Post-Riot Act Moneygrab

[harmless]

If PJ carry that instinct forward, as well as the instinct to write "Pendulum" et al, we might see better future days after all.

Or we may end up dying of boredom. Seriously, i don't dislike Pendulum at all but it's a risky area for them. I think i get why Yellow Moon almost didn't make the album. This songs benefit from being an exception rather than the rule. Especially with PJ because they really don't know how the explore the possibilities a song like this gives. You could really go anywhere musically from that intro.
I will try to explain my point with something that people who really like it tend to say - i wish it was longer. I doubt that means repeating a certain a couple of different bars 4 times. I don't think they're capable of writing more of this kind of songs without relying on clichés or citing themselves or both. How many people posted that Yellow Moon reminds them of Low Light?

Who cares? Low Light was awesome. I don't need Pearl Jam to be original, I just want them to be interesting, and "LTRP" and "Future Days" are not that in any way whatsoever. The thing about Pendulum and Yellow Moon is that no, they aren't boring, but neither are they superficially / artificially "catchy", as if everyone wants that kind of thing. They're not perfect, but they are among the best songs on this album.

[stip]

they're also better songs than almost everything on Riot Act and Binaural

[harmless]

It took a couple years for them to realize they had a cash machine

i think they had that figured out by 1992

Yeah. The disappointment isn't that they sold out, the disappointment is that they deliberately rejected the money and fame being thrown at them, and then when they felt better about the world, decided they wanted to fight to get it back again.

[harmless]

they're also better songs than almost everything on Riot Act and Binaural

LTRP and FD, better than almost anything on Binaural and Riot Act? That's ludicrous, stip.

[hlniv]

There is nothing wrong with Binaural and Riot Act at all. They both represented Pearl Jam following Pearl Jam's creative instincts. A lot of the fanbase didn't like them; neither, apparently, does Pearl Jam. That's the problem. They have no taste. Most of the fanbase has bad taste. It's that simple; they may as well do the money-grab, because not enough people enjoy their very best material.

ugh. There's nothing wrong with Binaural and Riot Act. They're good albums. but they're good albums from a band that can and often does release great albums. these are flat, dull, lifeless, and uninspired by comparison, with some interesting and warm production choices masking the lack of a soul at the core of too many of those songs. Imo.

There is no reason to ever really doubt that pearl jam has not followed their creative instincts, although I don't really even know what the fuck that means. The fact that you like those records more is not because they are more creative. It explores an aspect of the bands sound you like more. One I would emphatically argue represents the low point of their creative drive and produced the least moving, least interesting, least inspired music of their career.

So either one of us is just totally wrong, or we should abandon this framework.

regardless, the fact that we know so little about their studio/artistic process (it is never really filmed or effectively talked about) means that most of this talk about creativity is just romance and myth making. Talking about the types of songs they write, the production choices made, etc. That's tangible.

In 2003, I would have agreed with you. I didn't really enjoy the "sound" of Binaural or Riot Act. I much preferred the "sound" of No Code and Yield.

However, what ten years and the 3 subsequent albums have done for me is allow me to place the uniqueness of those two records against the larger body of work. And it certainly screams creativity in my opinion. No Code was different. It wasn't creative. There's nothing creative about Off He Goes or Habit. Who You Are and In My Tree are exactly what you'd expect from putting Jack and Ed together. Mankind is the least creative thing they've ever done.

Binaural and Riot Act on the other hand, there are new musical expressions all over those two. Riot Act more-so than Binaural, but Of the Girl, Sleight of Hand, NAIS, Rival, those are all creative. It's not just the sound or the production, it's inherent quality of these songs that have impressed me most recently. Throw in all of the Binaural recordings left on the cutting room floor, and you get a full and quite inspired product.

At the end of the day, though, we are talking about music. Which is personal and driven by opinion. So, yes, one of these opinions is going to be wrong in the eyes of someone else. It's inevitable. Opinions are just that - interpreted as wrong by some. Doesn't mean we should abandon the framework of the discussion.

[hlniv]

It took a couple years for them to realize they had a cash machine

i think they had that figured out by 1992

True -

I should rephrase -

It took them a couple of years to realize they wanted to have the cash machine that they knew they had

[Strat]

I still dont understand if Harmless likes Lightning Bolt or hates it or merely tolerates it. I also dont understand his feelings on pearl jam.

[IlluminEddie]

No. Not even close to their worst album. At the time it was released, yes. Now, a fair portion of PJ fans like it above No Code or maybe Vs. (I am not one of these). At the least, it is still clearly a more well done and better example of PJ than any of the last 3 records.

I disagree personally and I'm quite sure the heavy majority of those with Pearl Jam records would side with my take, sales certainly do. As for alternative measuring of best vs. worse - this place , here (or even PJ.com forum), is not an accurate representation of PJ fans whatsoever.

There really is a bit of a common theme there, so let me explain...

The key to all of the above was the political spin on each record and during each tour. The worse it got (see Riot Act) the worse the album was. S/T was full of it, but less in your face. Binaural only dealt with it in certain areas and did have some singles that were not war-related at all, but it began with Binaural because that's when Ed was actively pushing for Nader.

......So, to me, the pinnacle was really reached at Yield. It was slowly melting into Ed's political OCD post Yield.

As for selling out, I'd say they began the process when they left Sony. They realized it was their time to make buck. And they've been doing it ever since. Target, Ten Club, etc.

All of the rest of this is accurate. It began shifting towards new ground and political expression (albeit a creative expression that I particularly enjoy) with the 2000 election, and that ultimately burnt itself out around the time they got back from the 2003 tour, reflected, left Sony, etc... Was it based largely on Ed's personality and viewpoints? Probably, but not completely.

Agree with this.

It took a couple years for them to realize they had a cash machine, and they could be both respectable rock stars and provide the good life for their families.

I don't agree with this completely. I think they knew they had a cash machine with the release of Vs. I think they knew it with every subsequent release and were kinda surprised fans kept coming back. Towards the end of their deal with Sony, I think they didn't care too much about sales because they knew on the other side, there would be opportunity for them to make more loot.

G.R.E.E.D. and all.

What i hope they come to understand is that the creative expression that fueled Binaural and Riot Act (not necessarily the political expression, but the creative fuel) is what still keeps many of their fans returning. I have rediscovered so much of their catalog just in the last year, and i just don't see me "re-discovering" the 2006-2013 output in 2023 like I have with their 1995-2003 output in 2013.

I think this is naive. It's not creativity. Maybe this place - but, broader it's not. Truth is, in the grand scheme of money making, this place and all who come here are largely irrelevant.

What keeps "the majority" of fans returning, if anything, is primarily Ed's voice. Of course, the music and lyrics are also relevant. But, I'd say, to the average fan (not super fans), it's most Ed's voice and the underlying piece of music under it.

For Binaural and Riot Act, I think what I see is terrible/average songs overshadowing any creativity. Sincerely, that's how I see it. I see a few terrible songs (God's Dice) and some moderately poor ones (Get Right), then a few decent songs. I know some may think whooooaaaaaa - nothing as it seems is sooooo creative (it's a few chords and solos - not creative, but I actually dig this). And so is sleight of hand.... woozer (cool lyrics set over an off-piece of music, actually once again one of the better ones)... bushleaguer is crazy inventive (spoken word)... you are - can i get a amen (the drum loop guitar, problem is this songs sucks).... help, help, what can you say - inventive? But, to me, I laugh at all this. I actually think a few of these are the better songs on these records, but the 'creativity' over song aspect loses me. Particularly, when the underlying song sucks - I'd toss You Are as an example there. Pearl Jam was once creative and made good songs, look at In My Tree for that. So, it's not impossible to be both. The problem is Binaural had songs like Evacuation on it and Riot Act had a bunch of ho hum songs on it with nothing earth shattering or even above average.

Oh, and by the way, i was 21 in 2000 and voting in my 1st presidential election. Ed convinced me to vote for Nader. Without his political grandstanding, I certainly would not have done that. Of course, I probably just wouldn't have voted at all...

I don't know what to say to this...

[Mine]

It took a couple years for them to realize they had a cash machine

i think they had that figured out by 1992

Yeah. The disappointment isn't that they sold out, the disappointment is that they deliberately rejected the money and fame being thrown at them, and then when they felt better about the world, decided they wanted to fight to get it back again.

rejected what money? They were probably making more money back in the day and they could still be making considerably more money.
Oh and they've been "fighting to get it back again" since Yield.

[harmless]

I still dont understand if Harmless likes Lightning Bolt or hates it or merely tolerates it. I also dont understand his feelings on pearl jam.

I like Lightning Bolt. I don't *love* it. But I'm able to empathise with people who hate it, or are disappointed with it, because I would love something with more depth, craft and lack of regard for "hit-making" even more. I'm able to say I like it, while talking openly and honestly about what could be better about it.

I like current Pearl Jam. I don't *love* them like I used to, and I wish I did. But I'm able to empathise with people who hate them, or are disappointed with them, because I would love them if they had more depth, craft and lack of regard for "hit-making". I'm able to say I like them, whilst talking openly and honestly about what could be better about them.

This is why I talk about really liking certain songs on Lightning Bolt. This is why I infinitely prefer "LB-PJ" to "Backspacer-PJ". But I can't get into conversations that belittle or put down the middle-period albums, without being relatively negative to newer ones as a point of comparison. The reason I love Riot Act and everything before it is because I perceive them to have, in spades, elements of the band I loved that they have all but (willingly) lost, given up, since. So I don't abandon PJ, but I do have a love / hate relationship with what they're doing. I'd love to be able to listen to Lightning Bolt without feeling this tension, but I can't. I like Lightning Bolt. Plenty of songs I like a lot. "Sirens" is the only song on it that I love, and I'm particularly proud of them for writing.

[Mine]

It took a couple years for them to realize they had a cash machine

i think they had that figured out by 1992

True -

I should rephrase -

It took them a couple of years to realize they wanted to have the cash machine that they knew they had

I don't think they ever disliked or had any kind of issue with the cash machine side of the fame. This is just what the fans like to believe. And this precedes PJ. Stone and Jeff wanted a deal with a mayor label since they were in Green River.

[EJ]

It took a couple years for them to realize they had a cash machine

i think they had that figured out by 1992

True -

I should rephrase -

It took them a couple of years to realize they wanted to have the cash machine that they knew they had

I don't think they ever disliked or had any kind of issue with the cash machine side of the fame. This is just what the fans like to believe. And this precedes PJ. Stone and Jeff wanted a deal with a mayor label since they were in Green River.

I think Ed did to a degree. Guilt over his band's success vs. a band like Mudhoney.

[digster]

It took a couple years for them to realize they had a cash machine

i think they had that figured out by 1992

True -

I should rephrase -

It took them a couple of years to realize they wanted to have the cash machine that they knew they had

I don't think they ever disliked or had any kind of issue with the cash machine side of the fame. This is just what the fans like to believe. And this precedes PJ. Stone and Jeff wanted a deal with a mayor label since they were in Green River.

I think Ed did to a degree. Guilt over his band's success vs. a band like Mudhoney.

I think they all had issues with it, but it was more a reaction to the downsides they saw after they actually became popular. Mother Love Bone had a major label deal, and Ed was chasing the same thing. I think their stances came about after they saw how the sausage was made, so to speak.

[harmless]

It took a couple years for them to realize they had a cash machine

i think they had that figured out by 1992

Yeah. The disappointment isn't that they sold out, the disappointment is that they deliberately rejected the money and fame being thrown at them, and then when they felt better about the world, decided they wanted to fight to get it back again.

rejected what money? They were probably making more money back in the day and they could still be making considerably more money.
Oh and they've been "fighting to get it back again" since Yield.

Since No Code, they were proverbially "rejecting" the money and fame they had generated during Ten, and could've been generating by writing cookie-cutter radio hits like "Jeremy" (or, hell, "The Fixer"). Each album post-Yield was making less and less money, and (in my opinion) getting more and more artistically interesting. The band appeared to want to follow their artistic, ethical and political drives over and above being part of the "machine". They don't have a label now, in effect they are still doing as much as they can to look like a "label" band, and even if they're still not making much money, many of the musical and peripheral decisions they've made in the past several years were clearly designed for that purpose. You know this. I'm teaching Grandma to suck eggs here. If you don't agree, you don't agree.

[Strat]

I still dont understand if Harmless likes Lightning Bolt or hates it or merely tolerates it. I also dont understand his feelings on pearl jam.

I like Lightning Bolt. I don't *love* it. But I'm able to empathise with people who hate it, or are disappointed with it, because I would love something with more depth, craft and lack of regard for "hit-making" even more. I'm able to say I like it, while talking openly and honestly about what could be better about it.

I like current Pearl Jam. I don't *love* them like I used to, and I wish I did. But I'm able to empathise with people who hate them, or are disappointed with them, because I would love them if they had more depth, craft and lack of regard for "hit-making". I'm able to say I like them, whilst talking openly and honestly about what could be better about them.

This is why I talk about really liking certain songs on Lightning Bolt. This is why I infinitely prefer "LB-PJ" to "Backspacer-PJ". But I can't get into conversations that belittle or put down the middle-period albums, without being relatively negative to newer ones as a point of comparison. The reason I love Riot Act and everything before it is because I perceive them to have, in spades, elements of the band I loved that they have all but (willingly) lost, given up, since. So I don't abandon PJ, but I do have a love / hate relationship with what they're doing. I'd love to be able to listen to Lightning Bolt without feeling this tension, but I can't. I like Lightning Bolt. Plenty of songs I like a lot. "Sirens" is the only song on it that I love, and I'm particularly proud of them for writing.

You are just very passionate about both sides. Tough to read sometimes, el guapo.

[Mine]

If PJ carry that instinct forward, as well as the instinct to write "Pendulum" et al, we might see better future days after all.

Or we may end up dying of boredom. Seriously, i don't dislike Pendulum at all but it's a risky area for them. I think i get why Yellow Moon almost didn't make the album. This songs benefit from being an exception rather than the rule. Especially with PJ because they really don't know how the explore the possibilities a song like this gives. You could really go anywhere musically from that intro.
I will try to explain my point with something that people who really like it tend to say - i wish it was longer. I doubt that means repeating a certain a couple of different bars 4 times. I don't think they're capable of writing more of this kind of songs without relying on clichés or citing themselves or both. How many people posted that Yellow Moon reminds them of Low Light?

Who cares? Low Light was awesome. I don't need Pearl Jam to be original, I just want them to be interesting, and "LTRP" and "Future Days" are not that in any way whatsoever. The thing about Pendulum and Yellow Moon is that no, they aren't boring, but neither are they superficially / artificially "catchy", as if everyone wants that kind of thing. They're not perfect, but they are among the best songs on this album.

Pendulum and Yellow Moon are exactly superficially/artificially catchy given the audience their intended too. Does that make them bad by default? No.

[harmless]

I still dont understand if Harmless likes Lightning Bolt or hates it or merely tolerates it. I also dont understand his feelings on pearl jam.

I like Lightning Bolt. I don't *love* it. But I'm able to empathise with people who hate it, or are disappointed with it, because I would love something with more depth, craft and lack of regard for "hit-making" even more. I'm able to say I like it, while talking openly and honestly about what could be better about it.

I like current Pearl Jam. I don't *love* them like I used to, and I wish I did. But I'm able to empathise with people who hate them, or are disappointed with them, because I would love them if they had more depth, craft and lack of regard for "hit-making". I'm able to say I like them, whilst talking openly and honestly about what could be better about them.

This is why I talk about really liking certain songs on Lightning Bolt. This is why I infinitely prefer "LB-PJ" to "Backspacer-PJ". But I can't get into conversations that belittle or put down the middle-period albums, without being relatively negative to newer ones as a point of comparison. The reason I love Riot Act and everything before it is because I perceive them to have, in spades, elements of the band I loved that they have all but (willingly) lost, given up, since. So I don't abandon PJ, but I do have a love / hate relationship with what they're doing. I'd love to be able to listen to Lightning Bolt without feeling this tension, but I can't. I like Lightning Bolt. Plenty of songs I like a lot. "Sirens" is the only song on it that I love, and I'm particularly proud of them for writing.

You are just very passionate about both sides. Tough to read sometimes, el guapo.

It's pretty tough to be, actually. I wish it was different.

[digster]

I know we all want to continue to relive whatever era in their history we are most attracted to, but I can very easily see, from their perspective, that they would rather be able to do some good for the things they care about. And there is a lot you can say about Bono, but he does a lot of good and he is able to do it BECAUSE he is Bono and because u2 has the reach it does. I'm not sure they're aiming that high, and i don't think they could get there (these guys are terrible self-promoters), but I do think they have mid-tier aspirations to that end

I agree with this entirely. I don't think they're necessarily in it for the money, but I think they want to be closer to U2 in terms of how they're perceived than they were in the late 90's - early 2000's.

The only strange thing is that I just don't think they're ever going to be at that point; I'm not sure why they're chasing it.

[IlluminEddie]

It took a couple years for them to realize they had a cash machine

i think they had that figured out by 1992

True -

I should rephrase -

It took them a couple of years to realize they wanted to have the cash machine that they knew they had

I don't think they ever disliked or had any kind of issue with the cash machine side of the fame. This is just what the fans like to believe. And this precedes PJ. Stone and Jeff wanted a deal with a mayor label since they were in Green River.

Thing is - I think Ed had a problem with it in some ways.

I remember listening to Adam Duritz on Howard Stern explain how Ed gave him a ton of shit for using a Counting Crows song in a Diet Coke commercial he did. Like so much so that he wouldn't talk to him and was making fun of him in front of Chris Cornell. That sort of stuff, his lyrics early on, what he said about fame... then he goes and signs a deal with Target, we look at the Ten Club monetization and so on... and I can't help but recall that and think Ed is a big hypocrite.

[harmless]

If PJ carry that instinct forward, as well as the instinct to write "Pendulum" et al, we might see better future days after all.

Or we may end up dying of boredom. Seriously, i don't dislike Pendulum at all but it's a risky area for them. I think i get why Yellow Moon almost didn't make the album. This songs benefit from being an exception rather than the rule. Especially with PJ because they really don't know how the explore the possibilities a song like this gives. You could really go anywhere musically from that intro.
I will try to explain my point with something that people who really like it tend to say - i wish it was longer. I doubt that means repeating a certain a couple of different bars 4 times. I don't think they're capable of writing more of this kind of songs without relying on clichés or citing themselves or both. How many people posted that Yellow Moon reminds them of Low Light?

Who cares? Low Light was awesome. I don't need Pearl Jam to be original, I just want them to be interesting, and "LTRP" and "Future Days" are not that in any way whatsoever. The thing about Pendulum and Yellow Moon is that no, they aren't boring, but neither are they superficially / artificially "catchy", as if everyone wants that kind of thing. They're not perfect, but they are among the best songs on this album.

Pendulum and Yellow Moon are exactly superficially/artificially catchy given the audience their intended too. Does that make them bad by default? No.

Seriously? We're talking about degrees here; they may not be classical pieces with 47 movements (and all of them deliberately-off-putting), but they're not "LTRP" either.