Challenge the recency bias/new albumitis: Rerank Dark Matter

[Aunt_Claire_Foy]

The only problem with the Dolby Atmos mix is it still includes Something Special.

Dark Matter is officially my 4th favorite Pearl Jam album. I didn't believe it when it came out, but there's something about being in your 40's and having a record bring your adolescence back the way this record did. I won't bore a bunch of strangers with all the shit that's been going on in my life since just before and then after the record was released, but it - the record - was part of a series of moments in my life that makes the music inextricably relatable for me in the ways Versus hit me when I was 14. The quality of the music, the lyrics, and yes, even the production, spoke to me on the first and many, many subsequent listens that still resonate a year later. I put it on the other night while driving with the windows down, blasting... and yeah, it's still there. I know this isn't a "rank the records" thread, but I think the context for 4th place is important enough to share.

1. Vs
2. Yield
3. Vitalogy
4. Dark Matter

...if you think about it, if the only other records they released were the first three on that list, Dark Matter is in excellent company.

Except Something Special, that song is dog shit, I don't care how much you love your kids, you don't do *that*.

[stip]

Never apologize for ranking things!

[Matters]

Waiting for Stevie is top five.
React Respond and Setting Sun are top shelf.

Still not interested in listening to Wreckage.
Upper Hand is bottom five.

[CCKaraoke]

Great songs buried by an awful mix. A REALLY awful mix.
When it first came out I thought maybe it's the best Matt Cameron era album .. but I haven't returned to the album mix since the week it came out.

Gigaton was the same, except I hated it up until the moment I heard the unbricked mix provided by REDACTED.
Then I realized it wasn't so bad. I still think they were on to something better before they changed directions and ended up with Gigaton though..
but I can't fault where they ended up creatively on Dark Matter in the end. Just what an awful awful AWFUL album mix. Imagine paying someone to ruin your recording like that lol.

[Malloy]

Said differently, the original thread shows 9% of voters scoring it at 3 stars or lower. But the re-rank puts that at more like 32%, as of right now.

I was one who went from a 4 to a 3, but the 4 was coming from a place of listening regularly while the 3 comes from a place of not having listened for a while. So maybe the takeaway for me is that it's an album that creates an experience more than it leaves an impression.

The last few PJ albums have been weird. It's reasonable to expect some of that first-wave enthusiasm to fade, but you hope that that is where some of that "deeper connection" stuff takes over -- that point at which passion gives way to "getting to know each other well enough to spend a life together." I haven't felt that with a PJ album in a while, probably not since S/T. Maybe it's just a stage-of-life thing.

I don’t think it is just a stage of life thing, at least for me.

That deeper connection to the material of a rock band is largely informed by the band members’ personalities, and the extent to which those personalities are reflected in the music. It’s what leads to thrilling micro dynamics of interplay — little moments where the guys veer off-script of the macro composition and into unplanned territory.

There’s virtually none of that on the last three albums, with a few specific exceptions. You remove Eddie’s voice from the proceedings, and there’s little going on that couldn’t be reasonably ascribed to any number of studio musicians. In contrast, the last RHCP albums are filled with these moments, and it rewards repeated listens towards deeper discovery or enjoyment of those moments.

Dark Matter and LB are extreme examples of the problem, because the production obliterates the microdynamics of band interplay. But even on Gigaton, there’s a “places, parts everybody!” element to the compositions that undermines some of the more interesting numbers like Alright or SBWM.

Looseness and improvisation are so important in rock music. The band has really lost touch with those aspects.

how are you thinking about personalities in this context?

It's about inspiration and interplay, and the extent to which those qualities are able to feed off each other when emanating from different musicians. Take the last minute of Army Reserve, for example: There's a core groove, but then Jeff and Matt start playing off of each other, accenting different notes in a back-and-forth conversation, while Mike's guitar starts to explore the space he's created, and Stone is adding just the slightest bit of mustard to his straightforward strumming pattern.

There's a sense of listening not only to a song, but to a particular take of a song, a unique performance that only happened that one time -- even if it's multitracked -- and won't ever be recreated again.

That's the stuff that's largely been lost on the last few albums, and it's what makes the live renditions from Dark Matter much more exciting to listen to.

great post trag

[Malloy]

also dark matter is likely the creme de la creme of the last third of randy newman's career.

[oftheearth]

Gigaton was the same, except I hated it up until the moment I heard the unbricked mix provided by REDACTED.