No Code: Official Album Thread

[Jaeti]

Congratulations to above average rocker Hail Hail. You don't just stand out as an early burst of energy on a relatively muted record, but in the hearts and minds of a bare majority of RMers.


Fans of Hail Hail may be interested in checking out the following Lightning Bolt songs that are better than Hail Hail


Mind Your Manners
Sirens
Lightning Bolt
Pendulum
Sleeping By Myself
Yellow Moon



In the coming days and weeks I'll expound on how each of these songs are better than Hail Hail, so watch this space!

[Kevin Davis]

Any of you No Code fans who would like to see “Hail Hail” win March Madness this year, head on over to the MM subforum and vote! It’s only down by one vote!

Or just go back in time because it's already won!

“Animal” knocked out “In the Moonlight” — it had to go

[epilogue]

Any of you No Code fans who would like to see “Hail Hail” win March Madness this year, head on over to the MM subforum and vote! It’s only down by one vote!

Or just go back in time because it's already won!

“Animal” knocked out “In the Moonlight” — it had to go

Don't blame the result, blame the voters!

[Ello Sailor]

Fans of Hail Hail may be interested in checking out the following Lightning Bolt songs that are better than Hail Hail:

Sirens
Lightning Bolt

[Anders]

Congratulations to above average rocker Hail Hail. You don't just stand out as an early burst of energy on a relatively muted record, but in the hearts and minds of a bare majority of RMers.


Fans of Hail Hail may be interested in checking out the following Lightning Bolt songs that are better than Hail Hail


Mind Your Manners
Sirens
Lightning Bolt
Pendulum
Sleeping By Myself
Yellow Moon



In the coming days and weeks I'll expound on how each of these songs are better than Hail Hail, so watch this space!

This is a hot a candidate for the worst post ever on RM.

But thank you Stip for creating a great tournament. Hope it's back next year.

[VinylGuy]

Oh wow

Stip is just insulting us. How violent.

[96583UP]

stip as troll

i can get into this

[warehouse]

Congratulations to above average rocker Hail Hail. You don't just stand out as an early burst of energy on a relatively muted record, but in the hearts and minds of a bare majority of RMers.


Fans of Hail Hail may be interested in checking out the following Lightning Bolt songs that are better than Hail Hail


Mind Your Manners
Sirens
Lightning Bolt
Pendulum
Sleeping By Myself
Yellow Moon



In the coming days and weeks I'll expound on how each of these songs are better than Hail Hail, so watch this space!

This is a hot a candidate for the worst post ever on RM.

But thank you Stip for creating a great tournament. Hope it's back next year.

this is a clear front runner

remember the first time we heard it on letterman? it was like "this is the pearl jam i know!" after having 'who you are' as the first single

[stip]

Congratulations to above average rocker Hail Hail. You don't just stand out as an early burst of energy on a relatively muted record, but in the hearts and minds of a bare majority of RMers.


Fans of Hail Hail may be interested in checking out the following Lightning Bolt songs that are better than Hail Hail


Mind Your Manners
Sirens
Lightning Bolt
Pendulum
Sleeping By Myself
Yellow Moon



In the coming days and weeks I'll expound on how each of these songs are better than Hail Hail, so watch this space!

This is a hot a candidate for the worst post ever on RM.

But thank you Stip for creating a great tournament. Hope it's back next year.

this is a clear front runner

remember the first time we heard it on letterman? it was like "this is the pearl jam i know!" after having 'who you are' as the first single

that's just it. Hail Hail has always felt almost like a facsimile - like they had moved on to something else but were offering this for people who couldn't handle it. But it's always played as an echo of the better versions of these songs.

It doesn't help that No Code is the round of Eddie vocals I like the least in the catalog. I listened to this on the way to work this AM, and Eddie is so nasal it's like someone is pinching his nose shut. That plus the vibrato everywhere. It's still Eddie so it's fine, but it's not what I want.

[Jorge]

that's just it. Hail Hail has always felt almost like a facsimile - like they had moved on to something else but were offering this for people who couldn't handle it. But it's always played as an echo of the better versions of these songs.

A facsimile of what?

Which past songs, to your ear, does "Hail Hail" attempt to emulate? I mean beyond the surface-level quality of "being a loud rock song"

[Jorge]

Crazy to be like "Hail Hail is a facsimile" while also claiming that a bunch of songs from frickin LIGHTNING BOLT are better, the facsimiliest of all the Pearl Jam albums

[stip]

that's just it. Hail Hail has always felt almost like a facsimile - like they had moved on to something else but were offering this for people who couldn't handle it. But it's always played as an echo of the better versions of these songs.

A facsimile of what?

Which past songs, to your ear, does "Hail Hail" attempt to emulate? I mean beyond the surface-level quality of "being a loud rock song"

Being a loud rock song. It doesn't have quite the same 1-1 comparison of say Blood -> Habit. But loud rock song was, at the time, a pretty core element of the pearl jam formula. No Code is blowing that formula up. For better or worse, that's clearly the intent. And Hail Hail (especially sandwiched where it is between 3 much less loud and aggressive songs), felt like a loss of confidence. An 'oh shit, we forgot to rock moment, and so there's something that felt perfunctory from jump, especially given how much more contained the music felt compared to how off the charts explosive all the similar moments on earlier records felt.

Look, I am a fan who considers those first three records to be the peak of rock music. For a three album run absolutely no one ever did it that well. And if what you want is, say, Animal, or Last Exit, or even Spin the Black Circle, Hail Hail isn't going to do it for you.

The best part of the song for me has always been the words - i"m not even that in love with Eddie's vocal melody or delivery, which again, feels almost obligatory. And you can make the argument that this delivery fits the themes of the song. It does. That's exactly the kind of argument I love to make. But appropriate and compelling are not the same thing.

This is an above average song. Probably a 4 star rocker. But there are so many 4 star hard rock songs in their catalog, and most of them have more character and passion and energy and engage me more

[Jorge]

I think it's just that your idea of "character, passion and energy" in PJ rockers is when Eddie screams real loud.

"Hail Hail" is overflowing with character, passion, and energy. I can't understand calling it a facsimile when it goes about expressing this aggression so differently than the songs you listed.

[liebzz]

I mean, I think in terms of where Stip is going with this, there’s something to be pulled out of that analysis. The partial truth is that yes, Hail, Hail acts as sort of an anomaly on No Code, but not for lack of confidence. Hail, Hail I would argue is a blending of the familiar loud rock song with the elements they were exploring on No Code. It’s not Who You Are or In My Tree, but it’s not meant to apologize for those songs, it’s meant to bridge the gap, that they could craft a song that had the newer elements while still delivering something distinctly Pearl Jam:l. And if you follow the comments on how folks are reacting to the song in the MM tournament, that tracks. I don’t think there’s anything remotely perfunctory about the song.

As an aside, I don’t know that any Pearl Jam album has the character of No Code. It’s on a whole not as aggressive of an album as the first three, it doesn’t rage against anything (if it has a rebellious streak, it is that they sought out to defy expectations), but it’s full of character front to back. Few albums I have ever heard so successfully find a band actively lost in the woods searching for themselves, jumping from sound to sound with it all sounding authentically them. No Code is uncommitted to an exact sound because that was where the band was in that moment. There’s no forced weirdness to earn street cred, no promise to fulfill of giant arena rockers, no devotions. Just a band trying on their own hats and seeing where it lands them. That to me bleeds character through and through.

[Chris_H_2]

when i heard hail hail for the first time (and every time thereafter), my only thought was/is "oh yeah, this is a pearl jam song." it's fine. but it's nothing earthshattering. like i mentioned in the other thread, it only stands out because it's the only real up-tempo song on the album. and when that album came out, that's what most people gravitated towards because they couldn't identify with the rest of the songs (which were too quiet, too boring, or too weird).

[stip]

I think it's just that your idea of "character, passion and energy" in PJ rockers is when Eddie screams real loud.

"Hail Hail" is overflowing with character, passion, and energy. I can't understand calling it a facsimile when it goes about expressing this aggression so differently than the songs you listed.

Hail Hail more than any other record, carries the baggage of being the first time pearl jam disappointed me. That was just about 30 years ago, so of course I'm over it, but I know on some level we carry those impressions with us.

Eddie doesn't need to scream real loud. Habit and Lukin are nothing but that, and Eddie is the worst part of both of those songs. Recent example - he doesn't scream at all on Scared of Fear or Who Ever Said and I think those are both exceptional songs. Both of those are introspective in the way that Hail Hail also is, and gives me the emotional connection I want.

Hail Hail is in part a head/heart song- about overthinking feelings instead of surrendering to them. But even in the end of the song giving in to the heart feels like an intellectual exercise to me.

So that, not loving Eddie's vocals generally, not being entranced by the riff - these all add up to an average song elevated by some strong writing.

Are we bound out of obligation, is that all we got?

and

I sometimes realize I can only be as good as you'll let me

are both all timer lyrics for me, and they helped me process the end of a serious relationship in college. But for whatever reason, the rest of the song has never unlocked for me.

[warehouse]

it sounds like classic stone gossard to me. the riff is incredible. i dont mind EV's vocal approach, he's done it before. at this point we just have to question stip's taste lol

[Kevin Davis]

that's just it. Hail Hail has always felt almost like a facsimile - like they had moved on to something else but were offering this for people who couldn't handle it. But it's always played as an echo of the better versions of these songs.

I think the idea that Pearl Jam had "moved on" from rock music with No Code is a myth. At least half the album is comprised of rock songs. They're a bit askew compared to what people were used to, but they're hardly completely off-brand, and they certainly don't feel like self-conscious attempts to appease old fans. The band were not at all in that headspace in 1995-96.

To me, musically, "Hail, Hail" is actually one of the first PJ rock songs to not simply recycle compositional concepts from their first few albums. To my ears it is one of the first PJ rock songs to be really defined by chordal movement, compared to a lot of the rock songs on Ten and Vs. which were built on riffs that didn't really deviate from a tonic center, except in their choruses. "Alive," "Even Flow," "Jeremy," "Why Go," "Animal," "RVM" -- all of these songs are more or less like this. With some of the rockers on Vitalogy ("Last Exit," "Corduroy"), the chord harmony and the vocal melody start working in tandem in a way that is more sophisticated -- exploring beyond the root, adding new tensions, new emotional colors. "Hail Hail" pushes that even further, IMO -- there is no other PJ song that creates its specific feeling for me, or stakes out its unique emotional space, specifically because those harmonic tensions and juxtapositions don't appear anywhere else in their songbook. And while Ten and Vs. are special records to me, none of their "loud rock songs" create a space for me that is that singular, because a lot of them are built around such similar musical ideas.

[stip]

when i heard hail hail for the first time (and every time thereafter), my only thought was/is "oh yeah, this is a pearl jam song." it's fine. but it's nothing earthshattering. like i mentioned in the other thread, it only stands out because it's the only real up-tempo song on the album. and when that album came out, that's what most people gravitated towards because they couldn't identify with the rest of the songs (which were too quiet, too boring, or too weird).

From the mean streets of 1996, this was 100% how it was received. That was 30 years ago, so it has developed its own identity since then, obviously

[Kevin Davis]

From the mean streets of 1996, this was 100% how it was received. That was 30 years ago, so it has developed its own identity since then, obviously

this is how I received it in 1996 too. I was also 13 and dumb.