PearlJamSongRanker.com FINAL poll #24: Tracks 12 and beyond

[E.H. Ruddock]

Can you guys stop hijacking this thread now? People are trying to rank things in here.

I was out of line in this thread. This brings enjoyment to a lot of posters and it is a good thread.

[Lament]

I remember chud having some solid indignation in the aftermath of his defeat.

[Heathen]

Well fuck they got Ruddo. RIP.

[Lament]

I was out of line in this thread. This brings enjoyment to a lot of posters and it is a good thread.

Reading this post, I felt the exact same way I did when I stood there at Wrigley Field hearing Future Days for the first time.

[LetMeSleep]

Can you guys stop hijacking this thread now? People are trying to rank things in here.

I was out of line in this thread. This brings enjoyment to a lot of posters and it is a good thread.

It's dripping with sarcasm. Ruddo is in fine health.

[Lament]

It's dripping with sarcasm. Ruddo is in fine health.

This is the equivalent of all the "It'll sound much better on the album. You'll be able to hear all of the interesting guitar parts that got buried live, and there's no way BO'B's church piano will be so in-your-face," posts that came in the aftermath of Wrigley.

[stip]

Rank the righteous indignation over losing in the PJ song tournament from July/August...

Stip's gotta be #1. I bet he talks about it constantly IRL.

If I've never stopped talking about it does that mean I've only mentioned it once?

You're not fooling anyone. Surely you had to stop every now and then so you could tell everyone that "Lightning Bolt is a really good record".

I am able to work it into the narrative pretty seamlessly

[stip]

It's dripping with sarcasm. Ruddo is in fine health.

This is the equivalent of all the "It'll sound much better on the album. You'll be able to hear all of the interesting guitar parts that got buried live, and there's no way BO'B's church piano will be so in-your-face," posts that came in the aftermath of Wrigley.

I gotta say that wrigley fd did nothing for me, and the initial listens in Lbolt did nothing, but one day that song just clicked. I can't wait to rank it when the moment arrives

[E.H. Ruddock]

Welp

[Birds in Hell]

I listened to Vs a few weeks ago and it's such a tight album. It's all muscle and sinew. I love it.

I think it's their best record.

I've been listening to it on random right now. It's a little weird to hear it out of order, but it is a darn good album. I don't think it's their best, but there are some serious heavy hitters on it.

I just can't listen to music on shuffle, it'd be like watching a movie where the scenes were all out of order (I know that's a flawed analogy, but still).

I should explain, I don't think it's their best record because it has a lot of my favourite songs, or because it contains lots of "four star" and "five star" songs (whatever they are), it's because it's the most satisfying front-to-back listen of their catalogue for me.

Great albums are more than the sum of their parts. To me, they're complete works in their own right, not merely containers for the individual songs they include, and I assess them by that standard. That's why I generally never listen to post-Yield Pearl Jam: as much as I like individual songs from some of the later records, they don't work for me as whole experiences.

Great albums create their own sense of time, place and identity: my favourite records create spaces I want to immerse myself in again and again. It's entirely possible that some of my all-time favourite albums are full of songs I'd think merely okay if presented outside of that context.

[E.H. Ruddock]

I'm so into everything spenno it's sickening.

[Lament]

I'm always surprised Vs. doesn't rate higher with a lot of people. I don't think it sounds dated at all, and thematically (for me, personally) Leash is the only one that strays into embarrassing territory. Rearviewmirror and Indifference are both in the very top tier of Pearl Jam songs by my tastes. Go into Animal is a really killer one-two opening punch. I'm always amazed when I hear the studio version of Daughter at was a great performance it is (I avoided it for years because I find it to be incredibly weak live and just started assuming I didn't like the song anymore). Blood has some crazy good bass work. Rats is groovy and funny. W.M.A. is hypnotic (and all the different vocals clips playing against each other at the end is fantastic). Glorified G has that part where Stone comes in on backing vocals, which always sounds great. Dissident can hit the spot if you're in the mood for something melodramatic and overwrought (which, judging by how many people like Sirens, a lot of you constantly are). And Small Town has a nice melancholy charm to it that resurfaces if you give yourself a break to recover from how unbelievably overplayed it's been for the last twenty years. I'd place it behind only Vitalogy and No Code in the catalog.

[Jorge]

Vs songs I love:
Go
Rearviewmirror (two of their all-time greatest songs)

Vs songs I like:
Animal
Daughter
Dissident
WMA
Blood
Small Town

Vs songs I dislike:
Glorified G
Rats
Leash
Indifference

[Jorge]

That's not technically ranking, Ruddo.

[Lament]

What do you specifically dislike about Indifference? I find it to be one of their best mood pieces. Ed's vocal performance is one of my favorites of the entire catalog, and I like the empty space in it. I actually feels like you're sitting in the corner of a dark room, alone, and beaten down by the world at large. It perfectly captures the aftermath of all the fury and mood swings of the previous tracks on the record; like the big event itself is over and, guess what, you still have to digest all of it and ultimately make a decision here, and no one is going to help you. I have an undying love for that song. But as stip likes to point out, I also have a cold, dead heart, and this song fits perfectly in there.

[E.H. Ruddock]

That's not technically ranking, Ruddo.

I'll accept that as your statement about RVM and Go is factually correct.

[Dr. Van Nostrand]

and yet I lost that stupid song tournament in the first round with Animal AND Daughter AND Rearviewmirror AND Small Town.

Hey man, I had Corduroy, Rearviewmirror, Breath, and Nothingman (and Undone...UNDONE!) and still lost in round one (albeit to the dude who won not only that tournament, but the showdown of champions as well).

And I championed your cause more than anyone!

You have the end of the story mixed up though. Your guy lost to my guy in the finals.

Still, we were robbed.


And I also had Corduroy and Black and Olympic Platnium. How does a team with Corduroy, Black, Rearviewmirror, Daughter, Small town, Animal, and Olympic Platinum lose to anyone?

Do you think it was just petty jealousy on the part of RM that robbed us of our just desserts?

Because I do.

thajambi wasn't the grand champion? I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention. But yeah, I do think it was petty jealousy. I actually think there was a conspiracy in place. RM collusion, if you will.

If it had taken place somewhere else, we would've won our respective tournaments pretty easily. And then you probably would've beaten me in the championship round.

Hey stip, did we ever finish the grand championship match? I remember starting the thread but then i forgot about it

[music.for.rhinos]

What do you specifically dislike about Indifference? I find it to be one of their best mood pieces. Ed's vocal performance is one of my favorites of the entire catalog, and I like the empty space in it. I actually feels like you're sitting in the corner of a dark room, alone, and beaten down by the world at large. It perfectly captures the aftermath of all the fury and mood swings of the previous tracks on the record; like the big event itself is over and, guess what, you still have to digest all of it and ultimately make a decision here, and no one is going to help you. I have an undying love for that song. But as stip likes to point out, I also have a cold, dead heart, and this song fits perfectly in there.

This guy gets it.

[stip]

Dct ran away with it

[stip]

I'm always surprised Vs. doesn't rate higher with a lot of people. I don't think it sounds dated at all, and thematically (for me, personally) Leash is the only one that strays into embarrassing territory. Rearviewmirror and Indifference are both in the very top tier of Pearl Jam songs by my tastes. Go into Animal is a really killer one-two opening punch. I'm always amazed when I hear the studio version of Daughter at was a great performance it is (I avoided it for years because I find it to be incredibly weak live and just started assuming I didn't like the song anymore). Blood has some crazy good bass work. Rats is groovy and funny. W.M.A. is hypnotic (and all the different vocals clips playing against each other at the end is fantastic). Glorified G has that part where Stone comes in on backing vocals, which always sounds great. Dissident can hit the spot if you're in the mood for something melodramatic and overwrought (which, judging by how many people like Sirens, a lot of you constantly are). And Small Town has a nice melancholy charm to it that resurfaces if you give yourself a break to recover from how unbelievably overplayed it's been for the last twenty years. I'd place it behind only Vitalogy and No Code in the catalog.

While leash would probably be troubling if written today, I enjoy it as an artifact of the time and place: the sense of aggrieved solidarity, the railing against something concrete but unseen, the feeling of unformed revolutionary possibilities--the ironclad certainty that there HAS to be more than this, that while we can't find it yet someday, somehow, we will. It is all wrapped up in this hopeful hostile innocence that is still pretty charming and, in the right mood, still moving