Song of the Moment: Mind Your Manners

[Jaeti]

Parts of Ed's vocal delivery is very interesting. It sounds like he's been taking singing lessons or something.

Haha, I kind of thought this, too, if not in those exact words.

[stip]

Very good write up on the TSIS front page. Captures alot how I feel about this one. Won't make my top 25, but a very nice start to the buildup for Lightning Bolt.

shit, I didn't realize B put it up yet. I just edited it slightly.

[Thejambi]

just because I know everyone's curious, I did like WWS and Fixer more. I like this a lot through.

I like WWS more than Fixer. I may like this more than both of those everyone seems to be carrying their own weight. Nothing really bugs me yet. Its a nice metal/punk mix.

[stip]

Here is the slightly revised version for the completionists I know you all are:

4 years after Backspacer we have our first window into the sound and feel of Pearl Jam’s 10th album. Mind Your Manners is fast and aggressive, but with a snarky punk feel rather than a reckless ferocity. Pearl Jam can be hit or miss with these, but they drew from the right well (and thankfully stayed away from the shiny punk where they are at their weakest). You can hear its ancestors in Spin the Black Circle, Brian of J, and Comatose. The solo sounds like Ghost and Comatose got into a car crash. The outro reproduces the call/response outro of Ole. It all comes together nicely. This is a good song, and seems to put Backspacer behind them--or better, it takes Backspacer and drags it through the mud.



There is a heavy flatness to the start of the song, a bleakness that the sing songy verses push back against. It’s a fast song, but it feels slowed down by the verses, like the vocal melody is digging its heels in against the music. It would be interesting to see how this would have sounded if the vocals and the music were winding each other up.



The intro riff is different than anything we’ve heard from them before. Very Motorheadish. Once the verses kick in the song feels very much like a hyrbrid of comatose and brain of J. It’s good, but a bit familiar. Definitely ground they’ve covered before, although they still execute well here.



The bridge, solo, and outro are all nicely done---the highlights of the song (bridge and outro especially). There is a wonderful vocal melody in the bridge, some descending ominous guitars, some nice accents underneath in the bridge (or the second chorus, since they repeat it again right before the outro). Nice Riot Act era solo underneath the outro (where Mike seems to try and work in every trick they didn’t let him use on backspacer), and they return to that interesting layered call and response bit they did at the end of Ole (easily the highlight of that song). Actually for a song clocking in under 3 minutes it goes to more places than you’d expect, although it doesn’t linger in any of them for long.



Really if not for the fact that the verse and chorus sound a bit familiar the music this would be top notch all the way through. As is it’s still good.



Eddie reins himself in. There is a nice scream at the very end of the song, and there is more growl and low end than we’ve gotten in a while (he sounds good), and he moves away from the shrieking that turned people off on S/T and Backspacer. He sounds angry, but it’s a sarcastic anger, rather than fangs going for the jugular. He sounds good and is working well with his voice (I like raspy, falling apart Ed but I may be in a minority there), but I wonder if they could have pushed further.



I guess that’s a question that will need to be answered in the context of the album. There’s anger, and the song rails against the frustration of the last few years--the failed promises and unmet expectations. And while there are moments of a primal scream scratching their way to the surface they don’t break through. The sarcasm undercuts the rage. This could easily have gone the other way. How MYM fits in with the rest of the songs as a whole will reveal whether or not they made the right choice.



Since we don’t have lyrics I can’t really comment on them, but it certainly seems to be about moral hypocrisy and dead end apathy, and so the snarky punk vibe seems appropriate to it. No lyrics really jumped out either way yet. The bridge sounds like it has good lyrics, and I do like the “Good Heavens/That’s Right/How Do You Like Your/Living Hell?” at the end. Not necessarily a great lyric on its own, but it sounds really good with the broken chorus delivery.



Overall, I really like it. It’s a good song. It has the rawness of S/T with some of the hooks of Backspacer. I’m not sure this is going to be an all time classic, but it has me primed and excited for the next album. If only there was some countdown I could periodically reference so I knew exactly how long it was until the release. Oh well, maybe for #11.

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

Parts of Ed's vocal delivery is very interesting. It sounds like he's been taking singing lessons or something.

agreed. he starts to go to that high end where he sounds terrible, but kinda reigns his voice in just right. i really like his vocals on this.

And he uses subtle vibrato techniques that I've never heard him use before...or never noticed.

[harmless]

Parts of Ed's vocal delivery is very interesting. It sounds like he's been taking singing lessons or something.

agreed. he starts to go to that high end where he sounds terrible, but kinda reigns his voice in just right. i really like his vocals on this.

And the shouty call and response thing on the end has no screeching

Yeah, this is good stuff really. I have sympathy with with people saying 'Not what I wanted from PJ'. It wasn't what I wanted either. But I like it in as much as it is what it is.

[Chris_H_2]

a lot of sanctimony in this thread . . .

[Tuolumne]

Anyone that starts off any review of anything with "I was hoping..." should be immediately disregarded. It's the laziest form of criticism. Judge it on the merits and the artist's intentions, not what you wanted it to be.

Yep. You may have to restate that 50 pages later so people will remember this point.

They are not a customer-service focus group sort of band, and I feel like fans want to phone in requests or else they want their money back.

[digster]

It definitely sounds like a melding of the harder parts of S/T and the poppiness of Backspacer. Considering that, I do think it's a lot better than I would have thought had I heard that description beforehand.

It's hard to extrapolate much on the production due to the youtube stream, but it does disappoint me some to hear that this sounds straight out of their production techniques in recent years.

[McParadigm]

I still stand by the need for context. By itself, it's a pretty unremarkable song....it could conceivably be a part of a really great package, though. I don't think Spin the Black Circle is a great song on its own, or Animal...they become great within their context.

Not that "Lightning Bolt" is reason for optimism....

[Thejambi]

Guys we get a punky Pearl Jam song on every album. Could of been a lot worse.
If this is the quality of the 3 minute punker than i'm really excited for the rest.

[numbers]

Let me say first that I've only heard the song once, and it was on my car radio, but I fucking loved it. I'm more excited about this band than I've been in a long, long time.

[OmegaprimeVKM]

Exactly what I didn't want from Pearl Jam

You should start a petition.

Why bother? People haven't started to dislike it yet.

I'll give it a while for them to catch up.

For me it has the same 'meh' factor as The Fixer and WWS. It retains all the aspects of PJ I don't like - a jarring rather than groove laden riff, Johnny Guitar like vocals, a chant-like chorus etc.

I do like that it is short and that it is aggressive, but it seems like it's been produced with a scene audience (punk, maybe metal too) in mind rather than a naturally produced track. It certainly won't be a radio hit outside the US, but then, they haven't had one of those since before Binaural.

[elliseamos]

Guys.... guys, I'm so happy right now.

Im so glad you are here!

this feel right here! group hug!

[@SkitchP]

Ill say this, I have already found myself listening to it more than I ever attempted to listen to a single song on backspacer.

[Heathen]

Guys we get a punky Pearl Jam song on every album. Could of been a lot worse.
If this is the quality of the 3 minute punker than i'm really excited for the rest.

yeah this is miles better than all their recent attempts at this kind of stuff

[benton netty]

Good tune. I wish the opening riff would come back again, maybe after the solo or something.

The bridges are a little too close tonally to the bridge in "Gonna See My Friend" -- the "Wanna give it all" part. It's got some "Comatose" and "STBC" DNA.

Second line of the second verse might be "And if it's out there somewhere, we sure could use it now."

The digital edit before the second bridge is a little weird.

Great Ed scream in the last moment.

How bad will the gang vocals sound, live?

This is the fastest Pearl Jam song in their catalog. This is, like, a Bad Religion tempo.

[McParadigm]

Why bother? People haven't started to dislike it yet.

I'll give it a while for them to catch up.

Even if it ages well, there's gonna be a hangover on this one for sure.

[bada]

Like it.

[digster]

I do like that it is short and that it is aggressive, but it seems like it's been produced with a scene audience (punk, maybe metal too) in mind rather than a naturally produced track. It certainly won't be a radio hit outside the US, but then, they haven't had one of those since before Binaural.

I don't know...besides the production style this seems less radio-friendly than the last two records, at least when it comes to the first single. That being said, I'm probably completely out of the loop on what sells with rock radio these days.