truth is, my strongest reaction to these new songs is emotional. I'm forgiving the obvious flaws of these songs. I know they're replete with flaws, and I know that I wish Brendan O'Brien hadn't put his classic-schmaltz-rock-juice all over them. But it's that same slick production that's made me respond emotionally to these songs, because they remind me of my father, and my changing music taste coming out of the 80s (when I loved Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi) into the 90s (when PJ turned up), and even -- given the themes of the songs we have -- my changing spirituality growing up, which is as much to do with my love for, and frustrations with, my dad's religious beliefs. I feel as if this album is becoming important to me for those reasons, almost regardless of the songs' flaws. The songs have proven themselves good enough for me to develop a strong emotional attachment to this album and from this point on, everything else will be a bonus. If I get to hear anything with the defensible quality of that middle-period, I'll be happy about it, but if not, never mind.

This is album Ten and I'm feeling like just turning it up loud and enjoying it. Now I'm secretly hoping that the track "My Father's Son" goes beyond Ed and can say something to me / us... but fingers crossed.

I wonder how many of us here were born b/n 73-77, had/have some Bon Jovi/GnR/80s soft metal in our lives before 91/92 changed us all.

[harmless]

After my little crisis of confidence last night I realised something; this album *feels* to me like another Ten. There won't be another Ten in terms of quality, but it's the tenth album, and like Ten, it's going to be an overt, big-gesture, outward-focussed album (could PJ have written a bigger outward-gesture song in 2013 than "Sirens"?). When I first heard the leaked tunes, my first thought was "I wish my dad didn't live hundreds of miles away so I could drive around in his car blaring this out." That was the ritual between me and my dad with every new Pearl Jam album when I was a child. And back then, Pearl Jam's music wasn't the deeply intelligent, thought-provoking, insular and *shy* music it began to be at No Code. It was big, loud, somewhat cliched, grand rock songs (this is an arguable point of course, but this is an admittedly broad statement for time's sake). Now, this is 2013 and that was a long time ago. There's every chance that I could play this album to my dad and he'd go "Meh." I'm sort of glad he's not around daily for that to happen, because I think the truth is, my strongest reaction to these new songs is emotional. I'm forgiving the obvious flaws of these songs. I know they're replete with flaws, and I know that I wish Brendan O'Brien hadn't put his classic-schmaltz-rock-juice all over them. But it's that same slick production that's made me respond emotionally to these songs, because they remind me of my father, and my changing music taste coming out of the 80s (when I loved Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi) into the 90s (when PJ turned up), and even -- given the themes of the songs we have -- my changing spirituality growing up, which is as much to do with my love for, and frustrations with, my dad's religious beliefs. I feel as if this album is becoming important to me for those reasons, almost regardless of the songs' flaws. The songs have proven themselves good enough for me to develop a strong emotional attachment to this album and from this point on, everything else will be a bonus. If I get to hear anything with the defensible quality of that middle-period, I'll be happy about it, but if not, never mind.

This is album Ten and I'm feeling like just turning it up loud and enjoying it. Now I'm secretly hoping that the track "My Father's Son" goes beyond Ed and can say something to me / us... but fingers crossed.

I wonder how many of us here were born b/n 73-77, had/have some Bon Jovi/GnR/80s soft metal in our lives before 91/92 changed us all.

I was born in '82, see, so I didn't have long enough for that stuff to become tired. Sure, it sounds tired now, but I absolutely don't mind some of the bands I like referring back to it, and I'm still an avid defender of Bryan Adams' songs

[Birds in Hell]

The idea of listening to music on shuffle seems positively ghastly to me.

This is the way music is trending, though.

Is it, though? Perhaps in regards to pop music, I wouldn't know, but all of the bands and artists I dig still release albums.

The one exciting thing is that it won't be long until bands find new and exciting ways to contextualise their music. What was that one band who released a music video where you entered your home town and it used Google Street View to personalise it to you? Those kind of things are where the context and atmosphere for music is going to come from in the future.

So, irritating gimmicks are the future?

Music is still music. All the other junk, like those concerns above, is just noise. Who cares?

[harmless]

Irritating gimmicks are definitely the way of the future... just look at Facebook.

[Dr. Van Nostrand]

The idea of listening to music on shuffle seems positively ghastly to me.

This is the way music is trending, though.

Is it, though? Perhaps in regards to pop music, I wouldn't know, but all of the bands and artists I dig still release albums.

for me, i LOVE the album experience, but i also like making playlists to mix tapes, and once im very familiar with the feeling and flow of an album, i like to play around with it and create my own. but the shuffle feature for me is nice if im being to lazy to create a mix but i want to get a good sampling of a bands full catalog, or for the times when i dont specifically have a band i want to listen to, i will shuffle through my whole ipod until i find somehting i do want to listen to

[ABNorman]

The idea of listening to music on shuffle seems positively ghastly to me.

This is the way music is trending, though.

Is it, though? Perhaps in regards to pop music, I wouldn't know, but all of the bands and artists I dig still release albums.

The one exciting thing is that it won't be long until bands find new and exciting ways to contextualise their music. What was that one band who released a music video where you entered your home town and it used Google Street View to personalise it to you? Those kind of things are where the context and atmosphere for music is going to come from in the future.

So, irritating gimmicks are the future?

Music is still music. All the other junk, like those concerns above, is just noise. Who cares?

It definitely is trending that way. It comes down, eventually, to money. Albums aren't making as much of it as they used to. More bands are experimenting with releasing songs for free in smaller batches. Recently the Pixies decided to release 3-4 EPs instead of one big album. Money nowadays comes from concerts and the big singles. Almost every band that's currently at a good level of success grew up with albums; it's going to be difficult for them to shake off that nostalgia. Bands that are coming up, grown up in a culture whose attention is fleeting, will be far more likely to drop it.

I'm not saying that particular instance wasn't a gimmick, but it won't be long until bands find ways to incorporate innovation without being gimmicky. "Music is just music "is a flawed argument in an increasingly multimedia world. More and more, businesses (and bands are businesses) want to personalise their product to you. Get beyond the nostalgia and convention of albums (again: I love albums), and think of the possibilities (some of them great, some of them terrifying) of something like Google Glass. Playing a track with art, video, lyrics as you walk. Imagine what happens when basic mind-reading products become commercialised. Imagine when it becomes sophisticated enough to play back memories as you listen to an old song. Imagine music that changes tempo, loudness, instruments depending on how you're feeling.

And again, the album (like the book, or the big screen movie) will probably never go away - it'll just become more and more niche. It's not an unreasonable prediction that in a couple of decades, big screen movies will be more of an "experience", akin to going to the theatre (and with prices to match), because people will have almost instant access to movies as they're made and big screens at home. It's not an unreasonable prediction that a similar thing could happen to the album.

[ABNorman]

The most recent analogy is the transition from analogue to digital. At the beginning, nobody bought digital as a viable alternative, then for years there was a massive argument about their merits, now analogue is absolutely a niche thing. What percentage of kids born after 2000 will care about analogue?

[Birds in Hell]

And again, the album (like the book, or the big screen movie) will probably never go away - it'll just become more and more niche.

Is that meant to be a bad thing? Who cares?

You may be right, I honestly haven't the faintest idea, but it certainly hasn't impacted on the kind of music I like in the slightest. Every band I enjoy continues to release their music by way of albums (and usually on vinyl).

[ABNorman]

And again, the album (like the book, or the big screen movie) will probably never go away - it'll just become more and more niche.

Is that meant to be a bad thing? Who cares?

You may be right, I honestly haven't the faintest idea, but it certainly hasn't impacted on the kind of music I like in the slightest. Every band I enjoy continues to release their music via albums, usually on vinyl.

Nope, not a bad thing at all (except perhaps in terms of cost). The transition to digital likely didn't impact on most people who were already into bands who were recording and releasing on analogue. That doesn't mean the paradigm didn't shift eventually.

[stip]

After my little crisis of confidence last night I realised something; this album *feels* to me like another Ten. There won't be another Ten in terms of quality, but it's the tenth album, and like Ten, it's going to be an overt, big-gesture, outward-focussed album (could PJ have written a bigger outward-gesture song in 2013 than "Sirens"?). When I first heard the leaked tunes, my first thought was "I wish my dad didn't live hundreds of miles away so I could drive around in his car blaring this out." That was the ritual between me and my dad with every new Pearl Jam album when I was a child. And back then, Pearl Jam's music wasn't the deeply intelligent, thought-provoking, insular and *shy* music it began to be at No Code. It was big, loud, somewhat cliched, grand rock songs (this is an arguable point of course, but this is an admittedly broad statement for time's sake). Now, this is 2013 and that was a long time ago. There's every chance that I could play this album to my dad and he'd go "Meh." I'm sort of glad he's not around daily for that to happen, because I think the truth is, my strongest reaction to these new songs is emotional. I'm forgiving the obvious flaws of these songs. I know they're replete with flaws, and I know that I wish Brendan O'Brien hadn't put his classic-schmaltz-rock-juice all over them. But it's that same slick production that's made me respond emotionally to these songs, because they remind me of my father, and my changing music taste coming out of the 80s (when I loved Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi) into the 90s (when PJ turned up), and even -- given the themes of the songs we have -- my changing spirituality growing up, which is as much to do with my love for, and frustrations with, my dad's religious beliefs. I feel as if this album is becoming important to me for those reasons, almost regardless of the songs' flaws. The songs have proven themselves good enough for me to develop a strong emotional attachment to this album and from this point on, everything else will be a bonus. If I get to hear anything with the defensible quality of that middle-period, I'll be happy about it, but if not, never mind.

This is album Ten and I'm feeling like just turning it up loud and enjoying it. Now I'm secretly hoping that the track "My Father's Son" goes beyond Ed and can say something to me / us... but fingers crossed.

I wonder how many of us here were born b/n 73-77, had/have some Bon Jovi/GnR/80s soft metal in our lives before 91/92 changed us all.

how could you not?

[stip]

And again, the album (like the book, or the big screen movie) will probably never go away - it'll just become more and more niche.

Is that meant to be a bad thing? Who cares?

You may be right, I honestly haven't the faintest idea, but it certainly hasn't impacted on the kind of music I like in the slightest. Every band I enjoy continues to release their music by way of albums (and usually on vinyl).

I think his point is that it hasn't yet. And it may never really impact the established artists you listen to, but that the decline of the album may well effect the way new artists think about music (and possibly old ones eventually, especially ones that can't necessarily sustain themselves through event touring absent the strength of a major song)

[ABNorman]

I've still got Bon Jovi in my life. How anyone can resist belting away to "Livin' on a Prayer" if it comes on the radio, I just don't know

[Heathen]

Team Spenno

[Mirella]

I think age matters, as well as how deep and broad someone's taste is, and how you have experienced all kinds of music so far, including Pearl Jam. Open mindedness is not really age related, I think. I hated disco as a child in the seventies, but I can appreciate it for what it is now. Hit parade music is different for children compared to teenagers or people in their twenties, and it all depends on what people you hang out with as well.
Then there is the whole lyrical aspect, and other emotions music can connect with. For instance, was hair metal something you laughed about or was it an important part of your youth? Were you in a safe surrounding and happy or was everybody around you dying or fighting when you first heard a certain style? Do drinking songs make you happy or extremely sad, or annoyed? Do the lyrics match your own situation or is it more distant?
So, even though I am tempted to say age is important, and older people are wiser , I think it is different for every single person. I do appreciate opinions with some background information more than just statements that something sucks or is brilliant.

groetjes,
Mirella