What is Each Album's Major Flaw?: Backspacer

[stip]

So here we have the album that RM has spent 5 years and one out of every three posts complaining about, but no one has anything to actually say?

[Heathen]

So here we have the album that RM has spent 5 years and one out of every three posts complaining about, but no one has anything to actually say?

To be clear, you're complaining about people NOT rehashing the things they've already said countless times in these countless other threads in which you complained about people rehashing these things?

[stip]

it's a crazy old world

[stip]

also, my second biggest complaint about backspacer complaining (after its ubiquity) is the fact that most of it just isn't very interesting.

[McParadigm]

I think the "needed a quick follow-up" line nails it. It's a fun record, and it wants to do its own thing. So there's a personality there. It's energetic, and punchy, and could have marked the first steps in a creative rebirth. But it just stands out there, all by its lonesome. I want to fight to get it back again (takes three years off).

I think there are a lot of good records out there that get a perceived elevated status because of how they are placed within an artist's creative storyline. Similarly, I think there are pretty good albums out there that get forgotten, or are just rarely mentioned, for the opposite reason...they're isolated. There's no story to tell. They aren't a part of any adventure.

Backspacer would have been a great little decoration at the party, and would even have stood out a bit, because it's so thoroughly unlike anything else in the catalog. But placed out in the open, it just looks small and trite.

[Heathen]

A quick followup that also happened to be great would have made it easier to forget and to forgive how awful the BS songs are. But if the followup is something even worse like LB, quick or not doesn't matter. Either way the fact that it "needs" to be replaced quickly by something else speaks volume to how good this album really is.

[bada]

also, my second biggest complaint about backspacer complaining (after its ubiquity) is the fact that most of it just isn't very interesting.

You can say "Tolkien is a bad writer" or "DC characters are boring" and leave it at that but if someone says "Backspacer sucks" it needs to be backed up with a 5 page paper for Professor Stip to grade.

[stip]

If you would like me to elaborate again you need only ask

[stip]

Also I think superman is boring. I like batman

[bada]

It's OK Bilbo is Batman was insightful enough.

[stip]

Then what are you complaining about?

[bada]

Our rights to say Backspacer sucks!!!!!!!! I don't want to put more thought into why it sucks than they put into writing the sucky songs. Uh huh.

[stip]

In a thread specifically devoted to unpacking what about it may suck it'd be nice to see people try just a little bit is all.

[bada]

Maybe more interesting thread topics are needed at this point. We've discussed this one enough. There's nothing new to be learned.

[Jorge]

Maybe more interesting thread topics are needed at this point. We've discussed this one enough. There's nothing new to be learned.

Who's your favorite PJ drummer?

[Heathen]

In a thread specifically devoted to unpacking what about it may suck it'd be nice to see people try just a little bit is all.

It's like punching someone who's begging you to punch him, it's just not as fun.

[bada]

Maybe more interesting thread topics are needed at this point. We've discussed this one enough. There's nothing new to be learned.

Who's your favorite PJ drummer?

Dave Grohl. He was on that awesome Eddie solo track the 70's.

[McParadigm]

Maybe more interesting thread topics are needed at this point. We've discussed this one enough. There's nothing new to be learned.

Who's your favorite PJ drummer?

Dave Grohl. He was on that awesome Eddie solo track the 70's.

And a punchy RitFW in Melbourne 95.

[BurtReynolds]

I tried to keep up my hating of Backspacer just to meet Stip's demanding expectations, but I failed. This thread simply came too late. I'm sorry.

[PryTo]

Ah, the much maligned Backspacer. I like this album more than most folks around here. The concept behind Backspacer is fantastic – a short album (esp. by today’s standards, where every CD is 80 minutes) with short, sharp songs that pack a punch. As an idea, this is great. The execution of that idea is Backspacker’s fatal flaw. There are some good, short tunes on here: GSMF, Got Some, the Fixer, Johnny Guitar. Those are the first four songs on the album and they bode well for the whole thing. Now one could get nit-picky and say that those first four songs pale in comparison to rockers from the band’s heyday. I don’t disagree. These songs are not on par with even some of the rockers on S/T and certainly nothing before that. But this is PJ Mach II and you take what you can get. So we have a good idea, followed by some songs that – while not great by PJ standards – at least achieve Backspacer’s modest goals.

Then it all goes to shit. The fatal flaw of Backspacer is abandoning the original concept and letting half of the album become acoustic Eddie solo tunes. I admit that I liked Just Breathe and the End when I first heard them. Ed personally killed Just Breathe for me by playing it into the ground during live shows – and them stomping and kicking its corpse a few times for good measure. If I never hear that song again, I will be a happier man for it. I can still sit through the End, but you have to sort of get yourself into a particular headspace for maudlin songs that offer musings about death. This is not easy listening in any sense of the word. I like Amongst the Waves (the lyrical theme is similar to Just Breath and the End) but it also doesn’t really fit the original (better) concept. So the big flaw of Backspacer is letting Strummin’ Ed and the Acoustics take over the record. What could have been a decent attempt at a welcome concept became an album that did not truly satisfy on any front.

Oh, and that sub-high-school-poetry-class “gems and rhinestones” lyric that everyone thinks is so great? Yeah, that sucks.