Dark Matter: Official Album Thread

[RockPusher]

trag, see what I added

[VinylGuy]

we really need this album to leak right now so we can add new songs to this discussion.

pearl Jam, make it happen

I fear for the board if this album doesn't leak soon.

yeah me too. It was kinda at peace these last few days but now a war is coming

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[RockPusher]

trag, see what I added

Kindly invite your brother to RM

He's much too smart to accept such an invitation...

[WaitingForBluey]

FFS...

[RockPusher]

For what it's worth, he expects the rest of the album other than the singles might sound less polished. It's his belief that singles are oftentimes over-polished kind of like movie trailers, "pushed out for broadest appeal."

More and more I feel like the Josh Evans approach was dumb luck. Then again, my ideal would be the jam in a room thing combined with the Evans at the controls thing.

[Monkey_Driven]

I don't want this to leak at this point. I only want to read poorly written reports from listening parties.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Monkey_Driven]

Would you settle for rank speculation from a bored audiophile

Let's be honest, no one wants that

[Sarizto]

Im no audiophile.. but the production is very pop/shinny and hurts the whole album. The acoustic guitars sound terrible!! Not sure why people describe the album as heavy. First 2 songs are killer... after that, get ready for some pop. Last song had a lot of potential...

The discussion is going to get spicy.

[Val]

Im no audiophile.. but the production is very pop/shinny and hurts the whole album. The acoustic guitars sound terrible!! Not sure why people describe the album as heavy. First 2 songs are killer... after that, get ready for some pop. Last song had a lot of potential...

The discussion is going to get spicy.

Looks like someone (totally not me pointing a finger upwards) has the whole thing

[Birds in Hell]

Im no audiophile.. but the production is very pop/shinny and hurts the whole album. The acoustic guitars sound terrible!! Not sure why people describe the album as heavy. First 2 songs are killer... after that, get ready for some pop. Last song had a lot of potential...

The discussion is going to get spicy.

Looking forward to a messy week on RM.

[LetMeSleep]

And that Kyle Meredith guy said it was Yield meets Backspacer.

[Higgs]

Im no audiophile.. but the production is very pop/shinny and hurts the whole album. The acoustic guitars sound terrible!! Not sure why people describe the album as heavy. First 2 songs are killer... after that, get ready for some pop. Last song had a lot of potential...

The discussion is going to get spicy.

Looking forward to a messy week on RM.

Messy weeks are the funnest weeks! I'll go grab my smock.

[RockPusher]

Im no audiophile.. but the production is very pop/shinny and hurts the whole album. The acoustic guitars sound terrible!! Not sure why people describe the album as heavy. First 2 songs are killer... after that, get ready for some pop. Last song had a lot of potential...

The discussion is going to get spicy.

How do you regard Gigaton?

[DDWJMUVW]

Call bs.

Gets poppy after first two? Doesn’t make sense w DM and Running.

[RockPusher]

Call bs.

Gets poppy after first two? Doesn’t make sense w DM and Running.

There is a bit of a whiff of something, for sure.

[sweeper]

i mean i think i can. when we say we prefer a song live isnt that at least partially what we are doing?

It does, and I'm not saying a good song can't get captured poorly. My point is more in terms of judging how an album succeeds, that thinking about the production seems as important as judging any other decision the band makes in terms of how a song sounds. Whether or not the guitars sound like shit, for example, seems as important (or almost as important) as what the guitar player is actually playing, especially because presumably the musician and/or producer have put thought into both of those things.

I think you can absolutely separate composition from performance, and then composition/performance from production, and all combinations of these -- and all of these things (composition, performance, production) are in and of themselves multi-faceted (i.e. a song can have great lyrics but dull music, excellent singing but a lousy arrangement, great mixing but poor mastering). In the end, an album could conceivably hook (or lose) any given listener with any element of any of these things, rendering all other elements "overlookable," but it's always a matter of degree -- specifically, (a) the degree to which the music succeeds at what it does well, and (b) the degree to which the things it doesn't do well are able to get out of the way.

I have no issues with the concept of looking past production value. I've been doing it my whole life. I've listened to concert recordings made from the audience, tapes recorded by my friends' bands in their basements, lots of '80's shit with unpleasant drum effects, my fair share of lo-fi indie records and absolutely my share of overproduced, oversugared pop and rock music. In any of those situations, could there have been a situation where the mitigating factor was just mitigating enough to turn me off? Absolutely. I have no issues with audience tapes, but it's possible that any given taper may have just been too far back for the music to be audible. I have no problem with recordings made in a basement, but if you put your mic right next to your water heater, it's possible that the environmental elements might push an already tough-to-listen-to recording over the edge. I am confident that I could take anyone's favorite song, dump it into Audacity as a wave file, and make it unlistenable within seconds just by adding compression and limiting. I think everyone has limits for this stuff, whether they recognize it or not. It's just, again, all a matter of degree.

So far, Watt's production on the Dark Matter tracks plays a pretty aggressive tug of war -- even if I approach the songs with the mindset of disregarding the production to see through to the songwriting and performance, it is still there, nipping at my ears, pulling my attention back. To use Stip's spice analogy, trying to ignore Watt's production is not like trying to overlook a slightly off-kilter hint of something; it's like trying to taste subtleties in the meat when he's used 15x the amount of recommended sugar in the sauce. Now, people have different thresholds for sugar, and yes, to some extent you can look past the superficial "sound" of a record to hear through to other things in it, but on the other hand, music is sound -- that's all it is, everything you process about music is based on your hearing of it, and how your ears interpret the presentation of these other things that really only exist conceptually (performance, composition, etc.). Telling someone to ignore that is like telling someone to stop focusing on the taste of the food, but to pay attention to the ingredients in the recipe. It's conceptually possible, but disingenuous to experience.

i mean its all how you want to assemble your metaphor. you eat with your eyes first - maybe what we have broadly been calling the production is the presentation, but the compostion is the ingredients and the performance is how you cook them.
. Maybe the world tolerates more sugar in their diet than some folks here, but clearly people like what they are hearing. so either:

A: everyone but a subset of enlightened people physically cant hear how offensive this is
B: thie production is an important part of how some folks experience music, but not all (or even a majority)
C: maybe its not as bad as the hyperbolic posturing from some might lead you to believe
D: some people have the cilantro gene that makes it taste like soap, and some dont


again if this matters to you, and it is what you privelage in your listening experience, then how this is produced is a deal breaker. and thats real and true to your experience. But i would strongly push back against the production of the song being the foundation that either makes or legitimates everything that follows

First “#1 single” on charts that didn’t exist before for niche music is a pretty weak position to take. Dark Matter the song isn’t in any of Spotify’s top streaming lists since its release.

It went to #1 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay Chart, which has been around practically forever. It's the main chart of note for a rock band so it's not meaningless. It was their first #1 on that chart since Given to Fly.

There's another chart that you're referencing that is newer (2009-ish) that it hit #1 on as well.

[VinylGuy]

I feel a leak might happen soon

[Hypnos]

So, has this thing leaked?