Song of the Moment: Lightning Bolt

[harmless]

I still can't help thinking of Springsteen's "Born in the USA" with that keyboard melody on the outro. I can't decide whether that makes the song cheesier, or just lends it more timelessness for being a Springsteen homage. Probably both.

[stip]

i described lightning bolt to a friend thusly:

imagine bruce springsteen wrote the unforgettable fire (the album) instead of U2, and then pearl jam covered it.

[dimejinky99]

i described lightning bolt to a friend thusly:

imagine bruce springsteen wrote the unforgettable fire (the album) instead of U2, and then pearl jam covered it.

Wow. Lotta free hard ons being given out in RM today

[harmless]

Springsteen and U2 are both things that I don't like. But PJ being PJ are able to fuse them together and make something I enjoy listen to, even though it's pretty naked classic rock with no grungy embellishment.

[dimejinky99]

Pearl jam never really did grunge though

As a sound

[harmless]

Well yeah, they did, in a way. But it's just a word. You know what I mean; there's nothing "cool" about LB.

[harmless]

GTF sounded like U2 but there was some "cool" to cover that fact up. Same with something like In My Tree.

[dimejinky99]

The minute pearl jam tried to be cool, we'd all be up in arms and bloody rightly so.

I was wearing a pj t shirt somewhere a while ago and some girl asked me if I was being ironic.

Fuck those people. We never wanna appeal to them.

[harmless]

Well, even when they weren't trying to be cool, they used to be cool.

They're definitely not very cool on this CD. It's pretty much straight-up classic rock. I saw them heading that way on Binaural and here we are.

[dimejinky99]

Is it just me or does LB remind anyone else of breakerfall?

[harmless]

I think this album has a few Binaural or Riot Act nods. The third-person narration is a bit Breakerfall. Stylistically there are parts that remind me of Evacuation.

[harmless]

Speaking of Evacuation, LB would've been knocked out of the park if it had an interesting off-kilter bridge.

[stip]

does Lightning bolt even have a bridge?

[harmless]

I don't think so. It could've done with one imo.

[stip]

is the 'always something/never nothing' part the bridge?

Normally I'd agree, but I wonder if a bridge would have slowed the song down too much. One of the best parts about this song is how quickly it gallops along without feeling like it's rushing.

[harmless]

Yeah, it's probably good that it gets to that final verse quickly.

It's got a weird structure; I guess the "Always something..." part could be called a bridge, yeah.

[harmless]

I was really hoping the fadeout on this song wouldn't annoy me as much as it's beginning to. I just need one more round of Mike's lead part, but it fades out during it

[dimejinky99]

There's A big guitar part after the first chorus that sort of feels unnecessary, maybe you're meant to feel like they're jamming it out and looking around at each other for where to go next.
They could cut that part out and make it more fluid and longer towards the end.

A bridge would kill the flow of this one I think.

Pj bridges are often the star of the show and steal from the whole song.
This one couldn't stand up to that I don't think.

[stip]

I love that early guitar solo. Kind of unexpected, and it's a good one. Not an overly complex one, but it feels really good

[harmless]

I find it more appropriate to the song than the same surf guitar-style intro in GSMF.