evenslow wrote:Mine wrote:dimejinky99 wrote:having seen both songs several times over a few tours, Unthought Known works far better live than Amongst the waves..yes it gets played more often but there's a reason for that.
UK works live, at least it did when i saw them play it.
It's the kind of a song that has to be done in the studio in the way In My Tree was, to stay within Pearl Jam examples.
I wrote this in the Unpopular Pearl Jam Opinions thread but it relates to this discussion:
Unthought Known is a great song. Especially live.
I know the argument against it is that it's a song building a bridge to nowhere, so to speak. All buildup, no payoff.
But hearing it live in 2013 (and then again at Global Citizen), the sheer energy it creates negates all that. The buildup is so good that any thoughts of song structure are rendered trivial. By the time "Feel the sky blanket you..." rolls around, I'm jumping up and down.
This goes back to the post i made in the 11th album thread. If the studio version was done better ( in the way similar Ed's songs have been in the best) people would have been more forgiving towards it.
This kinds of songs are very sensible to the dynamics. Even when they're composed and mixed perfectly, compressing them too much can make the "pay off" collapse. The songs instead simply collapses into a tiny, what is now the signature PJ/BOB signature sound, when it should have been big and tense like some of the No Code/Binaural rockers were.
I know is as unpopular as a Pearl Jam opinion can be, but Ed's songs were better when, according to them, he was an asshole to work with. The approach when they all plus BOB get to do whatever they want doesn't work for these songs.
I think he isn't able to write songs that lets all of them shine as musicians in a way they want to be represented in the band. He focuses more on the forest while they prefer focusing on the individual trees, if i may use a metaphor. This is to my ears the biggest difference between their current approach compared to the difficult period.
