The Worst Pearl Jam Fans You Know

[McParadigm]

Amongst The Waves sounds like a Creed song. I can't say anything more damning than that.

Nice try, Reynolds, but it really doesn't.

maybe with about 10% more Train.

It sounds way more like Train than Creed. And it sounds like Train about as much as Train sounds like a train.

Ok I'll go as far as saying Amongst the Waves sounds like 20% Train and 80% Creed, but that's my final offer.

Both similarities fade out after chorus #2 but, yeah, that's about right.

[epilogue]

Pearl Jam fans are the worst

It has been independently verified.

[epilogue]

A really boring song. Not for any of the bizarre/typically Trag reasons that Trag listed. It's just a very unexciting performance of a very vanilla composition. Like a lot of latter-day Pearl Jam songs I dislike, I can pick out a few elements that work for me, but the sum total of them fall flat.

The hazy daydream feel of the verses is pretty cool, and it's a strong vocal verse melody (and performance) from Eddie. It just didn't need the Anthem 101 chorus

This is very much correct. The song builds to an anticlimactic center -- a pretty common ailment of modern PJ tracks, really. I find a decent live version, situated between stronger, more pivotal songs, plays better than the sterile studio version situated between "Just Breathe" and "Unthought Known."

Just Breathe is also outstanding Pearl Jam. Man Backspacer should be such a better album.

I like "Just Breathe" fine, J. I actually like "Backspacer" quite a bit, but I think that middle stretch is its weakest spot. Too much midtempo all at once, right after it comes out swinging with four hard-hitters.

But "hard hitter" does equal good song. The run of "hard hitters" is usually way more exhausting to me, especially if they're bad or even sub-par, than a run of midtempo tunes. What hurts the middle of the record for me is Unthought Known. I wouldn't mind JB into AtW into SoS. All low key, midtempo tracks that would not bother me in straight run.

[epilogue]

it also has the only real space on the album being the instrumental section before nothing left. That brief bit of room is so freeing

This bit right here I can totally agree with.

[bada]

Amongst The Waves sounds like a Creed song. I can't say anything more damning than that.

Nice try, Reynolds, but it really doesn't.

maybe with about 10% more Train.

It sounds way more like Train than Creed. And it sounds like Train about as much as Train sounds like a train.

Ok I'll go as far as saying Amongst the Waves sounds like 20% Train and 80% Creed, but that's my final offer.

Both similarities fade out after chorus #2 but, yeah, that's about right.

It always sounded like Duke era Genesis to me. Musically at least.

[Kevin Davis]

A really boring song. Not for any of the bizarre/typically Trag reasons that Trag listed. It's just a very unexciting performance of a very vanilla composition. Like a lot of latter-day Pearl Jam songs I dislike, I can pick out a few elements that work for me, but the sum total of them fall flat.

The hazy daydream feel of the verses is pretty cool, and it's a strong vocal verse melody (and performance) from Eddie. It just didn't need the Anthem 101 chorus

This is very much correct. The song builds to an anticlimactic center -- a pretty common ailment of modern PJ tracks, really. I find a decent live version, situated between stronger, more pivotal songs, plays better than the sterile studio version situated between "Just Breathe" and "Unthought Known."

Just Breathe is also outstanding Pearl Jam. Man Backspacer should be such a better album.

I like "Just Breathe" fine, J. I actually like "Backspacer" quite a bit, but I think that middle stretch is its weakest spot. Too much midtempo all at once, right after it comes out swinging with four hard-hitters.

But "hard hitter" does equal good song. The run of "hard hitters" is usually way more exhausting to me, especially if they're bad or even sub-par, than a run of midtempo tunes. What hurts the middle of the record for me is Unthought Known. I wouldn't mind JB into AtW into SoS. All low key, midtempo tracks that would not bother me in straight run.

I agree that "Unthought Known" is the anchor of the bunch. I don't hate it, but it really needs to be propped up by much stronger songs. It literally reminds me of a bridge -- a big, long, flat, unchanging thing linking one part of the record with the next. Bridges have their purpose, but they're useless if not held up strongly on both sides, and while the "supports" on either side of "UK" stand alone well enough, they're not without their own structural integrity issues.

As for the four songs at the beginning, speaking as possibly one of two "Fixer" fans on RM, I do find those first four songs to be pretty overwhelmingly the strongest portion of the album. I like them all quite a bit, and find they actually pretty effectively render that whole "punchy, new wave PJ" vibe that Mike was eager to tout in the pre-release media. There are other songs I like on the album but in my opinion it never regains that opening momentum -- like, it starts off sprinting, cools down, and then jogs the rest of the way. Even though the "BS" songs never really came into their own live, I think sequentially a lot of them fit much better into the ebb and flow of a live set.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Norah]

oh, honey

[E.H. Ruddock]

I LOVE the Fixer. One of my favorite PJ songs of all time.

[dimejinky99]

Pearl jam fans who are Star Wars fans are the worst people __ knows.

[stip]

I LOVE the Fixer. One of my favorite PJ songs of all time.

High Five!!

also, KD, i agree the album is uneven after that opening run, though Force of Nature is my favorite song on the album

[dimejinky99]

Backspacer is a brilliant if uneven record.


It will have its day in the sun soon and all you naysayer wankers will be adoring it.

[Kevin Davis]

Was "Ole" a Backspacer outtake, or an early edition Lightning Bolt outtake?

[stip]

the later, I think.

[Kevin Davis]

By the way, stip, "Force of Nature" is one of my favorites on there as well. In fact, I think we share a lot of the same affinities for Backspacer -- we just don't ultimately rank it the same in the catalog as a whole.

[Strat]

GSMF, the Fixer, SOS, Force of Nature are all fantastic PJ songs. Supersonic is Fun. The end is great.

[dimejinky99]

It's more deserving of an outlier or pearl jam story record than any other. It doesn't fit at all within their frame of reference to their own work or canon.

And I love it for that reason.

[LetMeSleep]

GSMF, The Fixer, JG, UK, SoS, FoN are all okay.

[Bammer]

The Fixer is a good song!

I wore a Shawn Kemp jersey to the OKC show in '13 and that was the only time I've ever been excited to hear Supersonic.

[chewm]

Got Some and Johnny Guitar are great.
The Fixer, Force of Nature, Speed of Sound and kinda Amongst the Waves are pretty nice I guess.