RANK THE ALBUMS

[WaitingForBluey]

Very interesting stuff McP... I'd probably move some stuff around though. S/T still feels like it belongs closer to the bottom left corner. I'd definitely swap LB and Backspacer too. Getaway & MYM both give LB more of a "need to say" vibe compared to anything on BS, which picks no fights with anyone. And Ten doesn't really feel that much more "reactive" than Vitalogy, so I'd probably slide Ten up the y-axis a bit and Vitalogy down. But where I agree completely is on the placement of No Code through Riot Act. And yes, it is very interesting to see them clustered together since that's my favorite stretch of their catalog.

[McParadigm]

Very interesting stuff McP... I'd probably move some stuff around though. S/T still feels like it belongs closer to the bottom left corner. I'd definitely swap LB and Backspacer too. Getaway & MYM both give LB more of a "need to say" vibe compared to anything on BS, which picks no fights with anyone. And Ten doesn't really feel that much more "reactive" than Vitalogy, so I'd probably slide Ten up the y-axis a bit and Vitalogy down. But where I agree completely is on the placement of No Code through Riot Act. And yes, it is very interesting to see them clustered together since that's my favorite stretch of their catalog.

I couldn't disagree more about S/T.

It definitely wanted to have the same gut-punch response that Vs had, and it picked its performance and sonic qualities on that desire, but that aching want for cleverness really undercut the effort. That's the entirety of why that album doesn't work for me. The lyrics on the record, frankly, aren't terrible (other than Inside Job). Some of them are great (but not Inside Job). They just don't play to what this band does best, or what Ed does best...which is to get to the heart of the FEELING, the purely emotional experience of the matter (ironically what Inside Job was probably birthed to do).

Just looking at the first two tracks, Life Wasted is purely pensive in its subject matter, and WWS is reflecting on the situation instead of wrapping itself in how it feels.

No, that's not quite right. WWS feels like a political speech that draws an empathetic character story in order to give a geopolitical argument a human underscore. Like a senator bringing an old woman on stage to tell her story. Musically, however, both work very hard to place that gut-response fire underneath their feet, and the result is weirdly detached. Or, taken as a collection, it begins to feel vaguely disingenuous, which is the antithesis of how it's being sourced and experienced by the band.

Comatose is even stranger, because musically it just goes for it, and there are a couple of lyrics that really punch through, but the lyrics are packed with this great need to sound super-duper smart. It even opens with what feels like detached comparison...like an academic presenting a hypothetical in order to illustrate a point.

So instead of the gripping, yearning simplicity of someone pleading "Oh, please, don't go on me" like it really, really matters to them, we have the carefully controlled grizzle of "consider me an object. Put me in a vacuum." Huh.

For the record, I actually really like that lyric as a lyric. A lot of the choices made in making this record were good in isolation. My point is that they were so separate from each other in intent that they damaged each other on the output side. The humanism feels distant and the analysis feels emotionally corrupt. I end up with very powerful sounding songs that don't actually have any power over me whatsoever. That's why I'm drawing the comparison to Vs, where all of the decisions (such that they are) served the greater end result, rather than serving their own individual aims.

So then Comatose reaches the chorus, and where on Vs the simplest and most potent statements grab you by the throat, here we have that effort again mutilated by....what? An attempt to make a point? A need to be clever? Laziness? I don't know. I don't know why "feel it rising...next stop falling," gets put in there. I don't know why we get "I'll break the law if it's illegal to be in love," either. It's just more distanced reflection on a feeling, like a songwriter's exercise rather than immersion within an important moment. A lot of people, especially those who prefer story or familiarly-structured lyrics, seem to dislike the almost editless free-form qualities of some of Jeff's lyrics. To me, a song like Pilate does exactly what Comatose wanted to do...it uses abstraction to hit the exact heart of a feeling. That delicate music, soft and meditative, and the first thing we're offered is "Talk of circles, and punching out." I could chew on a line like that for days. Both halves of that equation have connotations that we're all familiar with, and that don't need to be explained to us in order to work. On one side we have repetition, hollowness, completion, endlessness, and continuance. On the other, we have the idea of willfully ending a thing...of quitting. Of surrender. And then, to top it all off, you have the fact that we're TALKING about these things, and not actually acting on them. And he doesn't revoke the unexplained explanation by dropping a prechewed line like "I'll not lose my faith," "you'll see dragons after three or four, I was all like 'yeah bro!'" or "Feel it rising, next stop falling."

What I do know about Comatose is that about half of what the rest of the song is trying to say gets rammed into your guts, and quite well thank you, by the line "blood on all the pistons running my transmission." That works. It belongs in THIS song. And it's even a little clever. So maybe stop trying to be so quick-witted on the rest of the track and see where that takes you.

Or, just change the designs of your musical contributions to better fit what's being said. That would work, too. Personally, I always liked that Marker opted for swagger (there's a real Stones-like sway to some sections of the record, including parts of WWS, that I really like). I also like that Army Reserve went with a too-claustrophobic-to-be-spacey kind of gauzed numbness, where it almost felt like something unseen is fighting back against any forward momentum. The former track ends up getting a real "hand-waving preacher" kind of vibe to it, and the latter feels like walking in a fog. I thought, for what those two songs were trying to do, those musical choices worked well. So did the weird blurry vision excitement of Severed Hand, although the only part of that song I really care for is the Binauralesque bridge. Which is super reflective, by the way. On the other side of that, Gone tries to force its catharsis to embarrassing effect, and Unemployable makes the Springsteeny mistakes of confusing descriptive detail for experiential soul, and not being cognizant enough to avoid feeling weirdly condescending, in places.

Basically, S/T ends up in the middle for exactly the reason it failed: half of its intentions belong at the very bottom of the chart, and half belong at the very top. They want to win you over on both high intellect and visceral, mindless emotion...and they don't accomplish anything, as a result.

As for LP and 'spacer...like I said, LB feels to me like a lot of well constructed songs about things that happen to be on Ed's mind right now. Manners has heat and heart, but I guess I don't really feel like it was bursting out of him to say it. It's just a topic he can tap into whenever he needs to fill up an angry sounding backing track. Backspacer I just gave a tiny little bump on that part of the spectrum, because the acoustic tracks do seem to have been born out of a need to communicate thanks to an experienced fear or concern (I still assume they're "Cigarette Song I and II"). That doesn't make it a more valid album, or better, and anyway the two albums are close enough that it doesn't mean much to nudge them either way....it's just an assumption I personally am making about those songs.

[Mine]

A lot of the choices made in making this record were good in isolation. My point is that they were so separate from each other in intent that they damaged each other on the output side.

Or, just change the designs of your musical contributions to better fit what's being said. That would work, too.

I agree with this. This is my biggest problem with the side of Pearl Jam i don't like and the last 3 records suffer from this a lot.
It's not surprising to me that you would pick this up. I've listened to some of your music and i really appreciated that this is an issue your music doesn't have. Your use of "unorthodox" elements is something you can get away with brilliantly because a)the songs are strong at their core b)those choices work together and aren't merely something unusual to gain attention but create a soundscape that, put simply, works for the songs.

[stip]

WWS feels like a political speech that draws an empathetic character story in order to give a geopolitical argument a human underscore. Like a senator bringing an old woman on stage to tell her story.

this is an excellent description. The song works for me in part because I was already converted, and many of these songs are applause lines for a sympathetic audience. Very little is explored on S/T.

But I think that's mostly okay on this record. Sometimes you just want to shout alongside the faithful, not try and win new converts. There are definitely places (like Unemployable) where it doesn't work because they're trying to do both

[McParadigm]

It's not surprising to me that you would pick this up. I've listened to some of your music and i really appreciated that this is an issue your music doesn't have. Your use of "unorthodox" elements is something you can get away with brilliantly because a)the songs are strong at their core b)those choices work together and aren't merely something unusual to gain attention but create a soundscape that, put simply, works for the songs.

Thank you. I consider this to be a generous compliment, but I deeply, deeply appreciate it.

[CopperTom]

1. Vitalogy
2. Ten
3. Vs.
4. Yield
5. Riot Act
6. No Code
7. Lightning Bolt
8. Binaural
9. Avacado
10. Backspacer

[stip]

that's the correct top 3.

[stip]

Very interesting stuff McP... I'd probably move some stuff around though. S/T still feels like it belongs closer to the bottom left corner. I'd definitely swap LB and Backspacer too. Getaway & MYM both give LB more of a "need to say" vibe compared to anything on BS, which picks no fights with anyone. And Ten doesn't really feel that much more "reactive" than Vitalogy, so I'd probably slide Ten up the y-axis a bit and Vitalogy down. But where I agree completely is on the placement of No Code through Riot Act. And yes, it is very interesting to see them clustered together since that's my favorite stretch of their catalog.

I couldn't disagree more about S/T.

It definitely wanted to have the same gut-punch response that Vs had, and it picked its performance and sonic qualities on that desire, but that aching want for cleverness really undercut the effort. That's the entirety of why that album doesn't work for me. The lyrics on the record, frankly, aren't terrible (other than Inside Job). Some of them are great (but not Inside Job). They just don't play to what this band does best, or what Ed does best...which is to get to the heart of the FEELING, the purely emotional experience of the matter (ironically what Inside Job was probably birthed to do).

Just looking at the first two tracks, Life Wasted is purely pensive in its subject matter, and WWS is reflecting on the situation instead of wrapping itself in how it feels.

No, that's not quite right. WWS feels like a political speech that draws an empathetic character story in order to give a geopolitical argument a human underscore. Like a senator bringing an old woman on stage to tell her story. Musically, however, both work very hard to place that gut-response fire underneath their feet, and the result is weirdly detached. Or, taken as a collection, it begins to feel vaguely disingenuous, which is the antithesis of how it's being sourced and experienced by the band.

Comatose is even stranger, because musically it just goes for it, and there are a couple of lyrics that really punch through, but the lyrics are packed with this great need to sound super-duper smart. It even opens with what feels like detached comparison...like an academic presenting a hypothetical in order to illustrate a point.

So instead of the gripping, yearning simplicity of someone pleading "Oh, please, don't go on me" like it really, really matters to them, we have the carefully controlled grizzle of "consider me an object. Put me in a vacuum." Huh.

For the record, I actually really like that lyric as a lyric. A lot of the choices made in making this record were good in isolation. My point is that they were so separate from each other in intent that they damaged each other on the output side. The humanism feels distant and the analysis feels emotionally corrupt. I end up with very powerful sounding songs that don't actually have any power over me whatsoever. That's why I'm drawing the comparison to Vs, where all of the decisions (such that they are) served the greater end result, rather than serving their own individual aims.

So then Comatose reaches the chorus, and where on Vs the simplest and most potent statements grab you by the throat, here we have that effort again mutilated by....what? An attempt to make a point? A need to be clever? Laziness? I don't know. I don't know why "feel it rising...next stop falling," gets put in there. I don't know why we get "I'll break the law if it's illegal to be in love," either. It's just more distanced reflection on a feeling, like a songwriter's exercise rather than immersion within an important moment. A lot of people, especially those who prefer story or familiarly-structured lyrics, seem to dislike the almost editless free-form qualities of some of Jeff's lyrics. To me, a song like Pilate does exactly what Comatose wanted to do...it uses abstraction to hit the exact heart of a feeling. That delicate music, soft and meditative, and the first thing we're offered is "Talk of circles, and punching out." I could chew on a line like that for days. Both halves of that equation have connotations that we're all familiar with, and that don't need to be explained to us in order to work. On one side we have repetition, hollowness, completion, endlessness, and continuance. On the other, we have the idea of willfully ending a thing...of quitting. Of surrender. And then, to top it all off, you have the fact that we're TALKING about these things, and not actually acting on them. And he doesn't revoke the unexplained explanation by dropping a prechewed line like "I'll not lose my faith," "you'll see dragons after three or four, I was all like 'yeah bro!'" or "Feel it rising, next stop falling."

What I do know about Comatose is that about half of what the rest of the song is trying to say gets rammed into your guts, and quite well thank you, by the line "blood on all the pistons running my transmission." That works. It belongs in THIS song. And it's even a little clever. So maybe stop trying to be so quick-witted on the rest of the track and see where that takes you.

Or, just change the designs of your musical contributions to better fit what's being said. That would work, too. Personally, I always liked that Marker opted for swagger (there's a real Stones-like sway to some sections of the record, including parts of WWS, that I really like). I also like that Army Reserve went with a too-claustrophobic-to-be-spacey kind of gauzed numbness, where it almost felt like something unseen is fighting back against any forward momentum. The former track ends up getting a real "hand-waving preacher" kind of vibe to it, and the latter feels like walking in a fog. I thought, for what those two songs were trying to do, those musical choices worked well. So did the weird blurry vision excitement of Severed Hand, although the only part of that song I really care for is the Binauralesque bridge. Which is super reflective, by the way. On the other side of that, Gone tries to force its catharsis to embarrassing effect, and Unemployable makes the Springsteeny mistakes of confusing descriptive detail for experiential soul, and not being cognizant enough to avoid feeling weirdly condescending, in places.

Basically, S/T ends up in the middle for exactly the reason it failed: half of its intentions belong at the very bottom of the chart, and half belong at the very top. They want to win you over on both high intellect and visceral, mindless emotion...and they don't accomplish anything, as a result.

As for LP and 'spacer...like I said, LB feels to me like a lot of well constructed songs about things that happen to be on Ed's mind right now. Manners has heat and heart, but I guess I don't really feel like it was bursting out of him to say it. It's just a topic he can tap into whenever he needs to fill up an angry sounding backing track. Backspacer I just gave a tiny little bump on that part of the spectrum, because the acoustic tracks do seem to have been born out of a need to communicate thanks to an experienced fear or concern (I still assume they're "Cigarette Song I and II"). That doesn't make it a more valid album, or better, and anyway the two albums are close enough that it doesn't mean much to nudge them either way....it's just an assumption I personally am making about those songs.

Now that I'm home, this deserves more of a response.

I'm not so sure that S/T is trying to be clever in the way that I think you mean it here (which is a critique that's better leveled at a song like Bu$hleaguer). you're right in that they want to be emotional--the cathartic release that Riot Act wasn't and couldn't. But it is also a response to Riot Act insofar as it also seeks to understand and explain. Riot Act was too bewildered and just a bit too lost to understand the world around it. At best it was strong enough to live through it. S/T wants to describe and even analyze precisely what is happening in the world around it. And it tries to make this personal by paralleling it to an internal set of stories that attempt to describe an internal reflection of an external phenomena. In that respect it's one of the more ambitious Pearl Jam records in terms of what it is trying to do.

Having said that, I agree that this is not something that necessarily plays to the bands strengths, which are experiential much more than they are descriptive. Pearl Jam is not that great at describing why you feel the way you do. They are vastly better at feeling it with you. And there are more than a few songs here that fail to bridge that gap. But the best songs do, pretty effectively, I think. That pull and push create an interesting dynamic, and Eddie's unhinged vocals really do a great job at linking the experiential release and abandon in the music and the attempt to think it through in the verses.

Also, you are totally right about the condescension in Unemployable. But if you're gonna chew over 'talk of circles/and punching out' you need to give the lyric 'see it rising/next stop falling' a bit more time--especially since this is actually a lyrical theme that shows up several times throughout the album. Then again, I think Comatose is one of the most lyrically efficient moments in the entire catalog.

[Tj]

Vitalogy
No Code
Backspacer
Yield
Binaural
Vs
Lightning Bolt
Ten
Riot Act
S/t

[stip]

nice number 3

[chinofstone]

Binaural
Vitalogy

The others in some order

Riot Act

S/T

[elliseamos]

Vitalogy
No Code
Vs
Yield
Ten
Binaural
Riot Act
Lightning Bolt
S/T
Backspacer

[LetMeSleep]

Vitalogy
Vs
Yield
Ten
No Code
ST
Binaural
Riot Act
Backspacer
LB

[Alex]

inspired by mcp's exegesis of late-era pearl jam, i'm going to post a 1,000-word thinkpiece on the flavor of white rice in the food and dining forum

[McParadigm]

I like to think of them more as corrective explanations for the wayward masses than as "thinkpieces," Alex.

[BurtReynolds]

Thinkpiece would be a good band name or song title.

[BurtReynolds]

Or Thinkpeace, if your band sucks.

[Alex]

how about "wanksplanations"?

[BurtReynolds]

Mansplaner

[Alex]

i just need to stop talking about how boring pearl jam is now. it's not good for me or anyone else.