6. Sleight of Hand vs. Alive

[stip]

Voting ends 3/27

[stip]

Alive, and it isn't even close.

This match is going to break my heart.

[LetMeSleep]

Alive is so fully realised its kind of scary. I rarely enjoy it though. SoH however is often sought out. I prefer SoH but I'm not sure it's the better song. It's like voting against Satisfaction or Stairway.

To be continued...

[stip]

There are no doubt songs that are more ambitious than Alive, or more carefully constructed, but Alive just does everything it does unbelievably perfectly. From the monster opening riff and the way it feels that it could hold up the world, to the way Eddie's vocals have the ability to make you an active participant in his private statement, to the way the solo at the end is utterly emancipatory. Alive is a perfect expression of musical healing, and frees you from burdens you didn't even realize you had.

[evenslow]

Alive is so fully realised its kind of scary. I rarely enjoy it though. SoH however is often sought out. I prefer SoH but I'm not sure it's the better song. It's like voting against Satisfaction or Stairway.

To be continued...

[PHATJ]

Sleight of Hand 2017. Let's make this happen, friends.

[digster]

Sleight of Hand, and all kidding aside, it's not even close. To me, this is a matchup against a very good song that is a great concert experience vs. one of the most deceptively moving and powerful statements this band has ever made.

[PHATJ]

Sleight of Hand, and all kidding aside, it's not even close. To me, this is a matchup against a very good song that is a great concert experience vs. one of the most deceptively moving and powerful statements this band has ever made.

[stip]

I can't argue with anyone's experience of that song, but SoH has always played slightly inauthentic to my ears. The millionaire rock star singing about the soul crushing nature of office work. The whole thing feels just slightly calculated to me (in the same way that unemployable kind of does). It's not done any favors by its placement, sandwiched in between the empathetic powerhouse Rival and the cheap shot Soon Forget, which certainly colors my experience of SoH.

[digster]

Taking that logic would pretty much apply to anything Eddie has written after his first million, which would probably be some point in 1992. I get not liking the song, but I hear absolutely nothing inauthentic here, and I would like to think that someone who may not be in that situation would still be able to craft something moving out of empathy. And these lyrics are a million miles away from Unemployable; I would certainly agree with the calculated critique in that song, but not here.

[stip]

also, for a song as huge as Alive is the way Eddie soars in underneath the music at the end is a really powerful understated moment

[stip]

Taking that logic would pretty much apply to anything Eddie has written after his first million, which would probably be some point in 1992.

I get not liking the song, but I hear absolutely nothing inauthentic about this song, and I would like to think that someone who may not be in that situation would still be able to craft something moving out of empathy. And these lyrics are a million miles away from Unemployable; I would certainly agree with the calculated critique in that song, but not here.

I suspect he was writing from a pretty lonely place for SoH, which certainly comes through. There is empathy there, but I'm not sure there's understanding.

[PHATJ]

I can't argue with anyone's experience of that song, but SoH has always played slightly inauthentic to my ears. The millionaire rock star singing about the soul crushing nature of office work. The whole thing feels just slightly calculated to me (in the same way that unemployable kind of does). It's not done any favors by its placement, sandwiched in between the empathetic powerhouse Rival and the cheap shot Soon Forget, which certainly colors my experience of SoH.

This seems incredibly unfair to the song. Judge it on its own merits, not on the company that surrounds it. That would be like me not voting for Alive because Why Go kind of sucks and Even Flow gets played at every show.

[digster]

Taking that logic would pretty much apply to anything Eddie has written after his first million, which would probably be some point in 1992.

I get not liking the song, but I hear absolutely nothing inauthentic about this song, and I would like to think that someone who may not be in that situation would still be able to craft something moving out of empathy. And these lyrics are a million miles away from Unemployable; I would certainly agree with the calculated critique in that song, but not here.

I suspect he was writing from a pretty lonely place for SoH, which certainly comes through. There is empathy there, but I'm not sure there's understanding.

I think I just disagree on this one. I find this to be one of the most understanding lyrics he's written, in large part because he works to avoid that kind of cheap lyrical out he reaches for in a song like Unemployable.

[LoathedVermin72]

I adore both of these but SOH is better

[stip]

I can't argue with anyone's experience of that song, but SoH has always played slightly inauthentic to my ears. The millionaire rock star singing about the soul crushing nature of office work. The whole thing feels just slightly calculated to me (in the same way that unemployable kind of does). It's not done any favors by its placement, sandwiched in between the empathetic powerhouse Rival and the cheap shot Soon Forget, which certainly colors my experience of SoH.

This seems incredibly unfair to the song. Judge it on its own merits, not on the company that surrounds it. That would be like me not voting for Alive because Why Go kind of sucks and Even Flow gets played at every show.

It's the thematic continuity that I find off putting, not the fact that I'm not a fan of the song that surrounds it (Brain of J isn't hurt in the least by the fact that it's followed by faithfull)

[stip]

Taking that logic would pretty much apply to anything Eddie has written after his first million, which would probably be some point in 1992.

I get not liking the song, but I hear absolutely nothing inauthentic about this song, and I would like to think that someone who may not be in that situation would still be able to craft something moving out of empathy. And these lyrics are a million miles away from Unemployable; I would certainly agree with the calculated critique in that song, but not here.

I suspect he was writing from a pretty lonely place for SoH, which certainly comes through. There is empathy there, but I'm not sure there's understanding.

I think I just disagree on this one. I find this to be one of the most understanding lyrics he's written, in large part because he works to avoid that kind of cheap lyrical out he reaches for in a song like Unemployable.

Fair enough. It's almost really strong, and I get what it's trying to do. I just don't feel it.

I also would disagree with that first million comment you made. Eddie has generally been very strong writing about experiences that are fairly universal, or has excelled at putting himself in the headspace of the person he's writing about.

[chewm]

I like both but Sleight of Hand takes my vote fairly easily.

[Kevin Davis]

There are a few details in "Sleight of Hand" which suggest that Eddie is writing specifically about 9-to-5 work ("Mondays were made to fall," "clip-on world"), but I think in much bigger ways the song is for anyone locked into a routine that is sucking the life from them, and that's a feeling that could be as true for a millionaire rock star as it could be for anyone else; it's not quite the same as "Unemployable" where he's telling us all about the guy with religious jewelry who doesn't know how he's going to pay his bills. The proof is in the pudding, in any case -- I've been the guy in "Sleight of Hand" multiple times in my life, and there is absolutely nothing about that circumstance that Eddie gets wrong. In fact, when I've been in the thick of those feelings, "Sleight of Hand" was so dead on it was almost painful to listen to. PJ have been my favorite band for 22 years and I can probably count on one hand the songs of theirs that I've felt so personally.

The music is so perfectly complementary too -- those dreamy, shoegazey arpeggios are the perfect theme music for this character who is sleepwalking through life, totally numb yet constantly blanketed in this aura of sadness. I feel like this is one of the few post-"Vs." songs that revisits that "music by the band, free verse from Ed" writing template, and it's so evident to me how much Eddie's learned since then; this song settles right in between the free-verse-as-pop-song experiments from their first couple records and the even-freer spoken word pieces like "I'm Open," and finds an artistic space that draws on the best elements of both approaches. Truly one of PJ's finest songs.

Vote for "Sleight of Hand," obviously.

[Jorge]

Not remembering the change,
not recalling the plan