Into the Wild: Official Album Thread

[Mine]

Hard Sun is the one that fits the pop song format.
The rest of the songs don't really come off us under worked when listened to in the context of the album.

It's less about it being a pop song format that's appealing and more that it feels like a completed thought. Far Behind, Rise and Guaranteed do as well.

I think only the 2 instrumentals have some of the uncompleted thought feel but they still work within the record. I mean the album flows nicely as it is.
I remember Vedder addressed the length of the songs, saying they were written for the length of the scenes they were being used in.

The instrumentals are fine; End of the Road doesn't quite hit, but it's ok. The length of the songs isn't really an issue either; there's plenty of great songs that begin and resolve perfectly within the span of a minute or two. Some of them just feel half-finished, regardless of length. And no doubt that Eddie was slightly handicapped by writing to film, but I do get the impression he thought and hoped the record would work independent of the film. Like I said, it's not a disaster or anything. Just didn't bowl me over.

I think the record's main purpose was to help promote the movie. If there was more ambition behind it i suppose the songs would have been evolved further as it often happens with soundtracks. This was actually done with Tuolumne that was later reworked into Just Breath.
I think Ed, for whatever reason, doesn't want to do a proper solo project like ITW could have been if it evolved beyond what was written for the movie in those 2 weeks. There's been Ukulele Songs which is a modest project by definition plus that soundtrack that never ended up materialising. It's like if he was reluctant to pursue serious projects outside of PJ without a decent excuse.

[Mine]

This soundtrack has such great sound and atmosphere, I wish like hell he'd written more pieces to fill it in.

If i can get 37 minutes of Vedder with great sound and atmosphere (especially when not provided by heavy use of reverb) in the 21st century i ain't bitching - it's more than i'd consider passable for a PJ record these days.

[VinylGuy]

I agree with Eddie not really trying to get a proper solo career. ITW was a cool proyect to work, and it served his as an excuse to do the acoustic tours.

I absolutely adore ITW...i think its great. Pretty much all of the songs are great, it suits the movie, and it actually outlived it. And yes, i agree..it might be the last album with him with great sound and atmosphere.

[Kevin Davis]

Yep. The 2 best songs are covers. Woo.

I don't really agree with this. I easily prefer "No Ceiling" and "Rise" to "Hard Sun," and "Society" is one of my least favorite songs on the album, though not because of EV's performance. I have certainly been guilty of tagging this album with the "collection of half-done sketches" criticism before, but after "Backspacer" and especially "Lightning Bolt," I have come to appreciate the lack of overwork in it -- the album strikes me as a very natural flow of ideas not unlike "Riot Act," albeit with a different prevailing aesthetic. Maybe it's an Adam Kasper thing.

Eddie has done a good job picking his solo projects. I don't know that he's ever been a prolific enough writer to sustain a full-time solo career (meaning albums -- he has proven more than capable of sustaining himself as a solo touring musician) on top of the band, and I like that the projects he takes on aren't just Pearl Jam-less versions of Pearl Jam.

[dimejinky99]

Developing a canon or musical identity outside that of Pj was something I really thought he was going for and I hoped he would. The two can coexist peacefully and either complimentary or regardless of each other. Sad that he never followed through. He might yet though.

[evenslow]

and I like that the projects he takes on aren't just Pearl Jam-less versions of Pearl Jam.

This happens a lot in general, but people never really get the credit they deserve for the things they DON'T do, and Eddie's decision-making in regards to a solo career should be lauded along these lines. He's shown good taste with his two releases so far. I'm assuming he showed similar good taste by not releasing the Out of the Furnace stuff. Probably wasn't up to snuff.

[stip]

For all the shit it gets, Rodlease sounded pretty good. Unnecessary for sure, but pretty good

[digster]

Yep. The 2 best songs are covers. Woo.

I don't really agree with this. I easily prefer "No Ceiling" and "Rise" to "Hard Sun," and "Society" is one of my least favorite songs on the album, though not because of EV's performance. I have certainly been guilty of tagging this album with the "collection of half-done sketches" criticism before, but after "Backspacer" and especially "Lightning Bolt," I have come to appreciate the lack of overwork in it -- the album strikes me as a very natural flow of ideas not unlike "Riot Act," albeit with a different prevailing aesthetic. Maybe it's an Adam Kasper thing.

The Riot Act comparison is really interesting, and makes me think. I definitely prefer Riot Act, but the issues I have with that record are actually fairly similar to the issues i have with ITW, now that I consider it.

[VinylGuy]

For all the shit it gets, Rodlease sounded pretty good. Unnecessary for sure, but pretty good

yeah, he sounded great in that one.

Those Out Of Furnance songs....im still waiting on them. It took ed more than 10 years to release Uke Songs so...

[McParadigm]

For all the shit it gets, Rodlease sounded pretty good. Unnecessary for sure, but pretty good

yeah, he sounded great in that one.

Those Out Of Furnance songs....im still waiting on them. It took ed more than 10 years to release Uke Songs so...

Man, I couldn't agree less. His voice was fine, but the production was strangled and the delivery couldn't have felt more detached from any feeling in the song.

The original may be full of moo, but when he cries out "release me" it sounds as genuine as any feeling ever put to tape.

[LetMeSleep]

I wouldn't mind his PJ acoustic tracks (JB, The End, FD) being on a solo album. Those songs are Eddie tracks and not PJ tracks in my mind. For all the crap that SoSound gets at least the band had some input and tried something new.

[Mine]

I wouldn't mind his PJ acoustic tracks (JB, The End, FD) being on a solo album. Those songs are Eddie tracks and not PJ tracks in my mind. For all the crap that SoSound gets at least the band had some input and tried something new.

Honestly, why should someone give a shit about who got input? Why should i be concerned with that when I'm listening to any music?
It just goes to show how in Pearl Jam universe the actual music as it appears on the records is of secondary importance.
And what counts as new in Speed of Sound after 1986?
JB would have never been on an Ed solo record, because it is known it was heavily re-arranged by BOB. I remember what was originally the bridge BoB turned into the chorus - which was a dumb move. FD, not counting the lyrics, sounds more like Pearl Jam in the new BOB era than Ed solo, The End is one of the songs on Backspacer people have less of an issue with. It just not a very good point, not even considering the same argument could be made for a huge amount of his songs throughout their career.

I don't really have an issue with them cooperating on the songs. It's a really positive aproach when people are actually capable of doing this without compromising the music. Pearl Jam seems to not have the talent to pull that off. They are in a position when they can afford to work with whoever they want to write and produce the kind of records they want. Problem is, by all accounts, as far as the majority of the band is concerned, Backspacer and Lightning Bolt with BOB are it. The level of composing at which they're capable of cooperating, so that they are involved at the level they're all satisfied with, doesn't even approach their best work, when the cooperation was sometimes difficult, and it's very generic sounding.
The general style they've embraced resembles the 80's top40 hard rock. This was ironically mostly obsolete by the time they've released they're debut record which not so surpassingly draw a lot from that sound.

[stip]

For all the shit it gets, Rodlease sounded pretty good. Unnecessary for sure, but pretty good

yeah, he sounded great in that one.

Those Out Of Furnance songs....im still waiting on them. It took ed more than 10 years to release Uke Songs so...

Man, I couldn't agree less. His voice was fine, but the production was strangled and the delivery couldn't have felt more detached from any feeling in the song.

The original may be full of moo, but when he cries out "release me" it sounds as genuine as any feeling ever put to tape.

I was mostly talking about the actual quality of his voice

[digster]

Hard Sun is the one that fits the pop song format.
The rest of the songs don't really come off us under worked when listened to in the context of the album.

It's less about it being a pop song format that's appealing and more that it feels like a completed thought. Far Behind, Rise and Guaranteed do as well.

I think only the 2 instrumentals have some of the uncompleted thought feel but they still work within the record. I mean the album flows nicely as it is.
I remember Vedder addressed the length of the songs, saying they were written for the length of the scenes they were being used in.

The instrumentals are fine; End of the Road doesn't quite hit, but it's ok. The length of the songs isn't really an issue either; there's plenty of great songs that begin and resolve perfectly within the span of a minute or two. Some of them just feel half-finished, regardless of length. And no doubt that Eddie was slightly handicapped by writing to film, but I do get the impression he thought and hoped the record would work independent of the film. Like I said, it's not a disaster or anything. Just didn't bowl me over.

I think the record's main purpose was to help promote the movie. If there was more ambition behind it i suppose the songs would have been evolved further as it often happens with soundtracks. This was actually done with Tuolumne that was later reworked into Just Breath.
I think Ed, for whatever reason, doesn't want to do a proper solo project like ITW could have been if it evolved beyond what was written for the movie in those 2 weeks. There's been Ukulele Songs which is a modest project by definition plus that soundtrack that never ended up materialising. It's like if he was reluctant to pursue serious projects outside of PJ without a decent excuse.

Maybe this is true, but I find it hard to say an album is good because if all these things were different it would have been better. The record is what it is; Ed put out the album so I'm sure he wants us to hear it on its own terms.

He often pointed to the Harold and Maude soundtrack as an inspiration, and though that was different in the sense that it was primarily made up of material that had already been released, it certainly has a life and a reputation outside of that movie. I feel that ITW is kind of the same.

[Mine]

Hard Sun is the one that fits the pop song format.
The rest of the songs don't really come off us under worked when listened to in the context of the album.

It's less about it being a pop song format that's appealing and more that it feels like a completed thought. Far Behind, Rise and Guaranteed do as well.

I think only the 2 instrumentals have some of the uncompleted thought feel but they still work within the record. I mean the album flows nicely as it is.
I remember Vedder addressed the length of the songs, saying they were written for the length of the scenes they were being used in.

The instrumentals are fine; End of the Road doesn't quite hit, but it's ok. The length of the songs isn't really an issue either; there's plenty of great songs that begin and resolve perfectly within the span of a minute or two. Some of them just feel half-finished, regardless of length. And no doubt that Eddie was slightly handicapped by writing to film, but I do get the impression he thought and hoped the record would work independent of the film. Like I said, it's not a disaster or anything. Just didn't bowl me over.

I think the record's main purpose was to help promote the movie. If there was more ambition behind it i suppose the songs would have been evolved further as it often happens with soundtracks. This was actually done with Tuolumne that was later reworked into Just Breath.
I think Ed, for whatever reason, doesn't want to do a proper solo project like ITW could have been if it evolved beyond what was written for the movie in those 2 weeks. There's been Ukulele Songs which is a modest project by definition plus that soundtrack that never ended up materialising. It's like if he was reluctant to pursue serious projects outside of PJ without a decent excuse.

Maybe this is true, but I find it hard to say an album is good because if all these things were different it would have been better. The record is what it is; Ed put out the album so I'm sure he wants us to hear it on its own terms.

He often pointed to the Harold and Maude soundtrack as an inspiration, and though that was different in the sense that it was primarily made up of material that had already been released, it certainly has a life and a reputation outside of that movie. I feel that ITW is kind of the same.

I'm just speculating obviously.
It just that reworking or even rerecording songs from soundtracks for album releases has been common practice for ages, even he has done it before. It seems as if he kept it intact on purpose.
I like it the way it is in the sense that, as i said before, the album flows nicely without any weaknesses big enough to be distracting.

[bodysnatcher]

Listened to this for the first time in a while this morning. I do enjoy this album for what it is, and enjoy hearing Ed on his own, rather than Ed on his own with the rest of Pearl Jam trying to fit around him.

If there's an unfinished feel to this album, I liken it to having a similar feel to Thom Yorke's "Eraser". Meaning that both of those albums feel like they are a part of a whole. "Into the Wild" feels like 1/5th of PJ, and "The Eraser" feels like 1/5th of Radiohead. Which is to be expected considering both of those guys' first considerable solo outputs were released after being well-established parts of a greater whole. You get an idea of what kind of songs those guys were drawn to at that moment (and perhaps before and after) and individually bring to the table. And you get a sense of how songs like that can be fleshed out in the context of an entire band with each member bringing their own flourishes.

There's nothing entirely surprising about "Into the Wild". The storytelling was right in Ed's wheelhouse in terms of themes. And the structure and style of the songs were something he had been developing for 10 years at that point... I'd argue starting with "Sometimes", moving into "Drifting", "Thumbing My Way", etc. I could easily see "Swallowed Whole" on this soundtrack. He's still really into this style, which is an interesting contrast to his affinity for punk.

[dimejinky99]

Into the wild is 9 years old today. Time flies

[VinylGuy]

Into the wild is 9 years old today. Time flies

9 years?? Wow.

I still remember when Hard Sun came out...first time i listened i was going to my old job. Great morning.

[dimejinky99]

My enduring memory of its release was RM making endless ed on a flying chair jokes. For weeks

[knee tunes]

take leave the conscious mind
I find myself to be so inclined
why live in discontent
oh, the price of companionship

................................

whoa, empty pockets will
afford a greater sense of wealth
why-a-hy-a-hy contain yourself
like some other book on the shelf