Mike wrote:Jesus christ, people on facebook are speculating about Ed having a divorce soon and hope he will be happier soon and how it's sad that this is happening after 20 years
No idea how old you are but don’t believe anything you read on there and don’t feed into it.
Mike wrote:Jesus christ, people on facebook are speculating about Ed having a divorce soon and hope he will be happier soon and how it's sad that this is happening after 20 years
No idea how old you are but don’t believe anything you read on there and don’t feed into it.
Don't worry, I was only shocked at the jumps to conclusions going on over there
Mike wrote:Jesus christ, people on facebook are speculating about Ed having a divorce soon and hope he will be happier soon and how it's sad that this is happening after 20 years
It was a fleeting conversation, but, even this place wasn't above that for about half a day...that discussion was had.
We still make records to be listened to — not that everyone will listen to a record track one to twelve in a row or side A or Side B — but we still make 'em in case somebody does want to listen to it like that, that's how we make em…
It's already been mentioned but I just want to emphasize how excellent the sequencing is on this thing. They hit an absolute home run. Of all their albums, I'd say this one does the best job of resembling the flow of a live show.
EBowie wrote:It's already been mentioned but I just want to emphasize how excellent the sequencing is on this thing. They hit an absolute home run. Of all their albums, I'd say this one does the best job of resembling the flow of a live show.
definitely feels like a set list...great sequencing
We still make records to be listened to — not that everyone will listen to a record track one to twelve in a row or side A or Side B — but we still make 'em in case somebody does want to listen to it like that, that's how we make em…
EBowie wrote:It's already been mentioned but I just want to emphasize how excellent the sequencing is on this thing. They hit an absolute home run. Of all their albums, I'd say this one does the best job of resembling the flow of a live show.
This is the best sequenced Pearl Jam album bar none. In fact, I would argue that the sequencing is so good that it elevates the album beyond its parts. It makes songs like Dark Matter, Running, Something Special, and Won’t Tell better than they are in isolation.
The sequencing also takes this album possibly from the top of the PRAMG era to in the mix with their best albums as a document, in my initial reaction.
Without getting into a long post, I have a lot of thoughts about sequencing here, every bit of it positive. Whoever took the lead on that alone deserves an award.
we know (understandably) very little about ed. we know chris cornell died and was affecting. he has a wife and kids. We know he tends to draw from experience in his lyrics and that they are usually a response to what he is working through (that is conjecture but its widely assumed, so perhaps not KNOWN but i think we can feel fairly good about it). So when we try to understand what may be motivating a song we over determine things like CC and his wife because they are the only things we can drawn on, rather than the hundreds and hundreds of other people, relationships, and experiences that make up the life Eddie (or any adult person) leads.
there is sometimes some very specific details that might make it about one of the above (possibly scared of fear, something special) but on a lot of songs, especially darker ones, we often get there too quickly
eddie is not taylor swift- if he was actively struggling in a relationship with his wife, he isnt going to write a song about it. Thats fishing for a divorce.
would he possibly write about it afterwards? sure.
EBowie wrote:It's already been mentioned but I just want to emphasize how excellent the sequencing is on this thing. They hit an absolute home run. Of all their albums, I'd say this one does the best job of resembling the flow of a live show.
This is the best sequenced Pearl Jam album bar none. In fact, I would argue that the sequencing is so good that it elevates the album beyond its parts. It makes songs like Dark Matter, Running, Something Special, and Won’t Tell better than they are in isolation.
The sequencing also takes this album possibly from the top of the PRAMG era to in the mix with their best albums as a document, in my initial reaction.
Without getting into a long post, I have a lot of thoughts about sequencing here, every bit of it positive. Whoever took the lead on that alone deserves an award.
you should get into a long post about it. that is both your right and responsibility, sir
EBowie wrote:It's already been mentioned but I just want to emphasize how excellent the sequencing is on this thing. They hit an absolute home run. Of all their albums, I'd say this one does the best job of resembling the flow of a live show.
This is the best sequenced Pearl Jam album bar none. In fact, I would argue that the sequencing is so good that it elevates the album beyond its parts. It makes songs like Dark Matter, Running, Something Special, and Won’t Tell better than they are in isolation.
The sequencing also takes this album possibly from the top of the PRAMG era to in the mix with their best albums as a document, in my initial reaction.
Without getting into a long post, I have a lot of thoughts about sequencing here, every bit of it positive. Whoever took the lead on that alone deserves an award.
I agree one hundred percent. Add in the fact that the songs are excellent and my mind is absolutely blown. I'm totally floored.
Alright, let’s see what I can conjure up on sequencing from memory:
Opening/Scared of Fear - this is often a sequencing device used by the band, and yes, there is an element to the call back with Master/Slave that stip went into masterfully, but I think the pool cue break into the opening riff evokes an immediate response of “Pearl Jam’s back!” The track itself is expertly placed first (even if I generally prefer a slow burn opener in the vein of a Pendulum - which didn’t open LB) because, of all things intentional or not, it immediately transitions us from Gigaton in sonic territory to Dark Matter as it initially resembles one of the first 8 on Gigaton without being a Gigaton song, and then the solo I think evokes a separation from Gigaton, pushing the song just a bit further than we’ve become accustomed to.
Scared of Fear —> React/Respond - another lovely sequencing trick here. The band ups the ante on the pace and gives us a ripping track building on the themes of the first song with more intense panic, more intense pacing, more intense everything. The one-two punch is a sequencing tactic that’s so common on a Pearl Jam album it’s predictable, except where Go/Animal, the template for this approach, maintains frenetic pacing, this feels more like upping the stakes.
React/Respond —> Wreckage - from manic to comfort. There’s an ocean of thought going into how this works without feeling like you’re in a different album. This feels like a call back to Animal —> Daughter, and with Watt, I’d guess that would be calculated since I think he wants this album to carry the duality of new against a sense of familiar and he wants the listener to be directed to comparison shopping. We can say in part so far that this album is the most _______ since Vs. because we are triggered to feel that same response of what that transition felt like. But it also works in the context of the album to the manic energy of the first two songs to seeing their consequence in the wreckage of the next in a more contemplative tone.
Mike wrote:Jesus christ, people on facebook are speculating about Ed having a divorce soon and hope he will be happier soon and how it's sad that this is happening after 20 years
No idea how old you are but don’t believe anything you read on there and don’t feed into it.
Don't worry, I was only shocked at the jumps to conclusions going on over there
Just looked his mrs page on instagram. They’re still very much I love and she’s promoting dark matter.
Wouldn’t bring that shite in here or give it any notice tbh.
Wreckage —> Dark Matter - if we thought the first two songs were the obligatory rockers and now we could take things seriously, Dark Matter sonically blasts in to remind us they are not letting us get away that easily. It manages to contrast instead to Binaural, which Breakerfall > Gods’ Dice > Evacuation serve as a blast, and then the album really begins with Light Years. Wreckage is a great great song, but it now doesn’t get that here, instead bridging from internal turmoil to and outward focused turmoil, right back to that manic existence, but instead of it being yours alone, we’re all together screwed here. The illusion of Wreckage resolving the individual sense of tragedy is one that will continue to be raised as the album continues, but where Wreckage might feel like a resolution in its climax, Dark Matter brings the problems into a more communal sphere, and so its placement is genius not just because it sonically brings us back to the task at hand, it thematically doesn’t allow us to close the loop the first three songs resolve in the albums opening.
>Pearl Jam needs to recognize its core audience. Rather than 12 variants (I can understand one for RSD to continue supporting brick and mortar record stores), how about producing an audiophile pressing, half speed mastered, 45 rpm, master cut with care and pressed by either MOFI or QRP and sell it for $150. Offer it with the Blu-ray Dolby Atmos mix packaged together and they could probably get a guy like me (and others) to spend $200. Of course that would mean ensuring the signal recordings weren’t redlining the limiters and the mix wasn’t too dynamically smushed. They’ve done it in the past, as recently as their last album.
EBowie wrote:It's already been mentioned but I just want to emphasize how excellent the sequencing is on this thing. They hit an absolute home run. Of all their albums, I'd say this one does the best job of resembling the flow of a live show.
definitely feels like a set list...great sequencing
I said it’s like a setlist when I first heard it. Felt like vs
Im doing a visualizer watch this morning. Just did Scared of Fear. It starts out as a fun catchy WES younger sibling and its really good - especially Eddie’s vocal work, but with the bridge it transforms into something else. better than WES? Cant say? They are different and WES is just so much more reflective and exploratory and has one of my favorite extended lyrical passages in the catalog. But it is not nearly as urgent, as pleading, as desperate (without losing that reflective element) as the bridge -> climax of Scared of Fear. Total head/heart dynamic. And I think SoF probably sticks the landing
WES is a five star song. I am confident that SoF is too. its not doing anything super flashy, but it is doing everything it is doing as well as it can be done. Two mature, assured starts to two great records
Dark Matter —> Won’t Tell - the first four songs serve together as a table setter of the themes the band is getting at here: the struggle itself. It’s at this point the band then sets its hopeful message. The music in the next three songs are anthemic massive builds, each song in this Act II individually rising up and taking Pearl Jam to new places. Won’t Tell begins by breaking into poppier territory, almost teasing you that we are getting a break on the intensity through the first half until the U2-like riff and climax of this song bringing you right back to the emotional heaviness, only this serves a feeling of exuberance than what came before.
Won’t Tell —> Upper Hand - knowing now that this breaks side one and side two brings a whole new appreciation for this both being part 2 of a 3 part anthemic journey. It contextualizes the long intro, honestly one of my favorite moments of this album, as a slow return to anthem territory after intermission. That intro makes a promise to us that big things are ahead, and I admit I was a little nervous when Eddie finally chimed in because he bears a huge responsibility of making good on that intro. Smoky blues from McCready and Vedder begin to deliver on that promise, but the beyond epic finish achieve that promise of absolute victory.
Upper Hand —> Waiting For Stevie - absolutely no letting up. I could never describe the emotional response to this song as well as stip, whose description to me is the absolute definitive reaction I also get from it. It also takes the album up yet another notch after Upper Hand blows the place open. Is this even possible. The amount of height the album has hit is so ridiculously high that you can’t help but feel exhausted. And that aside, these songs are such a powerful statement that there just can’t be a next after it.
Waiting For Stevie —> Running - in that vein, they wisely don’t even try. Using the interlude as a chance to bring it down a bit, they course change just at the right moment to give us a song that fits thematically in its frenetic energy, but feels just as much as Pearl Jam reminding you that we can just have fun and rock the hell out rather than be weighted down by our struggle.
Running —> Something Special - Running nearly falls off the rails into its bridge, and so to regain a sense of musical control they simplify things here, and I think even if slightly mournfully or with hesitancy let us know the struggle continues but for our own personal next generations. Yes the song has its cheese, but they wisely lean into it instead of winking, and take the weight off the proceedings just for a moment.
Something Special —> Got to Give - other albums would have ended with Something Special, and left us wanting. This album refuses to end on that note, and brings us a song that starts in an intro that suggests more of the latter that then builds to a Who like defiance. It ain’t over yet!
Got to Give —> Setting Sun - the album ends here in such dramatic fashion there’s fear Got to Give will be a forgotten tune amongst all of this, and that may be true. Setting Sun encapsulates everything that’s happened and been accomplished in the entirety of the album, takes all that weight and expectation, and in its second half topples over even all of that. It’s so emotional and powerful in its place as the album closer that the band, and you in response, have completed this album with nothing left. But in its closing, Eddie reminds us let us not fade, because even after all of that, there’s still work to do. And so we push on.
