Dark Matter: Official Album Thread

[Kevin Davis]

Listening again, Peal Jam really targeting the quinceañera and bar mitzvah set with this one

Yeah, this is their entry into the great pantheon of graduation photo montage songs, alongside “Forever Young” and “I Hope You Dance.” Songs like this are extremely easy while at the same time impossible to criticize — the father, the human, and the sentimental fool in me all hope that this song speaks life and truth into the hearts of Ed’s daughters, and if it does that then I won’t pretend that a fan’s views on artistic integrity should influence its right to exist. But personally I have no use for it, think some of the lyrics feel clunky and self-congratulatory, and am right there with whoever said that having kids of your own not only doesn’t endear me to this but might actually make it feel more patronizing. And man alive, does it ever sound bad.

This is where I am right now. Well, mostly. I only listened once on crappy phone speakers (no headphones) and there was nothing super exciting in what I heard that makes me desperate to redigest a twenty second clip. But I'm going to withhold judgement until I get the full song.

Thus far Dark Matter was MUCH better for me than the initial clip (4 star song)
Running was probably not as good as the initial clip (3 or 3.5 depending on how it slots into the album. Fun for what it is but a definite ceiling)

I LIKE schmaltzy ed, for the most part. I think the Haves is a weak song and the low point on Earthlings (it's a shuffle skip but I can just let it wash past me on an album listen). But I love Future Days. I love Sirens. I love Last Kiss. I like Just Breath. I love Parachutes and The Fixer which are somewhere on this continuum.

Having said that, those songs all have either moments of darkness to juxtapose against their happiness, or speak to a history of struggle that justifies celebrating the peace and comfort of now. And it's not clear that this song will. And maybe it won't need it - it could coast by on melody, good will, charm, etc. But I don't think any of the reviewers have highlighted this as a standout.

On the other hand, many of the reviewers were pearl jam die hards, and I don't know that they/we are necessarily the target audience for a song like this. This seems either sentimental dads or, more likely, women who want to fantasize about being married to sentimental dads.

I'm sure the single choices were made long before early reviews, but it remains kind of surprising that none of the initial singles were flagged as highlights in the reviews we've gotten.

Songs from parents to children are tough sells, precisely because they only ever seem to exist as these overly idealized, borderline objectifying odes. Other types of relationships -- even parent-child relationships, shown from the viewpoint of the child -- seem to artistically see much wider representation relative to differing levels of emotional complexity and nuance. The world is full of fawning love songs to significant others; it is also full of bitter breakup songs, songs of hurt, betrayal, confusion, and everything in between, and we understand that all of those feelings are plot points on a spectrum.

I love my kids fiercely, and relate to the desire to speak words of encouragement over their lives, and can totally appreciate that using a publicly released song to work through the various challenges in our relationship(s) would probably become a conversation topic with a therapist later on in life. I also know that those moments where you feel nothing but gushing affection for them are completely real. So I get why things are the way they are. But still, tough sell.

In some ways it's really beautiful that Eddie has had such devastatingly brutal things to say about his own parents in his music, yet is at a place of expressing the opposite of that when he speaks of his own children -- there's something transformative and fulfilling about that, and I'm glad that's the space he's in, as a husband/father if not as an artist.

[Ms Harmless]

I dont think there is a song on lets say, No Code or Yield or even ST that has that element of "this is an eddie solo sugar song". It started on BS a bit ( they worked with Just Breathe which was something he already had for ITW) and went full on with LB. Gigaton seemed to stop that, and now seems to be back.

No Code: Off He Goes
Yield: Wishlist
S/T: Parachutes

we may all like those songs now, but we were mostly saying the same things about them then

nah those three are very very different in many ways, specially in their sound and the overall participation of the band too. Parachutes for example is not even a vedder composition, its a stone gossard song.

of course they're not the same, but they're in the ballpark, according to my ears; doesn't matter who wrote them, arranged them, or produced them; they sound different to you because you hate this

Something Special sounds like a better song to me after two spins than Parachutes did after 100 *shrug*

[Ms Harmless]

I dont think there is a song on lets say, No Code or Yield or even ST that has that element of "this is an eddie solo sugar song". It started on BS a bit ( they worked with Just Breathe which was something he already had for ITW) and went full on with LB. Gigaton seemed to stop that, and now seems to be back.

No Code: Off He Goes
Yield: Wishlist
S/T: Parachutes

we may all like those songs now, but we were mostly saying the same things about them then

nah those three are very very different in many ways, specially in their sound and the overall participation of the band too. Parachutes for example is not even a vedder composition, its a stone gossard song.

I loved those songs when I first heard them and still do.

I didn't (but do now); they definitely weren't what I wanted from Pearl Jam

[Ms Harmless]

Listening again, Peal Jam really targeting the quinceañera and bar mitzvah set with this one

Yeah, this is their entry into the great pantheon of graduation photo montage songs, alongside “Forever Young” and “I Hope You Dance.” Songs like this are extremely easy while at the same time impossible to criticize — the father, the human, and the sentimental fool in me all hope that this song speaks life and truth into the hearts of Ed’s daughters, and if it does that then I won’t pretend that a fan’s views on artistic integrity should influence its right to exist. But personally I have no use for it, think some of the lyrics feel clunky and self-congratulatory, and am right there with whoever said that having kids of your own not only doesn’t endear me to this but might actually make it feel more patronizing. And man alive, does it ever sound bad.

This is where I am right now. Well, mostly. I only listened once on crappy phone speakers (no headphones) and there was nothing super exciting in what I heard that makes me desperate to redigest a twenty second clip. But I'm going to withhold judgement until I get the full song.

Thus far Dark Matter was MUCH better for me than the initial clip (4 star song)
Running was probably not as good as the initial clip (3 or 3.5 depending on how it slots into the album. Fun for what it is but a definite ceiling)

I LIKE schmaltzy ed, for the most part. I think the Haves is a weak song and the low point on Earthlings (it's a shuffle skip but I can just let it wash past me on an album listen). But I love Future Days. I love Sirens. I love Last Kiss. I like Just Breath. I love Parachutes and The Fixer which are somewhere on this continuum.

Having said that, those songs all have either moments of darkness to juxtapose against their happiness, or speak to a history of struggle that justifies celebrating the peace and comfort of now. And it's not clear that this song will. And maybe it won't need it - it could coast by on melody, good will, charm, etc. But I don't think any of the reviewers have highlighted this as a standout.

On the other hand, many of the reviewers were pearl jam die hards, and I don't know that they/we are necessarily the target audience for a song like this. This seems either sentimental dads or, more likely, women who want to fantasize about being married to sentimental dads.

I'm sure the single choices were made long before early reviews, but it remains kind of surprising that none of the initial singles were flagged as highlights in the reviews we've gotten.

Songs from parents to children are tough sells, precisely because they only ever seem to exist as these overly idealized, borderline objectifying odes. Other types of relationships -- even parent-child relationships, shown from the viewpoint of the child -- seem to artistically see much wider representation relative to differing levels of emotional complexity and nuance. The world is full of fawning love songs to significant others; it is also full of bitter breakup songs, songs of hurt, betrayal, confusion, and everything in between, and we understand that all of those feelings are plot points on a spectrum.

I love my kids fiercely, and relate to the desire to speak words of encouragement over their lives, and can totally appreciate that using a publicly released song to work through the various challenges in our relationship(s) would probably become a conversation topic with a therapist later on in life. I also know that those moments where you feel nothing but gushing affection for them are completely real. So I get why things are the way they are. But still, tough sell.

In some ways it's really beautiful that Eddie has had such devastatingly brutal things to say about his own parents in his music, yet is at a place of expressing the opposite of that when he speaks of his own children -- there's something transformative and fulfilling about that, and I'm glad that's the space he's in, as a husband/father if not as an artist.

yes, yes, and thrice yes

maybe this is the best argument we have for justifying it as a Pearl Jam-branded song

[VinylGuy]

I dont think there is a song on lets say, No Code or Yield or even ST that has that element of "this is an eddie solo sugar song". It started on BS a bit ( they worked with Just Breathe which was something he already had for ITW) and went full on with LB. Gigaton seemed to stop that, and now seems to be back.

No Code: Off He Goes
Yield: Wishlist
S/T: Parachutes

we may all like those songs now, but we were mostly saying the same things about them then

nah those three are very very different in many ways, specially in their sound and the overall participation of the band too. Parachutes for example is not even a vedder composition, its a stone gossard song.

of course they're not the same, but they're in the ballpark, according to my ears; doesn't matter who wrote them, arranged them, or produced them; they sound different to you because you hate this

Something Special sounds like a better song to me after two spins than Parachutes did after 100 *shrug*

But it does matter who writes them, I find Gossard's acoustic sensibilites way more interesting than Ed's. I can see that not only on Parachutes but also on Buckle Up for example. There is no way Eddie is going to do songs like that.

Off He Goes has a foot very close to Neil Young for example, and Future Days is very poppy in its production and presentation.

Whislist is closer to what i would think an indie band ballad and features great contribution from all the band members.

[RockPusher]

I dont think there is a song on lets say, No Code or Yield or even ST that has that element of "this is an eddie solo sugar song". It started on BS a bit ( they worked with Just Breathe which was something he already had for ITW) and went full on with LB. Gigaton seemed to stop that, and now seems to be back.

Off He Goes? Sometimes? And Better Man predated Pearl Jam as an Ed song. He's literally always been doing this.

[VinylGuy]

Better Man is the only old compositon i could find being closer to what he is trying here yes.

Agree with that.

[digster]

I don't really understand what the connection is between something like Parachutes or Off He Goes and something like Future Days, beyond that they're all slow to mid-tempo and feature an acoustic guitar. They're all very different songs.

[VinylGuy]

I don't really understand what the connection is between something like Parachutes or Off He Goes and something like Future Days, beyond that they're all slow to mid-tempo and feature an acoustic guitar. They're all very different songs.

yeap

[Ms Harmless]

I dont think there is a song on lets say, No Code or Yield or even ST that has that element of "this is an eddie solo sugar song". It started on BS a bit ( they worked with Just Breathe which was something he already had for ITW) and went full on with LB. Gigaton seemed to stop that, and now seems to be back.

No Code: Off He Goes
Yield: Wishlist
S/T: Parachutes

we may all like those songs now, but we were mostly saying the same things about them then

nah those three are very very different in many ways, specially in their sound and the overall participation of the band too. Parachutes for example is not even a vedder composition, its a stone gossard song.

of course they're not the same, but they're in the ballpark, according to my ears; doesn't matter who wrote them, arranged them, or produced them; they sound different to you because you hate this

Something Special sounds like a better song to me after two spins than Parachutes did after 100 *shrug*

But it does matter who writes them, I find Gossard's acoustic sensibilites way more interesting than Ed's. I can see that not only on Parachutes but also on Buckle Up for example. There is no way Eddie is going to do songs like that.

Off He Goes has a foot very close to Neil Young for example, and Future Days is very poppy in its production and presentation.

Whislist is closer to what i would think an indie band ballad and features great contribution from all the band members.

production and presentation has nothing to do with Ed

these are all acoustic folky songs and "I like these ones though" doesn't change my mind

[Ms Harmless]

I dont think there is a song on lets say, No Code or Yield or even ST that has that element of "this is an eddie solo sugar song". It started on BS a bit ( they worked with Just Breathe which was something he already had for ITW) and went full on with LB. Gigaton seemed to stop that, and now seems to be back.

Off He Goes? Sometimes? And Better Man predated Pearl Jam as an Ed song. He's literally always been doing this.

exactly

"yeah but those ones are GOOD and this one's BAD!"

can't we see how silly that sounds? I don't think this one's bad

[VinylGuy]

but im not saying that im actually talking about:

compositions - writers - the band interaction - how they sound

[Ms Harmless]

I agree that Stone's later acoustic compositions are better than Ed's later acoustic compositions

still doesn't mean shit to me when it comes to a song inherently belonging (or not) on a Pearl Jam album; that's entirely down to taste, if a member of Pearl Jam wrote it

[Higgs]

[stip]

Future Days was a successful song outside of the fanbase? I mean, I'm not even sure Sirens permeated that heavily.

In terms of Spotify plays they are 1 and 2. Sirens has 102 million plays. Future Days is number two on the album with 33 million. Getaway is a fairly distant third with 21 mill. MYM, Lightning Bolt, and Pendulum are all in the 16s


For some context (again, Spotify play counts, with all the caveats this come with)

Come Back is the highest on Pearl jam with 30 million. Second highest is WWS with 12

I am Mine leads Riot Act with 55 million, but number two is Thumbing my Way with 9 million

Light Years is the highest on Binaural with 11 million


So I think these are songs that do penetrate outside of the fanbase, just not within (or not as much)

Ah, ok. Yeah, I think trying to gauge how much a song has permeated outside of a fanbase just using Spotify like that doesn't really lead anywhere. There's tons of reasons a higher number could be the case (and trying to compare those numbers to albums like Binaural, Riot Act, S/T or even Backspacer, which came out when Spotify either didn't exist or barely had launched, doesn't offer much either).

it tells us a bit - that there has been more active interest in these songs since spotify came out, that these songs are so much higher than the other songs on their respectice records (and were not all singles) speaks to a wider audience being drawn to them. Not perfect by any means, but not nothing.

[Strat]

I like pearl jam

[lecherouslittlestump]

Just Breathe is the biggest PJ song.

Bigger than Alive, Black, Jeremy, Last Kiss etc.

[stip]

I dont think there is a song on lets say, No Code or Yield or even ST that has that element of "this is an eddie solo sugar song". It started on BS a bit ( they worked with Just Breathe which was something he already had for ITW) and went full on with LB. Gigaton seemed to stop that, and now seems to be back.

No Code: Off He Goes
Yield: Wishlist
S/T: Parachutes

we may all like those songs now, but we were mostly saying the same things about them then

Yes on Wishlist. Not so much with Parachutes (Come Back was in that slot). Off He Goes I think has always had a pretty generous reception though, I think.

parachutes and come back both have syrupy moments. parachutes is the more upbeat of the two

[lecherouslittlestump]

Future Days got a bump in popularity because it was in The Last Of Us 2. I don't recall it making waves before that.

[Kevin Davis]

I think what people are really responding to is the shift in the blunt sentimentality of the lyrics. Looking superficially at the general concept of "Vedder-penned ballads," then yes, things are pretty much the same as they've always been. But the type of on-the-nose sentiment on display in "Something Special," "Future Days," "Just Breathe," etc., really wasn't part of the playbook prior to Backspacer (or thereabouts), even in similarly structured songs like "Thumbing My Way," which contains its share of classic new-agey Eddie-isms but is not the same category of thing that these other songs are -- straightforward, unambiguous, Hallmarky tributes to specific other people in his life. There is something conceptually and fundamentally different about how these songs register, beyond just being acoustic/ballad-type songs, and beyond just "I like those old songs and I don't like these new ones." No reason they can't still be enjoyable, but it feels disingenuous to say that they're basically no different than "Sometimes" or "Off He Goes."