Lightning Bolt: the official album thread

[stip]

And for the record I am NOT the 5 star vote. I want to meet that person and shake their hand, though

[Strat]

2 stars. Worst of the bunch but obviously i can sit through it and have a good time.

Couple high marks in Mind your manners, fathers sun, yellow moon.

Not bad: Lightning bolt (i like the guitar work in this song, a couple fun turns), and LTRP.

Everything else is Pearl Jam trying really hard to be pearl jam.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[RockPusher]

Listened to this about two weeks ago for the first time in awhile. I think it still remains my least favorite, but I definitely like some some songs. Not sure if I have any real standouts, but I'll go back and listen to the album from time to time.

I like Pendulum best, then probably Mind Your Manners. I also really like what they did with Sleeping By Myself. I think the full band version is much better than the Uke version. It makes me thinks that PJ could possibly dabble more in alt. county if they really wanted to (Drifting, Thin Air, Sunburn, 25 Minutes To Go, Puzzles & Games, 1st part of Setting Sun).

The alt-country side of Pearl Jam has always been one of my favorite things about the band.

[RockPusher]

this album is much easier to stomach on the other side of an album that gets "Pop Jam" so right; still bottom of the pack, but doesn't feel like such an uncomfortable stylistic anomaly

Solid take.

[tommy]

My Father's Son
Let the Records Play
Future Days

Everything else can go to hell

Agreed, except I would drop Future Days, Let the Records Play and My Father's Son.

[stip]

Listened to this about two weeks ago for the first time in awhile. I think it still remains my least favorite, but I definitely like some some songs. Not sure if I have any real standouts, but I'll go back and listen to the album from time to time.

I like Pendulum best, then probably Mind Your Manners. I also really like what they did with Sleeping By Myself. I think the full band version is much better than the Uke version. It makes me thinks that PJ could possibly dabble more in alt. county if they really wanted to (Drifting, Thin Air, Sunburn, 25 Minutes To Go, Puzzles & Games, 1st part of Setting Sun).

The alt-country side of Pearl Jam has always been one of my favorite things about the band.

I love that 25 minutes to go cover

[Rangi Guy]

Pendulum came on my mix yesterday and I enjoyed the hell out of it

[Monkey_Driven]

I certainly have cooled on this since those first initial months. It's their worst album (I'd probably rate it 2-2.5 stars), but there's still some good stuff here.

[Jaeti]

2 stars in the poll for me, but it's Pearl Jam so really I'm probably at 2.5.

The ones I like most these days are Getaway, Lightning Bolt, Swallowed Whole, and Yellow Moon.

[mikejasond]

I love the people who like Sleeping With Myself. It's great, as are all the other songs that were pointed out in the same vein.

[mikejasond]

I think I did like LB more at the time it came out. It was my first "new" Pearl Jam album. The concerts I went to were some incredible incredible memories, as my first time seeing them live.

But in retrospect, especially after Gigaton and Dark Matter seemed so much more inspired, this is the weakest album in the discography. Well...sort of. I still think Riot Act might be the actual worst, but this one has less to say. At least Riot Act was trying something, misguided as it was. It's kind of like Buffy Season 7 vs Season 4/6.

[Hypnos]

I love Buffy S4.

[stip]

Lightning Bolt and Gigaton together have a lot to say about aging and your obligations to the world and people you have been paving the way for.

[Kalevi]

I like every song except future days, ltrp and sirens

[Chris_H_2]

i can confidently say that i will never listen to this album all the way through start to finish in my life again.

[Jaeti]

i can confidently say that i will never listen to this album all the way through start to finish in my life again.

I guess I probably will, but sitting here now it's hard to imagine what will make me think, "You know, I'm actually going to listen to Let the Records Play this time."

[mikejasond]

Lightning Bolt and Gigaton together have a lot to say about aging and your obligations to the world and people you have been paving the way for.

I dunno what it is, but to me I just don't buy it on Lightning bolt, EXCEPT for Sirens which is clearly the best song cause its the most honest in a way that Eddie Vedder's best songs always are. It's on the nose a bit, but it's sincere. But I just don't feel it with the rest....It reminds me of the rockers on Backspacer which seem like they invented them just cause they knew they were supposed to, whereas other songs like Amongst the Waves, Unthought Known, etc, Just Breathe, The End, feel more like what Eddie was really wanting to do. But on LB it's almost the whole album. I just don't feel the connection of lyrics, music, performance....I just don't buy it if that makes sense. Almost the whole album feels like they made it cause they were supposed to make music.

Gigaton to me was a huge improvement and I felt Eddie's earnestness again. And Dark Matter is the same.

[mikejasond]

I love Buffy S4.

It had great individual episodes, some of the best in fact (Hush, Something Blue, Superstar) and had a lot of great comedy...

But the overall plotting makes mistakes, IMO. They know what they want to do (Split the gang up in college) and show how this new life phase stresses their friendships, schisms the group, and then brings it back together. It's a great idea to go from a high school show to a college show and make these changes that humanizes the grown-ups (Giles is at his most personable), brings the characters through personal revelations as they grow up (Willow/Tara), shows the struggle to find yourself (Xander), and just shows how close high school friends can maybe grow apart. It was a great idea, and is brave to give people what they DON'T want to see (the schism of the group) as the season continues. But IMO it didn't really work the way it wanted to. It doesn't help that after all that the resolution where they come back together is pretty un-satisfying, and Buffy mostly just becomes a Super Buffy to deal with things rather than actually combining all their individual traits to show their team-work (yes I know they did so 'magically' but still). And on a side note, the un-interesting villain did not help either, or Riley being unlikable.

I think S4 was a hugely brave shake-up, but it was bigger in ambition than in execution, and I don't think what it accomplished was ultimately worth taking away the elements that made the show so likable previously. Breaking up the gang is a DARING choice and I like the guts to do it, but I just don't think it ended up worth it.

Not unlike Pearl Jam, purposely making an album that is dull and cold (Riot Act) or distant and droning (Binaural). They accomplish an artistic statement but is it worth alienating the things that make their music so likable in the first place? I'd argue it could be, but isn't in these cases.

And don't get me started on Buffy S6 which has some of the most fascinating ideas of any TV season EVER and even braver shake-ups than Season 4, and completely botches all of it. Seriously, the ideas here were so incredibly ambitious and ground-breaking for the show and could have been one of the most unique, dark, and interesting seasons. It just failed to execute them. But at least it tried something crazy unlike S7, which was just boring, an even greater sin. On paper, Season 6 could have been the best one, but it is twisted the wrong direction just enough to have all of its choices fall right on its face lol. It ends up being one of the worst, but I have to put it above S7, because I will take bad and ambitious over boring and mediocre. At least S6 tried

This has been my Buffy rant, thank you.

[epilogue]

i can confidently say that i will never listen to this album all the way through start to finish in my life again.

Weird