Pearl Jam (self titled): Official Album Thread

[Coach]

Gone is too cliche for me

[Farmer John]

I like the outro.

[Huell]

What is it about this album that doesn’t work? I want to love it, always thought the artwork was fresh for them. I read it as a shiny new PJ but under the surface it is experimenting with decay and changing forms. Like the artwork on the inside could have been for Riot Act but the cover certainly was not. But then the music is weird. I think it’s difference things on individual songs that cause them to be not pleasant to listen to or just off but I cannot put my finger on it. It’s not just the loudness war either because it’s similar on the BOB mix

[Kevin Davis]

What is it about this album that doesn’t work? I want to love it, always thought the artwork was fresh for them. I read it as a shiny new PJ but under the surface it is experimenting with decay and changing forms. Like the artwork on the inside could have been for Riot Act but the cover certainly was not. But then the music is weird. I think it’s difference things on individual songs that cause them to be not pleasant to listen to or just off but I cannot put my finger on it. It’s not just the loudness war either because it’s similar on the BOB mix

It's the first album of theirs to feel self-consciously regressive, and I think, all these years later, what it ultimately ends up proving is that you can't unlearn enough to ever truly go "back to basics." On the one hand, you've got a lot of songs here that very deliberately seek to recapture the visceral, empirical experience of their early records (I think Mike singled out Vs. specifically as a reference point during an interview), but by 2006 both the songwriting dynamic in the band and their overall approach (Eddie's especially) to composition were very different, plus they had (a) a new drummer and (b) a lead singer whose endearingly rudimentary guitar playing, once barely an ancillary component of their sound, was now an anchoring element of 30-40% of their songs. You've also got a few songs like "Come Back," "Parachutes," "Army Reserve," etc., that have no logical precedent in their catalog, some of which are among the record's best songs and consequently serve to highlight the lack of creative vitality in the parts of the record that feel more conspicuously like pursuits of former glories. So, there are a lot of what seem to be competing influences that I think bear out in the material -- clunky structures, verses and choruses seemingly at odds with each other, lyrics composed to speak directly to the state of the world in 2006 paired with music composed to speak to the state of Pearl Jam in 1992, etc. It just feels like a weird melting pot of things that don't really interlock in the way that the band probably intended.

This album came out during the first major lull in my fandom, so while I got excited for it and bought it and played it semi-regularly, my mind was ultimately on other things. A year or so later I got back into the band in a big way via the 2006 tour bootlegs, so to me that's really the most meaningful context for a lot of these songs. The album as a whole -- as a sequence, coupled with the production, the artwork, whatever it may or may not set out to achieve in terms of message, theme, etc. -- doesn't really mean anything to me. But, one at a time, as songs that are just mixed into the PJ catalog along with all the other ones, I think most of them earn their keep, with virtues that register more tangibly through the lens of performance, as engines that drive momentum and allow certain performative strengths to shine through, than through the lens of creative/artistic analysis.

[epilogue]

EV solo Gone>whole band Gone

Yes

[Got Some]

Gone's chorus is the last PJ song that wasnt a word salad.

[Happy Trees]

Gone is too cliche for me

That's always been my problem with the whole album, from day one.

I was thoroughly unimpressed with many of the songs and found them musically generic and uninspired. And the production blows.

I enjoy some of them now on the 2006 boots, but before that it was the opposite - the live versions were alternatives, judged against the album versions.

Probably the first album where I thought, here we go - it's downhill from here.

And of course there is the typical irony of it being marketed as a "return to form" and people buying into that.

But the high performance of certain songs on the Spotify statistics list basically confirms that boring and generic is what people respond to.

Just look at how successful the Foo Fighters are.

[Huell]

What is it about this album that doesn’t work? I want to love it, always thought the artwork was fresh for them. I read it as a shiny new PJ but under the surface it is experimenting with decay and changing forms. Like the artwork on the inside could have been for Riot Act but the cover certainly was not. But then the music is weird. I think it’s difference things on individual songs that cause them to be not pleasant to listen to or just off but I cannot put my finger on it. It’s not just the loudness war either because it’s similar on the BOB mix

It's the first album of theirs to feel self-consciously regressive, and I think, all these years later, what it ultimately ends up proving is that you can't unlearn enough to ever truly go "back to basics." On the one hand, you've got a lot of songs here that very deliberately seek to recapture the visceral, empirical experience of their early records (I think Mike singled out Vs. specifically as a reference point during an interview), but by 2006 both the songwriting dynamic in the band and their overall approach (Eddie's especially) to composition were very different, plus they had (a) a new drummer and (b) a lead singer whose endearingly rudimentary guitar playing, once barely an ancillary component of their sound, was now an anchoring element of 30-40% of their songs. You've also got a few songs like "Come Back," "Parachutes," "Army Reserve," etc., that have no logical precedent in their catalog, some of which are among the record's best songs and consequently serve to highlight the lack of creative vitality in the parts of the record that feel more conspicuously like pursuits of former glories. So, there are a lot of what seem to be competing influences that I think bear out in the material -- clunky structures, verses and choruses seemingly at odds with each other, lyrics composed to speak directly to the state of the world in 2006 paired with music composed to speak to the state of Pearl Jam in 1992, etc. It just feels like a weird melting pot of things that don't really interlock in the way that the band probably intended.

This album came out during the first major lull in my fandom, so while I got excited for it and bought it and played it semi-regularly, my mind was ultimately on other things. A year or so later I got back into the band in a big way via the 2006 tour bootlegs, so to me that's really the most meaningful context for a lot of these songs. The album as a whole -- as a sequence, coupled with the production, the artwork, whatever it may or may not set out to achieve in terms of message, theme, etc. -- doesn't really mean anything to me. But, one at a time, as songs that are just mixed into the PJ catalog along with all the other ones, I think most of them earn their keep, with virtues that register more tangibly through the lens of performance, as engines that drive momentum and allow certain performative strengths to shine through, than through the lens of creative/artistic analysis.

That’s an interesting take. Thematically it should have been a rebirth after the autumnal Riot Act but it just didn’t click. The band were already in a new phase where they were more songwriters than artists on Binaural and riot Act. They were too kinda removed from it and it sounds disjointed… the first album to not have a true standout song either. Maybe they forced it to keep the album cycles going… as I write this, i just don’t know what it is!

[Huell]

What is it about this album that doesn’t work? I want to love it, always thought the artwork was fresh for them. I read it as a shiny new PJ but under the surface it is experimenting with decay and changing forms. Like the artwork on the inside could have been for Riot Act but the cover certainly was not. But then the music is weird. I think it’s difference things on individual songs that cause them to be not pleasant to listen to or just off but I cannot put my finger on it. It’s not just the loudness war either because it’s similar on the BOB mix

It's the first album of theirs to feel self-consciously regressive, and I think, all these years later, what it ultimately ends up proving is that you can't unlearn enough to ever truly go "back to basics." On the one hand, you've got a lot of songs here that very deliberately seek to recapture the visceral, empirical experience of their early records (I think Mike singled out Vs. specifically as a reference point during an interview), but by 2006 both the songwriting dynamic in the band and their overall approach (Eddie's especially) to composition were very different, plus they had (a) a new drummer and (b) a lead singer whose endearingly rudimentary guitar playing, once barely an ancillary component of their sound, was now an anchoring element of 30-40% of their songs. You've also got a few songs like "Come Back," "Parachutes," "Army Reserve," etc., that have no logical precedent in their catalog, some of which are among the record's best songs and consequently serve to highlight the lack of creative vitality in the parts of the record that feel more conspicuously like pursuits of former glories. So, there are a lot of what seem to be competing influences that I think bear out in the material -- clunky structures, verses and choruses seemingly at odds with each other, lyrics composed to speak directly to the state of the world in 2006 paired with music composed to speak to the state of Pearl Jam in 1992, etc. It just feels like a weird melting pot of things that don't really interlock in the way that the band probably intended.

This album came out during the first major lull in my fandom, so while I got excited for it and bought it and played it semi-regularly, my mind was ultimately on other things. A year or so later I got back into the band in a big way via the 2006 tour bootlegs, so to me that's really the most meaningful context for a lot of these songs. The album as a whole -- as a sequence, coupled with the production, the artwork, whatever it may or may not set out to achieve in terms of message, theme, etc. -- doesn't really mean anything to me. But, one at a time, as songs that are just mixed into the PJ catalog along with all the other ones, I think most of them earn their keep, with virtues that register more tangibly through the lens of performance, as engines that drive momentum and allow certain performative strengths to shine through, than through the lens of creative/artistic analysis.

That’s an interesting take. Thematically it should have been a rebirth after the autumnal Riot Act but it just didn’t click. The band were already in a new phase where they were more songwriters than artists on Binaural and riot Act. They were too kinda removed from it and it sounds disjointed… the first album to not have a true standout song either. Maybe they forced it to keep the album cycles going… as I write this, i just don’t know what it is!

[Ms Harmless]

personally I think the fact that an album even needs a "standout song" to work as an album nowadays is a problem; if you have a "standout song", you have several others that weren't apparently as good; I'd rather have an album that's consistently solid all the way through than have one with occasional greatness that I can add to a "playlist" of random shit

[Ms Harmless]

I'm saying this as someone who really likes Gigaton and doesn't consider DOTC a "standout song", even though it's probably the weirdest and most inventive

[Monkey_Driven]

What is it about this album that doesn’t work? I want to love it, always thought the artwork was fresh for them. I read it as a shiny new PJ but under the surface it is experimenting with decay and changing forms. Like the artwork on the inside could have been for Riot Act but the cover certainly was not. But then the music is weird. I think it’s difference things on individual songs that cause them to be not pleasant to listen to or just off but I cannot put my finger on it. It’s not just the loudness war either because it’s similar on the BOB mix

It's the first album of theirs to feel self-consciously regressive, and I think, all these years later, what it ultimately ends up proving is that you can't unlearn enough to ever truly go "back to basics." On the one hand, you've got a lot of songs here that very deliberately seek to recapture the visceral, empirical experience of their early records (I think Mike singled out Vs. specifically as a reference point during an interview), but by 2006 both the songwriting dynamic in the band and their overall approach (Eddie's especially) to composition were very different, plus they had (a) a new drummer and (b) a lead singer whose endearingly rudimentary guitar playing, once barely an ancillary component of their sound, was now an anchoring element of 30-40% of their songs. You've also got a few songs like "Come Back," "Parachutes," "Army Reserve," etc., that have no logical precedent in their catalog, some of which are among the record's best songs and consequently serve to highlight the lack of creative vitality in the parts of the record that feel more conspicuously like pursuits of former glories. So, there are a lot of what seem to be competing influences that I think bear out in the material -- clunky structures, verses and choruses seemingly at odds with each other, lyrics composed to speak directly to the state of the world in 2006 paired with music composed to speak to the state of Pearl Jam in 1992, etc. It just feels like a weird melting pot of things that don't really interlock in the way that the band probably intended.

This album came out during the first major lull in my fandom, so while I got excited for it and bought it and played it semi-regularly, my mind was ultimately on other things. A year or so later I got back into the band in a big way via the 2006 tour bootlegs, so to me that's really the most meaningful context for a lot of these songs. The album as a whole -- as a sequence, coupled with the production, the artwork, whatever it may or may not set out to achieve in terms of message, theme, etc. -- doesn't really mean anything to me. But, one at a time, as songs that are just mixed into the PJ catalog along with all the other ones, I think most of them earn their keep, with virtues that register more tangibly through the lens of performance, as engines that drive momentum and allow certain performative strengths to shine through, than through the lens of creative/artistic analysis.

KD nails it here.

[Ms Harmless]

none of the music sounds like Pearl Jam in 92 though

[blueviper]

I think "Gone" works better as an Eddie solo song, with just him and the guitar (like the AOL sessions)

Gone on the album with everyone suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

[guitar_davey]

none of the music sounds like Pearl Jam in 92 though

Except for Severed Hand sounding a lot like Porch, albeit with pretty different production.

[Kevin Davis]

none of the music sounds like Pearl Jam in 92 though

Well, right, that was kind of the point of my post -- there is a lot of effort to recapture a certain sound and spirit tied to their early records (as I mentioned, I am 99.9% sure there was an interview with Mike where he likens the record to Vs.), and the effort isn't entirely successful. I'm sure there is some cynicism involved in fans and media choosing to interpret "we're trying to recapture some of the spirit of our early days" as "we're trying to make an album that sounds exactly like our early records," but I think even allowing for that, there is something in the exercise that is missed, and it plays out in the songs.

Don't get me wrong, I like most of the songs on the album, especially the live versions as I mentioned. But, thinking about the album in the context of Huell's question, I think there are good explanations for why the album feels kind of cumbersome from a compositional standpoint.

[Jorge]

I remember that Mike interview. He said it sounded like Vs and then that clip of the "Worldwide Suicide" chorus came out and everyone was like "huh?"

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Happy Trees]

I remember that Mike interview. He said it sounded like Vs and then that clip of the "Worldwide Suicide" chorus came out and everyone was like "huh?"

Oh yeah, I forgot about that haha! But they do that with every new album now. "Return to form" is at this point just as cliche a sentiment as "Risen from the ashes of Mother Love Bone".

Parachutes sounds like All Those Yesterdays

Parachutes is a lovely song. I'll give them that one. But when's the last time they played it? Bros need a piss break.

[Kevin Davis]

KD i like the spirit of where your head's at, but:

Army Reserve sounds like You Are

Parachutes sounds like All Those Yesterdays

Come Back taps into the R&B throwback vibes of Last Kiss and Leaving Here

"No logical precedent" was probably too strong of a phrase -- I can definitely see likenesses between the pairs of songs you listed, though I would stop short of saying they sound like each other. I think all of them have prevailing aesthetic and/or musical and/or emotional qualities that make them more different than similar, but I can absolutely see what you're saying.