Song of the Moment: Sirens

dimejinky99 · Post by **dimejinky99** » Thu November 14, 2013 6:23 pm

Still a fuckin great song.

harmless · Post by **harmless** » Sat November 16, 2013 8:42 pm

This song can still make me cry my eyes out when I drink.

dimejinky99 · Post by **dimejinky99** » Sat November 16, 2013 8:47 pm

And sober.

harmless · Post by **harmless** » Sat November 16, 2013 8:49 pm

Well, yeah, I thought that went without saying.

dimejinky99 · Post by **dimejinky99** » Sat November 16, 2013 8:54 pm

You say every thing else. We shouldn't have to assume anything with you. Usually don't have to.

Post by **Jorge** » Sat November 16, 2013 8:55 pm

Dime's a bit prickly today. Everything alright, chum?

dimejinky99 · Post by **dimejinky99** » Sat November 16, 2013 8:57 pm

Funny you should ask

Wine. (It's a really big metal mug)

VinylGuy · Post by **VinylGuy** » Sat November 16, 2013 9:57 pm

I love this one, the lyrics are pretty awesome.

harmless · Post by **harmless** » Sat November 16, 2013 9:59 pm

dimejinky99 wrote:Funny you should ask

Wine. (It's a really big metal mug)

That's a really big mug, man.

Birds in Hell · Post by **Birds in Hell** » Sat November 16, 2013 10:05 pm

theplatypus wrote:Dime's a bit prickly today. Everything alright, chum?

Today?

Wendy Carlos's Twin · Sun November 17, 2013 1:19 am

Birds in Hell wrote:
theplatypus wrote:Dime's a bit prickly today. Everything alright, chum?
Today?

Lack of penis.

dimejinky99 · Post by **dimejinky99** » Sun November 17, 2013 4:51 am

I thought I was being funny:)

Norah · Post by **Norah** » Sun November 17, 2013 6:12 am

still awful

harmless · Post by **harmless** » Mon November 25, 2013 10:10 pm

So I still really like this song. But the other day I had a sudden pang of sadness that it doesn't sound like the rainy-day melancholy of the EPK acoustic version. That thing (all ten seconds of it) seemed to have a real Binaural vibe to it. Could've turned out like Light Years. If only PJ chose a great producer, they could be a truly great band again. I truly believe that, based on this album.

Strat · Post by **Strat** » Mon November 25, 2013 10:19 pm

harmless wrote:So I still really like this song. But the other day I had a sudden pang of sadness that it doesn't sound like the rainy-day melancholy of the EPK acoustic version. That thing (all ten seconds of it) seemed to have a real Binaural vibe to it. Could've turned out like Light Years. If only PJ chose a great producer, they could be a truly great band again. I truly believe that, based on this album.

Fuck BOB.

Even the live/video version is light years better than the studio cut. There is a real emotion and passion that actually comes through.

Mine · Post by **Mine** » Mon November 25, 2013 10:30 pm

Strat wrote:
harmless wrote:So I still really like this song. But the other day I had a sudden pang of sadness that it doesn't sound like the rainy-day melancholy of the EPK acoustic version. That thing (all ten seconds of it) seemed to have a real Binaural vibe to it. Could've turned out like Light Years. If only PJ chose a great producer, they could be a truly great band again. I truly believe that, based on this album.

Fuck BOB.

Even the live/video version is light years better than the studio cut. There is a real emotion and passion that actually comes through.

Well fuck PJ for letting him get away with the sterilisation of their music.
Seriously though I'm not a fan of his work in the sense that i don't think his approach gives much justice to PJ and it think their music usually benefits from a more roomy and more natural sounding approach to the mixing. I don't think "production" is making or braking a song at the end of the day. If the songs beneath either production or arrangements (Mike said B'OB did the one for Sirens) are strong they will be strong regardless if they are weak no trick will make them much better especially in the long run.

harmless · Post by **harmless** » Mon November 25, 2013 10:35 pm

Mine wrote:
Strat wrote:
harmless wrote:So I still really like this song. But the other day I had a sudden pang of sadness that it doesn't sound like the rainy-day melancholy of the EPK acoustic version. That thing (all ten seconds of it) seemed to have a real Binaural vibe to it. Could've turned out like Light Years. If only PJ chose a great producer, they could be a truly great band again. I truly believe that, based on this album.

Fuck BOB.

Even the live/video version is light years better than the studio cut. There is a real emotion and passion that actually comes through.
Well fuck PJ for letting him get away with the sterilisation of their music.
Seriously though I'm not a fan of his work in the sense that i don't think his approach gives much justice to PJ and it think their music usually benefits from a more roomy and more natural sounding approach to the mixing. I don't think "production" is making or braking a song at the end of the day. If the songs beneath either production or arrangements (Mike said B'OB did the one for Sirens) are strong they will be strong regardless if they are weak no trick will make them much better especially in the long run.

I don't think most of the songs on Lightning Bolt are weak, and a few of them are very strong. But you're underestimating how much the production is actually bringing them down. You've said both "I think their music usually benefits from a more roomy and more natural sounding approach to the mixing", and "I don't think "production" is making or braking a song at the end of the day." These seem like contradictory statements to me. Sure, "production" is a slightly different thing to "mixing" (although we don't seem to be able to determine how different) but any considerations about "a more roomy and more natural sounding approach" are mostly down to BoB. It's his fault these are so shiny and sterilised, and yes, Pearl Jam's for letting him get away with it.

hlniv · Post by **hlniv** » Mon November 25, 2013 10:53 pm

I hated this song for the first 5 or 6 listens, then by listen 10 or so, I started to get it. I connected to it, and that connection was the attraction for me.

However, by now, I almost always skip the thing. There's just something that its missing, it lacks the attention grab needed for me to want to sit through it at this point. It starts, and I find myself thinking "uggh, this song is so long and boring". I just don't want to try so hard to listen to it any more.

If I had a decent recording of the audio from the video, I might be more inclined to give that version regular listens, all those extra production adds just seem to distract from the core, and ultimately just prevent me from latching on to any specific element and enjoying any part of it.

I burned a disc the other day that was a mix of S/T, Backspacer, and LB, plus a couple of other "Post Riot-Act Moneygrab" tunes. Eight songs from LB made the cut, Sirens was not one of them.

For those keeping score, I also included 6 tracks from S/T, 3 from Backspacer (plus SoS demo), and 4 others. All fit on one disc

harmless · Post by **harmless** » Mon November 25, 2013 11:20 pm

Tbf, even the live version is covered with extraneous reverb etc. The studio version isn't the ideal treatment of this song, but I actually prefer it. All of the band performances are better, for one thing. The only thing I prefer about the live version is that there's more electric guitar.

Mine · Post by **Mine** » Tue November 26, 2013 5:08 pm

harmless wrote:
Mine wrote:
Strat wrote:
harmless wrote:So I still really like this song. But the other day I had a sudden pang of sadness that it doesn't sound like the rainy-day melancholy of the EPK acoustic version. That thing (all ten seconds of it) seemed to have a real Binaural vibe to it. Could've turned out like Light Years. If only PJ chose a great producer, they could be a truly great band again. I truly believe that, based on this album.

Fuck BOB.

Even the live/video version is light years better than the studio cut. There is a real emotion and passion that actually comes through.
Well fuck PJ for letting him get away with the sterilisation of their music.
Seriously though I'm not a fan of his work in the sense that i don't think his approach gives much justice to PJ and it think their music usually benefits from a more roomy and more natural sounding approach to the mixing. I don't think "production" is making or braking a song at the end of the day. If the songs beneath either production or arrangements (Mike said B'OB did the one for Sirens) are strong they will be strong regardless if they are weak no trick will make them much better especially in the long run.
I don't think most of the songs on Lightning Bolt are weak, and a few of them are very strong. But you're underestimating how much the production is actually bringing them down. You've said both "I think their music usually benefits from a more roomy and more natural sounding approach to the mixing", and "I don't think "production" is making or braking a song at the end of the day." These seem like contradictory statements to me. Sure, "production" is a slightly different thing to "mixing" (although we don't seem to be able to determine how different) but any considerations about "a more roomy and more natural sounding approach" are mostly down to BoB. It's his fault these are so shiny and sterilised, and yes, Pearl Jam's for letting him get away with it.

Nowadays there is overlap even between production/mixing and performances (vocals aren't the only part to be potentially heavily edited) let alone everything else in between. I was thinking how in the 60's most acts did covers and wrote original songs on regular basis and you'd have the same song interpreted by many very talented people in a very short period of time and i don't think it was common to think production or a guitar part had much to do with how strong a song is - a version of a song yes. I think a lot of skills got lost up to the present day. The fact that everybody who can come up with a riff or throw a bunch of chords in a row is a genius songwriter and that technology made producing a song ridiculously easy regardless of the results both created damage in terms of appreciation of actual skills and talents and consequentially standards are really low.
I think a good song is how the melody, chord progression, rhythm, lyrics, all to varying degrees, work/interact together. I think if a song is strong it's going to be strong even in a very primitive form and it's going to stay strong despite certain elements that don't give it justice.
I think that when most of the talk is reduced to production effects and guitar tones and parts it means that there isn't much less to talk about in the sense that in a way the listener needs this relatively superficial elements to elevate a song to above decent level. I don't mean that there's anything wrong in debating about any of that.
I wouldn't be surprised if in a couple of years some people will consider a way of using some effect on either a guitar or anything else (strong) songwriting. for what i know this may even already be happening in certain styles of music.

Back to Pearl Jam i don't think they're immune to this whole thing. I think each of them has different skills and i wish they worked them in the writing dynamics of their albums instead of ego-fighting over who can write better songs for most of their career. Stone for instance seems to have understood that. I think he really knows how to give most of their songs justice and i think he's better at this than at song writing per se.

Red Mosquito

Song of the Moment: Sirens

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