What Is Each Album's Major Flaw?: Lightning Bolt

[Leatherhead]

The biggest flaw is calling this thing an album.

The songs themselves are pretty good, actually, with a few exceptions. But I'll never go back to the album as a whole because it doesn't work as a whole. They should have released the songs individually if the choices that were made were going to be this bad. Stip is correct when he says every song has something that knocks it off the rails, despite being decent individual songs. And without a cohesive album to fall back on, they just mostly fall through the cracks and into the garbage.

Getaway- neutered, no punch -- sounds about right
MYM- needs a crisper more relavent intro, but that's a stretch. This is the tune with the least flaws -- yeap, best song
MFS- Ed just can't seem angry anymore. Sorry doesn't work now -- I don't know, I think Ed sounds good, especially on the last verse, he kills it.
Sirens- plodding, yet too calculated -- hmmm, I don't know what to say about this one
LB- shakers and tambourines- go away! -- I like the shakers and tambourines
Infallible- ugh that chorus combined with that melody and those words... Most disappointing song in the catalog. Had so much potential -- yeap
Swallowed whole- acoustic guitar is horrible. Great song otherwise -- yeap
Pendulum- one or two tricks, then it's over. Needed further development. Guess they needed 8 years instead of 5 for this one -- yeap, though i like the song, it could use more
LTRP- goes nowhere. Nice stone lick with nothing meaningful around it. PJ plays the blues paint by numbers -- i like the bridge a lot, but im not sure stone's lick is really any good
SBM- great song- still should have been a Xmas single. Doesn't fit at all -- pretty good, don't care so much that it doesn't "fit"
Yellow Moon- cant get out of its own shell -- yea sure
Future Days- piano, cheap guitar. This is a middle tier Ed solo song -- yeap, it's not very good, but i think i like it more than most.


Overall- this nudges backspacer, but not by much.

[epilogue]

I'm not sure what I think LB's biggest flaw is. My instinct is to say BO'B. Or the production. But the record sounds way better than the last two. So it's hard to criticize the production too much when it's such an improvement. Or maybe that's dumb. Just because it's better doesn't necessarily mean it's good. I don't know.

I'll have to think about this.

[Thejambi]

I thought it sounded better than Backspacer but after a recent listen of both , I may prefer the former's production more.
While I like Lightning Bolt more than Backspacer overall, I find Backspacer to be more honest and directed. The music is underdone in several parts but I find more of an authenticity with it. Lightning Bolt feels like a facsimile from a Peal Jam blueprint. It's ST with better production but lacking a mission or drive.

[VinylGuy]

Sometimes i wonder about this place in 1995...can you imagine that?

The hatred...

[digster]

I think Mike mentioned early on that the album was a 'logical extension of Backspacer' and while usually Mike and all the other band members are talking out of their ass when it comes to the progress of a record, but it makes sense here. The two albums are relatively similar; LB just has a wider scope and is better. But the same problems apply; the songwriting has some major stumbling blocks, it's one of PJ's weakest albums lyrically, and there are some questionable production choices. The latter is really noticeable; songs like Yellow Moon could have been so much better than they were if they weren't spitshined within an inch of their life. So it's basically everything I thought about Backspacer, but the results aren't as poor as they were there, to me at least.

I'm sure I asked this before, but which are the songs (besides future days and sirens) that you think are the lyrical problems?

I mean, I think it'd be easier to say which ones are consistently good; I'd argue MYM, Sleeping By Myself, and Yellow Moon are (relatively) strong; we're past the point, I think, when Ed's going to be able to hand in great stuff consistently. And that's not particularly surprising for a lyricist over 20 years into the career. But some of it's pretty sub-standard; as you mentioned, My Father's Son has some particularly terrible lines; all the worse, as that's probably my favorite piece of PJ music since Parachutes. Pendulum's lyrics aren't as much bad as they are dull. But like I said, I'm not arguing that these are the nadir of PJ's career, lyrically; that came one album ago.

[stip]

What are your thoughts are Infallible, Lightning Bolt, and Swallowed Whole?

[Jorge]

Keep on flying your drones, keep on eating your scones, keep on just as be-foarr

[McParadigm]

Freeeeeezhhhnnn

Understands the weather of the winter's on it's way

HAWYEAH

[McParadigm]

What are your thoughts are Infallible, Lightning Bolt, and Swallowed Whole?

Most of the lyrics on this record that aren't terrible are just sort of unremarkable. And while nothing on the title track stands out as BAD, per se, it just feels like it was copy-pasted from about 800 other songs that were already not all that remarkable lyrically, themselves. Infallible has alright, if fairly overused, imagery in the verses. The chorus still sounds like a Christina Aguilara song penned by Greg? Graffin.

Actually, just on paper, they almost look like they could be lifted directly from a Bad Religion song, where the musical accompaniment would be more appropriate to the words anyway.

Edit: "You don't know where from she was thrown." Isn't that a line? That's a dumb line. If it's a line.

[stip]

What are your thoughts are Infallible, Lightning Bolt, and Swallowed Whole?

Most of the lyrics on this record that aren't terrible are just sort of unremarkable. And while nothing on the title track stands out as BAD, per se, it just feels like it was copy-pasted from about 800 other songs that were already not all that remarkable lyrically, themselves. Infallible has alright, if fairly overused, imagery in the verses. The chorus still sounds like a Christina Aguilara song penned by Greg? Graffin.

Actually, just on paper, they almost look like they could be lifted directly from a Bad Religion song, where the musical accompaniment would be more appropriate to the words anyway.

Edit: "You don't know where from she was thrown." Isn't that a line? That's a dumb line. If it's a line.

it is. The first verse of lightning bolt isn't very good, although it does introduce the sand imagery which is used to better effect later.

The best verse in Lightning Bolt is the second one, which sounds like a good late era piece of Michael Stipe advice column writing

[McParadigm]

The best verse in Lightning Bolt is the second one, which sounds like a good late era piece of Michael Stipe advice column writing

The "always something" section? It sounds 100% post-Empty Glass Pete Townshend to my ears. But I can hear what you're saying.

Yeah.

[stip]

I don't know what Post Empty Glass Peter Townsend means. I'm assuming its a bad thing since you said it. It reminds me of Supernatural Superserious.

[Lament]

I don't know what Post Empty Glass Peter Townsend means.

I bet you can figure this one out.

[stip]

I'm assuming that's an album and that everything after it McP thinks kinda sucks?

that's a safe bet.

[Lament]

It's not just an album. It's an album with a song you know on it!

[stip]

Ahh, this must be where Let My Love Open the Door comes from!


Do we like that song, McP?



I actually knew pearl jam's cover before the original, which I heard for the first time watching Grosse Point Blank

[McParadigm]

Post-Empty Glass means All the Best Cowboys, which is magnificent, and White City/Psychoderelict, which are both okay.

So that second verse in LB is one of the only moments on the album that doesn't just bore me. Though I never listen long enough to hear it.

[hlniv]

The biggest flaw is calling this thing an album.

The songs themselves are pretty good, actually, with a few exceptions. But I'll never go back to the album as a whole because it doesn't work as a whole. They should have released the songs individually if the choices that were made were going to be this bad. Stip is correct when he says every song has something that knocks it off the rails, despite being decent individual songs. And without a cohesive album to fall back on, they just mostly fall through the cracks and into the garbage.

Getaway- neutered, no punch -- sounds about right
MYM- needs a crisper more relavent intro, but that's a stretch. This is the tune with the least flaws -- yeap, best song
MFS- Ed just can't seem angry anymore. Sorry doesn't work now -- I don't know, I think Ed sounds good, especially on the last verse, he kills it.
Sirens- plodding, yet too calculated -- hmmm, I don't know what to say about this one
LB- shakers and tambourines- go away! -- I like the shakers and tambourines
Infallible- ugh that chorus combined with that melody and those words... Most disappointing song in the catalog. Had so much potential -- yeap
Swallowed whole- acoustic guitar is horrible. Great song otherwise -- yeap
Pendulum- one or two tricks, then it's over. Needed further development. Guess they needed 8 years instead of 5 for this one -- yeap, though i like the song, it could use more
LTRP- goes nowhere. Nice stone lick with nothing meaningful around it. PJ plays the blues paint by numbers -- i like the bridge a lot, but im not sure stone's lick is really any good
SBM- great song- still should have been a Xmas single. Doesn't fit at all -- pretty good, don't care so much that it doesn't "fit"
Yellow Moon- cant get out of its own shell -- yea sure
Future Days- piano, cheap guitar. This is a middle tier Ed solo song -- yeap, it's not very good, but i think i like it more than most.


Overall- this nudges backspacer, but not by much.

So, my read of your response tells me-
6 "strongly agrees"
5 "mostly agrees"
1 "disagree"


Not bad

[Tj]

Stip nail it. Almost evey song could have been great. It is a solid album, but a couple changes here and there could have really altered it.
Favorite moments - Bridges MFS and Yellow Moon, Western guitar in Pendelum and SBMS, From Crashing Stormy waves on, in Lightning Bolt. All of Swallowed Whole
Big F ups- A album named Lightning Bolt, Infallable being wasted by a crappy chorus, LTRP being wasted by a crappy chorus. Both tracks could have been top shelf Pj

[Got Some]

To many fade outs.

"Sleeping by myself" being on this album instead of "of the earth"

The recorded versions of lightning bolt infallible swallowed hole could easily be improved.

Mind your manners not being the album opener.

TO much piano.