Lets Actually Listen to the Album: Ten

[spike]

somebody arrange for eddie to have dinner with dylan and we'll be all set.

"all the money you've made will never buy back your soul, wheeeeeeeeeeoooo!"

[stip]

I lets actually listened to this again on my way to work, and while not my favorite, Ten might just be the best rock album of all time. It does almost everything beyond perfect.

[Norah]

Oh shut up.

[Mine]

Oh shut up.

Well it is trying to be every one of the best rock albums released at that point.

[stip]

Oh shut up.

no one who lets actually listened to that album would tell me to shut up

[Lament]

Ten might just be the best rock album of all time.

Purely out of curiosity, what other albums do you think also might be?

[Jorge]

He's gonna say Born to Run and Achtung Baby.

[Lament]

I was thinking he would say The Joshua Tree instead of Achtung Baby, but I couldn't think of anything else I thought he'd propose besides that.

Actually, he will probably say Vitalogy too.

[stip]

I think Born to Run might be the perfect rock song. I'm actually not all that in love with the album as a whole--with a few exceptions Springsteen is a singles guy for me.

And I do prefer Achtung Baby.


I'm not sure what else i'd say. I like Vitalogy and Automatic for the People more, and there are certainly many spectacular albums out there, but I'm not sure any of them really drill down to the essence of rock music as a cathartic and instinctive recognition/defense/celebration of the self the way Ten does. All those other albums feel calculated in a way that Ten doesn't, including the ones I prefer.

[Norah]

Why does primal and uncalculated mean best?

[stip]

Because I think that is rock music at its purest

[hlniv]

Apparently this thread has moved on to "comment on stip's opinion of TEN".

As I type this sitting in Denver airport, I vow to Let's Actually Listen to TEN sometime in the next 48 hrs. Could actually be tonight, though, as I am anxious to sample the small sack of goodies I have stuffed into my deodorant, acquired during this trip to the mountain's doorstep.

[hlniv]

That's a real unique album intro, actually. How many other tunes have they recorded that sound anything like this?

Once upon a time. Vocals are a little overdone. These guitars fawkin rawk

Even Flow just feels real slow here. More idiotic vocal effects. Keep the background vocals in the chorus, though. I really kinda like 'em on the original mix. "Fuck it up". Drags at the end. Horrible recording of this song. The Dave A version kills it.

Alive was the song that got me into listening to these dickheads in the first place. Damnit, it hooked me. It still can be completely enveloping if you let it. Stone could easily today write this shit if he wanted to, he nails it here. This solo might be the one of the most perfectly executed and recorded in the history of rock and roll.

Easy to forget how dark Why Go really is. Jeff's groove is perfect with Krusen's rythm. Krusen might actually be the star here..... Wait... no it's Jeff. He's the star. He is such a star. His name should be exploding neon lights everywhere.

The keys are such a critical part of Black. BoB sure as hell mixed right up in his remix, too. He's like "more keyboard, wankers". It's a little distracting here, man. The last half of this song is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard. Still is. The guitar work coming out of the "why can't it be mine" section, all the way through the outro. Classic fade out. Wonder if they ever tried to quiet it down at the end and close it like they do now when they were recording.

Not many third person narratives coming out of Ed these days that are this powerful. Probably won't ever will be. This is what 74% of America thinks of when they hear the name Eddie Vedder.

You could make a case that this song was their first experiment that they recorded, before No Code or Binaural or Elderly Woman blah blah. Much different than the rest of the album. Great transition piece into Porch. They need to figure out a way to connect these songs and open shows with it. Or close with it, either way.

For all this talk about Matt Cameron speeding up songs, they actually play Porch this pretty fast on the record. Love the way Stone sounds in this BoB mix. This is a pretty damn good fuckin Album: TEN

The first 8 tracks are pretty damn good, would be flawless just about except for the Even Flow debacle.

Garden is just a stunted type of song. Never really goes anywhere that matters. It's not unenjoyable. It least there's that fact. Stone gets a couple interesting parts going and then just stops both times.

They should play Deep more now that I hear it in its proper place. They should really start extending out that quiet verse and spacing it out a little, before kicking it back in. This track suffers from some lack of creativity in the overly long outro.

Release automatically grabs you. It doesn't much let go, either. Where it takes me!! Just ride the wave.

The extended album outro is really way out of place, not sure what I feel at the end of that thing. Makes you forget what you just heard a little.

It does make playing the whole album on repeat a little bit of a continous loop cycle. That's cool I guess.

All in all, certainly a classic album, a great one. But probably only my 3rd or 4th top PJ album.

[Lament]

Do you think when Ed sings Once and gets to the part where the protagonist has a sixteen gauge buried under his clothes he almost wishes that (more) bad things will happen to the guy?

[Jorge]

Because I think that is rock music at its purest

"Why does purest mean best"

etc etc etc

[Birds in Hell]

Why does primal and uncalculated mean best?

Because I think that is rock music at its purest

I think there's an argument to be made there but it certainly isn't for Pearl Jam's Ten.

I mean, y'know:

[Lament]

[stip]

Do you think when Ed sings Once and gets to the part where the protagonist has a sixteen gauge buried under his clothes he almost wishes that (more) bad things will happen to the guy?

if he rewrote once today do you think he'd have a throwing axe buried under his clothes instead?

[stip]

Because I think that is rock music at its purest

"Why does purest mean best"

etc etc etc

Because if someone is going to use a phrase like best there have to be some criteria that inform it. Purest is one of the ones I'm using--coming closer to what I see as the essence of the thing.

I mean, y'know:

Not as good.

Not yet fully developed (I say only knowing chuck berry's hits)

[stip]

That's a real unique album intro, actually. How many other tunes have they recorded that sound anything like this?

Once upon a time. Vocals are a little overdone. These guitars fawkin rawk

Even Flow just feels real slow here. More idiotic vocal effects. Keep the background vocals in the chorus, though. I really kinda like 'em on the original mix. "Fuck it up". Drags at the end. Horrible recording of this song. The Dave A version kills it.

Alive was the song that got me into listening to these dickheads in the first place. Damnit, it hooked me. It still can be completely enveloping if you let it. Stone could easily today write this shit if he wanted to, he nails it here. This solo might be the one of the most perfectly executed and recorded in the history of rock and roll.

Easy to forget how dark Why Go really is. Jeff's groove is perfect with Krusen's rythm. Krusen might actually be the star here..... Wait... no it's Jeff. He's the star. He is such a star. His name should be exploding neon lights everywhere.

The keys are such a critical part of Black. BoB sure as hell mixed right up in his remix, too. He's like "more keyboard, wankers". It's a little distracting here, man. The last half of this song is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard. Still is. The guitar work coming out of the "why can't it be mine" section, all the way through the outro. Classic fade out. Wonder if they ever tried to quiet it down at the end and close it like they do now when they were recording.

Not many third person narratives coming out of Ed these days that are this powerful. Probably won't ever will be. This is what 74% of America thinks of when they hear the name Eddie Vedder.

You could make a case that this song was their first experiment that they recorded, before No Code or Binaural or Elderly Woman blah blah. Much different than the rest of the album. Great transition piece into Porch. They need to figure out a way to connect these songs and open shows with it. Or close with it, either way.

For all this talk about Matt Cameron speeding up songs, they actually play Porch this pretty fast on the record. Love the way Stone sounds in this BoB mix. This is a pretty damn good fuckin Album: TEN

The first 8 tracks are pretty damn good, would be flawless just about except for the Even Flow debacle.

Garden is just a stunted type of song. Never really goes anywhere that matters. It's not unenjoyable. It least there's that fact. Stone gets a couple interesting parts going and then just stops both times.

They should play Deep more now that I hear it in its proper place. They should really start extending out that quiet verse and spacing it out a little, before kicking it back in. This track suffers from some lack of creativity in the overly long outro.

Release automatically grabs you. It doesn't much let go, either. Where it takes me!! Just ride the wave.

The extended album outro is really way out of place, not sure what I feel at the end of that thing. Makes you forget what you just heard a little.

It does make playing the whole album on repeat a little bit of a continous loop cycle. That's cool I guess.

All in all, certainly a classic album, a great one. But probably only my 3rd or 4th top PJ album.

I go back and forth on which even flow I like better. In some ways I think this version is the best of both worlds.