Running

[Strat]

im sick of ruddo policing me

[tommy]

Let's all calm down

[oneway23]

my emotions are on a knife's edge

[Val]

Running reminds me alot of if Nirvana's Breed made by 60year Olds. That's not a jab. I really like Running.

Yeah - agreed. I made a similar comment last week when it first dropped.

I DEF hear Breed in the guitars. So much so - I’d argue this song is some sort of (accidental or intentional) homage to grunge or older PNW sound (listen to the guitars in the beginning and in the verses).

I think it also supports the idea that Watt’s strategy was to use a ‘something old/something new’ approach.

fwiw my kid gave Running its first listen today and said "it's the PJ of old or something close to it"

I am sorry Val but your kid is an idiot

You trying to get your face punched in or something?

Is this a credible threat of violence?

He’d be hoping that he hurt my
Hoping that he hurt my
Hoping that he hurt my
Fiiiiiiiist

[Ms Harmless]

things are really reaching fever pitch now

running* a fever

[oneway23]

things are really reaching fever pitch now

running* a fever

[mikejasond]

Haven't been keeping an eye on this.

Just saw there was a new song and hit play.

Instantly Im just like...."Oh god, it's backspacer"

<_<

[Ms Harmless]

Haven't been keeping an eye on this.

Just saw there was a new song and hit play.

Instantly Im just like...."Oh god, it's backspacer"

<_<

listen again

[mikejasond]

Man this is really bad. And I was pretty optimistic with Dark Matter too? This is....this is just Supersonic??? And I kind of grew to like Backspacer. Because it was an album that knew what it wanted to be and just did that. And it did it pretty well.

But we don't need a SECOND backspacer. And I don't think this album is one. So it makes this song worse?

And Eddie sounds really bad (like just the sound quality of his voice).

That was very very very very bad.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[mikejasond]

After listening more times it comes off a bit better, the lyrics are kinda interesting, and I guess it's angrier than supersonic, but I still hear more supersonic than Breed that you guys mention...I just do not hear Breed here at all.

It has the same problem as many late Pearl Jam rockers of this type. They sound way too sanitized and dad-rocky to pull off a punk rock song now. Spin the Black Circle, Blood, these work because it was so raw and aggressive. This is far too clean and controlled to come off like a punk rock song so it comes off as kinda lame, like it's trying to be cooler than it is. These types of rockers just really don't work for me when they do them now.

It actually makes me think the Backspacer ones are better, because it's the album that embraced it's poppy lame-ness while this song seems unaware.

[mikejasond]

I didn't know how badly I craved mikejasonda's support but boy does it feel good

Im always surprised when someone is in agreement with me lol

[RockPusher]

After listening more times it comes off a bit better, the lyrics are kinda interesting, and I guess it's angrier than supersonic, but I still hear more supersonic than Breed that you guys mention...I just do not hear Breed here at all.

It has the same problem as many late Pearl Jam rockers of this type. They sound way too sanitized and dad-rocky to pull off a punk rock song now. Spin the Black Circle, Blood, these work because it was so raw and aggressive. This is far too clean and controlled to come off like a punk rock song so it comes off as kinda lame, like it's trying to be cooler than it is. These types of rockers just really don't work for me when they do them now.

It actually makes me think the Backspacer ones are better, because it's the album that embraced it's poppy lame-ness while this song seems unaware.

I think they have a lot of fun doing songs like this, and I don't know how to square that with what I see as projections on your part. As someone said earlier, Rush recently put out their arguably heaviest album. Artists do what they wanna do, damn the aging process. If Pearl Jam was saying, man, these focus groups are telling us we have to have a punker on this thing, that would be one thing. But knowing that this song originated with Jeff as "Big Sandy Punk" tells me that it was created organically.

Mike, what do you think of the bridge?

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[oneway23]

After listening more times it comes off a bit better, the lyrics are kinda interesting, and I guess it's angrier than supersonic, but I still hear more supersonic than Breed that you guys mention...I just do not hear Breed here at all.

The only people who could possibly be hearing Breed in this song are a bunch of silver foxes who don't realize how old their ears have gotten.

[Ms Harmless]

Anthony Fantano being one

[oneway23]

Anthony Fantano being one

Such a slappable mug, that one...
The above works as a colloquialism on both sides of the pond, btw...i deserve credit for that.

[mikejasond]

After listening more times it comes off a bit better, the lyrics are kinda interesting, and I guess it's angrier than supersonic, but I still hear more supersonic than Breed that you guys mention...I just do not hear Breed here at all.

It has the same problem as many late Pearl Jam rockers of this type. They sound way too sanitized and dad-rocky to pull off a punk rock song now. Spin the Black Circle, Blood, these work because it was so raw and aggressive. This is far too clean and controlled to come off like a punk rock song so it comes off as kinda lame, like it's trying to be cooler than it is. These types of rockers just really don't work for me when they do them now.

It actually makes me think the Backspacer ones are better, because it's the album that embraced it's poppy lame-ness while this song seems unaware.

I think they have a lot of fun doing songs like this, and I don't know how to square that with what I see as projections on your part. As someone said earlier, Rush recently put out their arguably heaviest album. If Pearl Jam was saying, man, these focus groups are telling us we have to have a punker on this thing, that would be one thing. But knowing that this song originated with Jeff as "Big Sandy Punk" tells me that it was created organically.

Mike, what do you think of the bridge?

I don't disagree with you really, I don't doubt that they have fun doing songs like that, but them all coming around to hang out and rawk just clashes with it being taken seriously as a punk song I guess. It doesn't have punk energy, it has dad party energy.

I think Backspacer embraced this sound and it didn't try to be anything it wasn't. The Fixer feels authentic in a way, like they were just like "Yeah, we don't care, let's just make a fun poppy anthem" and they seem to have a blast doing it. So while it isn't the Pearl Jam I want necessarily, I respect it. It's kind of corny but they so don't care that it actually kinda works, and becomes a pretty good album, so long as you know what you're getting into.

But in later albums sometimes it just comes across as unintentionally corny because the vibe of the album is different. I guess we don't know what type of album Dark Matter is yet but I don't expect it to be like Backspacer given the last couple albums. So I expect the song and album wants to be taken seriously, and it just doesn't work for me. Mind Your Manners, SBWM, and Running just are not songs I really like and all of them were singles. SBWM is probably the best but only because it works in context of the album really well (Jury is still out on Running there I guess)

I think the bridge is pretty good, definitely one of the best parts of the song, but not special enough to redeem the song too much for me (yet I guess).

[Ms Harmless]

but yeah the Breed comparisons are super surface-level, there's a ton of menace in that song (and all of Nirvana) that isn't here

as for this song, it sounds like a punk song that originated with Jeff (61) and got worked on by a band of men also in their sixties, who are fans of various classic rock bands, some of which are far more embarrassing than Pearl Jam ever were

I'm not sure why people tend to default to the idea that these songs sound "unintentionally" older; we're all unintentionally older, maybe the band is just comfortable with that

[Ms Harmless]

I think Backspacer pretended to be a lot of things it wasn't (a good pop album, a good new-wave album)