harmless wrote:Jorge, you're from South America. PJ are a household name there and people regularly cut their arms off to follow Ed in his sufferings. I get why my calling them a "cult band" is problematic for you, but really, the cultural landscape is vastly different where PJ are concerned in the UK. When I heard they were performing at Reading in 2006, I was beside myself with joy because they hardly ever play here. Everyone there was beside themselves when PJ played Even Flow, or anything off Ten or Vs. But not many seemed to know anything beyond that, as far as I could tell.
theplatypus wrote:They breathe rarified air.
Can't we just agree on this and be done with it, Jorge?
That is wholly down to the fact that Pj have only relatively recently started playing SA.
And those audiences are batshit crazy for pretty much any and every band that go there.
Maybe so. I am literally saying that the general level of excitement in the UK is not nearly as fanatical as that in mainland Europe. I mention PJ to a lot of people and nearly everyone I talk to, when I throw them into a conversation, hasn't heard of them, or remembers Ten and gives me a cheesy grin that says "Aww Pearl Jam? That's cute." Are they bigger in Ireland than England? I'm not sure. Maybe.
That's a cultural difference. English audiences are notoriously standoffish bordering on leaning back arms crossed going 'impress me' up to 'why did I even come here?'
Years of being the epiccenter of all touring band action has done that. Geographical Extremities that are far less visited by touring bands, Portugal/Ireland, are almost always a far more appreciative crowd. That feeds an ego thing and makes for a great gig for bands and crowds no doubt. But you can't not play England/the UK. It's suicide financially.
If you look, a lot of bands do multiple shows in the UK and only one in other countries.
Simply because the £ is worth more $ than the € and more than the $ itself. It's been that way for 20 odd years. Might change up soon if the UK leaves the eurozone and the pound falls. If it falls.
Also there's a weird divide here in Ireland. (Just one?? )
Mainstream music/pop fans are far more UKcentric. Rock/alternative crowds are far more global/US focused. Of open minded if you will. The pop/indie(indie meaning NME etc) fans buy whatever's going on in the UK. nobody else does. Just look up our charts. Carbon copy of the UK charts apart from a sprinkling of Irish acts and a shot of bigger international ones.
Pj chart much better in Ireland than the UK. It's far smaller numbers but just as significant per capita.
Also, it's probably useful to point out that the general adherence to 'Grunge' and / or 'Alternative Rock' survived for a lot longer in the Americas, and even in Europe. Whereas very quickly, the UK became much more interested in Brit Pop (represented by Southern bands like Blur) and Northern Soul (represented by Northern bands like Oasis). It was terribly uncool to like Grunge by the time Yield arrived, and certainly unforgivable by the time Binaural did. I am expecting it to be nigh on impossible to find Lightning Bolt other than from Amazon. And they will be late sending it to me.
Last edited by harmless on Thu September 12, 2013 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
RisingTides wrote:There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
oneway23 wrote:I can't fathom how lengthy this thread would be if anyone here actually enjoyed Pearl Jam.
About as lengthy as the LB thread on The Pit
All 13 beautiful pages of it!
Sometimes I wish this thread had only 13 words: "Hey, guys, I think everybody needs to check out the email account asap".
Its not going to leak anytime soon or at all...if it does it will be a week or so before....its not how it used to be, theyre really cracking down on illegal downloading....which sucks....i hope im wrong tho
I'm not sure who the "theyre" is in your post but I know I received one of those "shut down the internet and here's your warning" things a few weeks ago. Some of the messages said to pay $20, some just said to stop it. They were all undelivered by the ISP so I don't know how that works in court.
iceagecoming wrote:Harmless, I've got your back regarding PJ in England.
9 out of 10 people under the age of 20 couldn't name a PJ song.
9 out of 10 people above the age of 20 couldn't name at least 2.
That might even be too generous.
Not even after this?
Most people seeing that photo would've been like "Who is that old guy and why is he grooming One Direction?"
RisingTides wrote:There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
If ed had been wearing his usual grmmace in that 1D pic, he'd have had a whole new slew of death threats. One direction fans are beyond crazy. They've threatened anyone who has ever said or even joked about them/their abilities.
dimejinky99 wrote:If ed had been wearing his usual grmmace in that 1D pic, he'd have had a whole new slew of death threats. One direction fans are beyond crazy. They've threatened anyone who has ever said or even joked about them/their abilities.
Pearl Jam fans were like that in the early to mid 90s. Now we just show our enthusiasm by forcing our babies to wear stick figure onesies. I frankly prefer us now.
dimejinky99 wrote:If ed had been wearing his usual grmmace in that 1D pic, he'd have had a whole new slew of death threats. One direction fans are beyond crazy. They've threatened anyone who has ever said or even joked about them/their abilities.
Pearl Jam fans were like that in the early to mid 90s. Now we just show our enthusiasm by forcing our babies to wear stick figure onesies. I frankly prefer us now.
You've just scared me. I know a fair few Pj fans who are now parents who make their babies wear them onsies.
theplatypus wrote:Sorry Mark, you didn't qualify your original comment with anything about geography so I took it as a general statement about PJ as a whole. Even then, maybe I'm wrong and they are a cult band. I don't know.
I just think the PJ fanbase often buys into the whole "we are so obsessive and cultish and special" thing but any time I venture into any other band's fan discussions I see the same kind of fervor and obsessiveness and fanaticism. I don't think it's something that's unique to Pearl Jam. Hell, I went into a Fun. message board the other day because someone was linking to my blog, and they were discussing the same minute details as we see discussed here and on the Pit, only with a lot more enthusiasm (since their fans are so much younger).
I often see people criticize this fan base for its obsessive qualities, but that's the norm, in my experience.
digster wrote:Marker would be great if it had a better chorus. Actually, it's not so much that the chorus is poor as much as it is that the disconnect between verse and chorus is so great that the air gets let out of the song.
I can agree with that. Marker always felt like two songs that were smooshed together, and the final product is not as good as its strong component parts.
digster wrote:Marker would be great if it had a better chorus. Actually, it's not so much that the chorus is poor as much as it is that the disconnect between verse and chorus is so great that the air gets let out of the song. S/T isn't all that bad up to and including Unemployable; I just think besides Army Reserve it falls apart after that.
Agreed, except that I find Army Reserve boring as well so the entire second half is meh to me. I'd never felt that way about a PJ album at the time, so it was a pretty bad thing.
for me that song is come back, but yeah. It has one of the strongest A-sides in the catalog, and the weakest b-side
Jaeti wrote:As the thread segues into an S/T discussion...
...at what point does this thread become the Pearl Jam version of a "theory of everything" and render all previous threads unnecessary? I mean, we're not there yet; we can't be until we actually hear Lightning Bolt and discuss it.
But that might be the only missing piece. By the time we have it and talk about it I think we'll also have covered everything else. It'll be like finally unifying general relativity with quantum mechanics.
Personally I will forget all 630 pages when I have the album in my hands and press play. It'll be good to start a new thread, actually. A lot of this talk has been us purging ourselves of the poison left over from Backspacer and the subsequent 4 years, and I don't want to take any baggage forward.
this thread will be locked and bronzed once the album is out.
digster wrote:Marker would be great if it had a better chorus. Actually, it's not so much that the chorus is poor as much as it is that the disconnect between verse and chorus is so great that the air gets let out of the song. S/T isn't all that bad up to and including Unemployable; I just think besides Army Reserve it falls apart after that.
Agreed, except that I find Army Reserve boring as well so the entire second half is meh to me. I'd never felt that way about a PJ album at the time, so it was a pretty bad thing.
for me that song is come back, but yeah. It has one of the strongest A-sides in the catalog, and the weakest b-side
RisingTides wrote:There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
dimejinky99 wrote:If ed had been wearing his usual grmmace in that 1D pic, he'd have had a whole new slew of death threats. One direction fans are beyond crazy. They've threatened anyone who has ever said or even joked about them/their abilities.
Pearl Jam fans were like that in the early to mid 90s. Now we just show our enthusiasm by forcing our babies to wear stick figure onesies. I frankly prefer us now.
You've just scared me. I know a fair few Pj fans who are now parents who make their babies wear them onsies.
if I had a pearl jam onsie I would absolutely cram Mia into it.
Tj wrote:Pearl Jam are not a cult band. It would however take a cult following of a band to create a 600 + page thread about a album the following has not heard yet, and bash the band in 60 percent of the post. Knowing all the while after the album comes out we will all love it for 8 month then start bashing it again.
iceagecoming wrote:Harmless, I've got your back regarding PJ in England.
9 out of 10 people under the age of 20 couldn't name a PJ song.
9 out of 10 people above the age of 20 couldn't name at least 2.
That might even be too generous.
That sounds about right for most of Europe.
I think it has a lot to do with media presence though. Their music is likeable enough that if Europeans were more causally exposed to it all trough their career and if they did promotional tours, videos etc. they'd be selling out anything without releasing any new music at this point.
Also they have a weird reputation among people who are into grunge.
As i said before their catalogue is remarkably little known considering how much records they sold in the early 90's.
) 
I often see people criticize this fan base for its obsessive qualities, but that's the norm, in my experience.
