harmless wrote:Matt is no way over-drumming TMW compared to every single ballad that came after Riot Act.
A: It's a very stark song so its easier to notice here than on some of the other songs, or more distracting
B: I think something like just breathe is the right mix
C: even if you are correct that doesn't change the fact that he's overdrumming (or mixed too loud or whatever--I guess those are different things). it just means that it gets worse
Get Right: It took me years to get over the face that I think these lyrics are horrid, but once I did this actually turned into a really fun song, somewhere between 4-7 on the album for me. It's a bounce in your seat kinda song, Eddie's low vocals fit well in the foggy headache haze of the song. Jeff is great. I love the handclaps in the chorus. I like the slashing guitars that are contrasting the main riff in the second verse.
Pretty good song, but it's a good example of Mike kinda just wanking along without really going anywhere emotional (although where is he gonna go in a song like this).
After Ten this is quite possibly Mike's best album I wonder what he was on for this one.
Good outro--I like the outro soloing more than the solo solo.
I'm really glad I lightened up to this and who you are over the years.
Green Disease: I love the chorus in this song, which is catchy as fuck, and pretty much dislike every other part of it. Eddie sounds desperate, but not in a good way--like a whiny kind of pleading. The subject matter deserves more gravity and less youthful 'this isn't fairness'. Even many of the accents (keyboards?) sound like they're whining.
It's a fast song, but not an interesting one, musically.
Such a great vocal melody in that chorus, and I love how the guitars keep dropping down, like the floor is giving out underneath you.
G-R-E-E-D is possibly not the most insipid moment on this album only because there may be something worse in LBC. Probably not though.
Help Help: I think how much you love Riot Act seems to often turn on how much you like Help Help and Cropduster (the 'weird' songs). I like Cropduster quite a bit. Not a fan of help help. The lyrics are not an interesting take on an interesting subject matter. The music is good, but I don't like the weird thing Eddie's doing with his voice. I get that the disjointed sound is meant to mirror the feelings of the singer, but I don't like how it sounds.
There are some really good jams in here, and a lot of cool busy stuff happening in the chorus. The outro is also pretty strong (musically). I actually wish this was all a bit louder/clearer in the mix.
Good bridge, too.
I am one of those people who don't think Riot Act is better live. This is one of the few songs on it that I think is definitely better live--probably because the music gets its due.
harmless wrote:Matt is no way over-drumming TMW compared to every single ballad that came after Riot Act.
I agree, TMW contains some of his most subdued and understated drumming with PJ. I think Stip has a special set of ears, and those ears are made of butts.
Anders wrote:I do not have a «neoliberal assessment of geopolitics», so please stop writing that I do.
Bu$hleauger: Strong riff (the whinny guitar actually reminds me a bit of the start of FoN, but it's better here) and a good chorus (but not a great one). The transition music is also pretty strong--gentle and inviting, but you know its luring you into a van you really shouldn't be getting into.
Two big problems
1. These are terrible lyrics given the subject. The lines mostly aren't clever--either petulant, or hopelessly obtuse.
2. Eddie kinda sucks at spoken word. He's a singer, not a reader. His voice is not used to its best effect in dialogue. If nothing else, the seething disdain that you know he has is totally lost, and it would have really helped these lyrics. this is another one that I think IS better live, mostly because Eddie's contempt shines.
Not a big fan of the outro. We just kinda had the dark confusion in help help, where it was done better, and given how important the target is, drifting off into a bewildered helplessness is disappointing.
Actually, I may owe matt an apology, he does sound pretty good. I think a lot of what i didn't like are guitar flourishes that for some reason I'm associating with the drums. Plus the song is so stark that each hit sounds louder than it probably is.
I hardly think this is a command performance, but it's not as bad as I had just said.
Okay back to 1/2 full: Bracketing the fact that this is a Red Mosquito clone (there are no two songs in the catalog I associate more closely), this is for some reason, a boring song. I'm okay with the lyrics. Eddie sounds a bit more engaged than he does on most of the album (almost growling out some of the extended phrases). I like the starts and stops. Everyone is playing their ass off. But it's all kind of uninteresting. I hope someone else LALing to this explains why. Breakerfall has the same problem for me, but I kinda feel like I understand the problem with breakerfall. This is another song that sounds like it was specifically written to be a song I'd love, and I just don't care much about it.
I do like the 'won't someone save the world' lyric, especially as the song's final full thought.
Yeah, everything is kinda boring--the soloing, even the breakdown, which is normally the kind of stuff I'm excited for. Weird...
Live it really comes into its own. Actually the three songs that I think are really improved live are all right next to each other.
stip wrote:Actually, I may owe matt an apology, he does sound pretty good. I think a lot of what i didn't like are guitar flourishes that for some reason I'm associating with the drums. Plus the song is so stark that each hit sounds louder than it probably is.
I hardly think this is a command performance, but it's not as bad as I had just said.
There are also some shakers and tambourine in there, which may make him sound busier than he really is. I think it's a nice, quiet performance.
Anders wrote:I do not have a «neoliberal assessment of geopolitics», so please stop writing that I do.
Arc: The idea of this song is really nice. But even more than 1/2 Full this should be a song I adore and don't really care that much for. If you had told me a minute of Eddie layering wordless vocalizations over each other would be filler I would have called you a liar. But you weren't lying, so I owe you an apology. Maybe it's the particular parts of his range that he's exploring here. Still, just kinda there.
I like The Wolf from Into the Wild a lot. So it's something about Arc.
stip wrote:Actually, I may owe matt an apology, he does sound pretty good. I think a lot of what i didn't like are guitar flourishes that for some reason I'm associating with the drums. Plus the song is so stark that each hit sounds louder than it probably is.
I hardly think this is a command performance, but it's not as bad as I had just said.
There are also some shakers and tambourine in there, which may make him sound busier than he really is. I think it's a nice, quiet performance.
could be. Next time I happen to listen to the chop suey version I'll pay attention to matt. I do recall thinking, from the moment I first heard this song, that it was too busy.
All or None: The third song in a row that I should like more than I do. I don't like how the guitar sounds, but the harsh loneliness does make sense (I guess i just don't like it when acoustic guitars sound like this). The deep cold warmth of the rest of the song really pulls you in, and Eddie's vocals fit it really well. And mike has some great playing here, although it kinda feels out of place. NAIS has the similar 'emotional solo coming out of dead spaces' feel to it, but that one works really well. Here it feels almost a bit artificial to me, like it is reflecting some thoughts the singer knows he is supposed to have, but doesn't.
Maybe some of that is fatigue. Riot Act is a long listen, and a string of underperforming songs makes it harder to get into something like this. It may also just be that its hard to really empathize with a guy singing a song about how he's basically giving up, after a whole record of that message. Indifference is something of a similar song, and its one of my favorites. Indifference probably benefits from the fighting spirit of the rest of vs. Plus it's prettier and Eddie's vocals are at the top of his game.
It's fascinating how differently people can hear things; Mike's 'All or None' solo is, without question in my mind, the best solo he ever played on record.
Three songs that I think are excellent (Can't Keep, Save You, and I am Mine)
Three songs that I think are good (Cropduster, Ghost, and Get Right)
and that's it. On an album of 15 songs that's not very much, and Riot Act has fewer high spots than any other pearl jam album for me. Even the three good songs are not good enough to do the heavy lifting they have to do for my listen.
The rest of the album is full of songs that Eddie lets down (LBC/You Are), songs that I should like more than I do (1/2 Full, Arc, All or None), some songs that come close to connecting but fail (Help Help, Thumbing My Way, You Are), and songs I just flat out don't like (Green Disease and Bushleaguer).
I liked Riot Act a lot when it came out, and I still like it, and maybe some of this is just the fact that Riot Act was one of two times I NEEDED pearl jam to make a certain type of record, and they didn't. It's also one of only two times I felt let down by an album of theirs (No Code was the other, but that's basically because it didn't match the what turned out to be unmatchable quality of the first 3). So this probably colors my listen. But still, it is what it is.
digster wrote:It's fascinating how differently people can hear things; Mike's 'All or None' solo is, without question in my mind, the best solo he ever played on record.
I don't think I have a problem with his solo. I have a problem with the song its coming out of, which does take away from the experience of the solo
bada wrote:First time I heard You Are I was actually pissed. I thought it was the dumbest song I ever heard and a complete waste of space. I was wrong.
Okay, listened to the chop suey TMW. Besides really preferring Eddie's vocals on that one, I think my big issue with Matt is that there occasionally this pretty sharp note he plays that draws a bit too much attention to itself, to the point that I do find it distracting--like someone is poking you while you're trying to pay attention.
I have no idea why this bothers me, or what it is about this song that does it. But I've always felt that way.
