Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

General Pearl Jam discussion.
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You Know What To Do!

Getaway
42
13%
Mind Your Manners
8
2%
My Father's Son
38
12%
Sirens
23
7%
Lightning Bolt
21
6%
Infallible
38
12%
Pendulum
88
27%
Swallowed Whole
21
6%
Let the Records Play
7
2%
Sleeping By Myself
7
2%
Yellow Moon
32
10%
Future Days
4
1%
 
Total votes: 329

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dimejinky99
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by dimejinky99 »

harmless wrote:
dimejinky99 wrote:There are a lot of references to previous lyrics and general references on this record.
In Swallowed whole he mentions 'come what may'. Is he referring to that old spiritual tune of the same name? I wonder
Yeah, I think there's a lot of playing around with pseudo-religious hymnal ideas and lyrics across the album.

Glad I'm not imagining it.
He's really put a lot of work in here.
I'm liking it.
Calibrate your enthusiasm
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harmless
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by harmless »

Me too. I'm pretty sure that some couldn't care less about how many of these lyrics are talking to each other, but that's one of the things I'm geeky about in my poetry so it's also true of albums. Joining these thematic dots is part of the fun and can lift an album from decent to good, or good to great. Plus, religion / faith is in my background so it all resonates personally.
RisingTides wrote:There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
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dimejinky99
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by dimejinky99 »

harmless wrote:Me too. I'm pretty sure that some couldn't care less about how many of these lyrics are talking to each other, but that's one of the things I'm geeky about in my poetry so it's also true of albums. Joining these thematic dots is part of the fun and can lift an album from decent to good, or good to great. Plus, religion / faith is in my background so it all resonates personally.

Absolutely. And not just joining dots on the album itself but across a lot of the whole catalogue too.
Calibrate your enthusiasm
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harmless
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by harmless »

:thumbsup:

I really love that the artwork fits so perfectly. That's one of the key things making this album better than S/T for me.
RisingTides wrote:There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
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dimejinky99
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by dimejinky99 »

Totally.

The artwork has always played a massive part of the whole experience for me. The artwork on this fits perfectly. Subtle simple and totally effective. It adds to the song in each case and that's what artwork done well, should so I think.
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harmless
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by harmless »

dimejinky99 wrote:Totally.

The artwork has always played a massive part of the whole experience for me. The artwork on this fits perfectly. Subtle simple and totally effective. It adds to the song in each case and that's what artwork done well, should so I think.
Also dime, was it you who said "Ever closer became us" was a terrible line? Not if it's meant to sound like an archaic hymnal lyric.
RisingTides wrote:There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
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dimejinky99
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by dimejinky99 »

harmless wrote:
dimejinky99 wrote:Totally.

The artwork has always played a massive part of the whole experience for me. The artwork on this fits perfectly. Subtle simple and totally effective. It adds to the song in each case and that's what artwork done well, should so I think.
Also dime, was it you who said "Ever closer became us" was a terrible line? Not if it's meant to sound like an archaic hymnal lyric.

Wasn't me no.
What song is that in?

I'm generally loving the lyrics on LB. got to read them all yesterday and there's a lot more going on than just listening is showing
Calibrate your enthusiasm
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harmless
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by harmless »

dimejinky99 wrote:
harmless wrote:
dimejinky99 wrote:Totally.

The artwork has always played a massive part of the whole experience for me. The artwork on this fits perfectly. Subtle simple and totally effective. It adds to the song in each case and that's what artwork done well, should so I think.
Also dime, was it you who said "Ever closer became us" was a terrible line? Not if it's meant to sound like an archaic hymnal lyric.

Wasn't me no.
What song is that in?

I'm generally loving the lyrics on LB. got to read them all yesterday and there's a lot more going on than just listening is showing
It's in FD. I thought it was you, maybe not.
RisingTides wrote:There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by dimejinky99 »

Nah. I don't really get on eds lyrics in discussions unless I like them.
Think the only remarks I've made about lyrics have been about Sirens and SBM. Which has one of my fave ed lyrics ever in it.
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ABNorman
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by ABNorman »

:wave:

Still think it's a clumsy line, even if he's going for something hymnal. He isn't being archaic anywhere else in the song, and this one would be a grammatical stretch even in ye olden times. I think he was just (rightly) attached to "when winds turned dirt to dust", which is a legit line.
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by numbers »

Thurman Murman wrote:
harmless wrote:They're not perfect albums, but they're the best seven records this band has. Riot Act is absolutely untouchable by this album, and probably by any future album.
I think the first 5 are untouchable...for my money Binaural and Riot Act don't belong in the same class as Ten thru Yield.
For my money they are better than the first five.
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by ABNorman »

numbers wrote:
Thurman Murman wrote:
harmless wrote:They're not perfect albums, but they're the best seven records this band has. Riot Act is absolutely untouchable by this album, and probably by any future album.
I think the first 5 are untouchable...for my money Binaural and Riot Act don't belong in the same class as Ten thru Yield.
For my money they are better than the first five.
Team Thurman.
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harmless
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by harmless »

ABNorman wrote::wave:

Still think it's a clumsy line, even if he's going for something hymnal. He isn't being archaic anywhere else in the song, and this one would be a grammatical stretch even in ye olden times. I think he was just (rightly) attached to "when winds turned dirt to dust", which is a legit line.
I think he's using quasi-religious language right down to the title of the song. Yeah, this little archaic inversion was probably just thrown in because Ed is Ed, but the religious phrases and the general direction of the song (to me) makes it more than excusable. He's thrown these little inversions in deliberately before.
RisingTides wrote:There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
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harmless
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by harmless »

ABNorman wrote:
numbers wrote:
Thurman Murman wrote:
harmless wrote:They're not perfect albums, but they're the best seven records this band has. Riot Act is absolutely untouchable by this album, and probably by any future album.
I think the first 5 are untouchable...for my money Binaural and Riot Act don't belong in the same class as Ten thru Yield.
For my money they are better than the first five.
Team Thurman.
I think they're up there, at the very least. Some days Riot Act is my favourite PJ album.
RisingTides wrote:There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
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stip
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by stip »

ABNorman wrote:This album continues the "second half not as good as the first half" pattern of Pearl Jam albums. I'd argue VS' and Binaural's good songs are fairly evenly distributed, but the rest match this. They like to open strong, but often lack the substance to back it up.

No Code is my favourite album of all time though, and it suffers from this syndrome as well.
I think the middle stretch is the strongest here
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by BootsToAsses »

stip wrote:
ABNorman wrote:This album continues the "second half not as good as the first half" pattern of Pearl Jam albums. I'd argue VS' and Binaural's good songs are fairly evenly distributed, but the rest match this. They like to open strong, but often lack the substance to back it up.

No Code is my favourite album of all time though, and it suffers from this syndrome as well.
I think the middle stretch is the strongest here
Agreed!

Sirens-LB-Infallible-Pendulum-Swallowed Whole-LTRP is unbelievable.
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Mike
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by Mike »

The quality of songs is really equally distributed here. We have Getaway and MFS at the beginning, Infallible and Pendulum in the middle and SBM and Yellow Moon at the end. :nice:
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Thurman Murman
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by Thurman Murman »

harmless wrote:
ABNorman wrote:
numbers wrote:
Thurman Murman wrote:
harmless wrote:They're not perfect albums, but they're the best seven records this band has. Riot Act is absolutely untouchable by this album, and probably by any future album.
I think the first 5 are untouchable...for my money Binaural and Riot Act don't belong in the same class as Ten thru Yield.
For my money they are better than the first five.
Team Thurman.
I think they're up there, at the very least. Some days Riot Act is my favourite PJ album.
Its not my intention to knock those albums when i say they don't compare to the Ten-Yield run....in my eyes those albums are classics. I look at Binaural as a small step below those first 5 (although the sessions as a whole are amazing). Riot Act to me is another step below that and basically in line with S/T and Lightning Bolt.
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Dr. Van Nostrand
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by Dr. Van Nostrand »

I don't really know where to post about it now, but i just watched the epk for the first time and my favorite part was gleason saying "so its been 5 years since you released backspacer......what the fuck "
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Re: Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

Post by ABNorman »

BootsToAsses wrote:
stip wrote:
ABNorman wrote:This album continues the "second half not as good as the first half" pattern of Pearl Jam albums. I'd argue VS' and Binaural's good songs are fairly evenly distributed, but the rest match this. They like to open strong, but often lack the substance to back it up.

No Code is my favourite album of all time though, and it suffers from this syndrome as well.
I think the middle stretch is the strongest here
Agreed!

Sirens-LB-Infallible-Pendulum-Swallowed Whole-LTRP is unbelievable.
Swallowed Whole, LTRP and Yellow Moon are all varying degrees of forgettable to me, which weakens the second half considerably.
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