239. No Way vs. Elderly Woman

[Mike]

Liking Yield Ed is the common opinion I think. I don't dislike him on all of Yield. It's mostly Faithful, No Way and the Pilate chorus. I love his vocals on some songs (BOJ, GTF, DTE, Low Light...).
Now to destroy the moment I had with stip: Mid period Ed is still way better than current Ed. And nothing can touch the Vs./Vitalogy era.

Ranking Ed eras:
Vs./Vitalogy
Binaural/Riot Act
No Code/Yield
Ten
PRAMG

[Chris_H_2]

Is this a hot take? I like the way Ed sounds on No Way and most of Yield far more than the way he sounds on much of Backspacer.

maybe hot in the sense of how many cigarettes Ed burned through between yield and backspacer

[stip]

Is this a hot take? I like the way Ed sounds on No Way and most of Yield far more than the way he sounds on much of Backspacer.

around here that is an ice cold take

[liebzz]

Liking Yield Ed is the common opinion I think. I don't dislike him on all of Yield. It's mostly Faithful, No Way and the Pilate chorus. I love his vocals on some songs (BOJ, GTF, DTE, Low Light...).
Now to destroy the moment I had with stip: Mid period Ed is still way better than current Ed. And nothing can touch the Vs./Vitalogy era.

Ranking Ed eras:
Vs./Vitalogy
Binaural/Riot Act
No Code/Yield
Ten
PRAMG

A couple of things:

Eddie sounded best live probably 1996-2000 or so.

On albums I prefer Eddie’s vocal performances from probably No Code to Binaural where he found the perfect sweet spot between scream Ed and can’t hold the note anymore Ed. He still sounds great on Riot Act but the production I think muffles his voice a little bit.

PRAMG Ed I think is still sort of hanging on to whatever’s left, though he does sound great the way he uses his voice on the Into the Wild soundtrack. He also I think sounds great on Gigaton in part because he has more or less better figured out how to use his current vocal limitations in the context of Pearl Jam songs.

[stip]

There is a raggedness due to deterioration that is a part of Ed's voice now. When he uses it well it is very effective, and can really enhance the songs (the first 3 songs on S/T are a good example of this), and when he is careful in his approach he can still produce songs that (I think) have that more classic sound (Sirens and Mind Your Manners are pretty good examples. I think he sounds great on those).

I think starting with L-bolt but especially with Gigaton he has figured out how to make it work, and to have the age feel a bit like a survivor's wisdom rather than an old man aping a young man. But he definitely was figuring it out on S/T and Backspacer.

I would rank

Ten -> Vs -> Vitalogy (I think there is something of a downward progression across all three of these, but he is still phenomenal on all of them

Gigaton
Lightning Bolt/Riot Act (probably tied-it's hard to tell.He probably sounds better on Riot Act but I like the L-bolt songs more)

After that I go back and forth. Yield is probably next. There is a clenched and nasal quality to a greater or lesser degree on much of No Code, Binaural. and Yield and in terms of how Eddie 'sounds' it is probably the period I like the least. But Backspacer and S/T are hideously uneven. Songs where his approach works great and songs where it is clearly to the detriment of what the song wants to convey

[epilogue]

Is this a hot take? I like the way Ed sounds on No Way and most of Yield far more than the way he sounds on much of Backspacer.

around here that is an ice cold take

That's what I figured. Just a short run of posts there had me thinking I was insane.