Red Mosquito

Pearl Jam's music was as it's best a combination of completely unimpressive parts that together worked to create something much more impressive.
There was never at any point of their career a realistic possibility of them being able to pull off a change in writing, or producing for that matter, that was significantly adventurous.

I think expecting Pearl Jam to pursue something artistically challenging would be like expecting Madonna to pursue a career in opera.

My point is if they'd just stick with what was actually good and hinted at some artistic identity, it would still be an improvement over what they've ended up settling on, which is essentially Ten going trough andropause.

I think most people would be more forgiving towards the newer material had it been arranged and produced similarly to how most of their material up to Binaural/Riot Act was.

When they were at their best they were able produce the music around those simple songs in a way that worked together symbiotically. Now it goes towards parasitism as they really amplify what's wrong with the songs while losing the redeeming qualities that may have been there originally.

All the songs on l- bolt needed was scruffier production (broadly understood) and everyone would have been happy

ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Remember when they released Immagine in Cornice? They showed it in theaters, it was a big to do, and it was pretty awesome. Just give us something like that, from the SA tour or something. That might be more successful than a new album right now. "A Imaginação Human Bass "

stip wrote:All the songs on l- bolt needed was scruffier production (broadly understood) and everyone would have been happy

And make it a 8 track mini album.

stip wrote:All the songs on l- bolt needed was scruffier production (broadly understood) and everyone would have been happy

I said more forgiving not happy. Scruffy isn't really how i'd describe much of their records as sounding. When it kind of was (Vitalogy, No Code) it was appropriate for the actual music which only gives validity to my argument.

What I was getting at was related to how one can really like a song but detest a version or cover of it.

LetMeSleep wrote:

stip wrote:All the songs on l- bolt needed was scruffier production (broadly understood) and everyone would have been happy

And make it a 8 track mini album.

Whether you mean the obsolete tape format, so that no one would have to ability to hear it, or a shorter length album, i agree.

Mine wrote:

LetMeSleep wrote:

stip wrote:All the songs on l- bolt needed was scruffier production (broadly understood) and everyone would have been happy

And make it a 8 track mini album.

Whether you mean the obsolete tape format, so that no one would have to ability to hear it, or a shorter length album, i agree.

I don't deny that production is an issue on recent records, but it is definitely not the main one. The songs are just, overall, not nearly as good as they were in the times they were making their best records. Lightning Bolt with the sound on Yield would improve the record, but not by that much.

digster wrote:I don't deny that production is an issue on recent records, but it is definitely not the main one. The songs are just, overall, not nearly as good as they were in the times they were making their best records. Lightning Bolt with the sound on Yield would improve the record, but not by that much.

I still think that the overall ideas behind the songs, the lyrics, the basic writing is still on par for what we've always expected from them. Maybe not their very very best work, but certainly the above average standard. But Eddie has lost a few steps, while they simultaneously adopted a presentation style that A: features him more prominently and B: makes the music a bit too clean (presumably to complement A)

Remember hearing that early instrumental clip of Pendulum with the fall 2013 tour announcement?-- that was awesome, and the song turned out to be great. And the MYM clip at the end was nice too, decent song in the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK1njeQdAVk

And then there was that muffled London, Ontario Infallible soundcheck recording that gave us all high hopes too, for that weirder record some hoped for. The song itself turned out to be not as good as we'd hoped and the record had some high points and low points.

For me, LB's first 7 songs are good to great, and the rest is less than good. I'd put Pendulum up there with the best they've done in the past 10-15 years.

For the next record, I still hope for something more raw, less polished, a little weird, less radio friendly. But that likely won't happen, unfortunately. They play it safe.

digster wrote:I don't deny that production is an issue on recent records, but it is definitely not the main one. The songs are just, overall, not nearly as good as they were in the times they were making their best records. Lightning Bolt with the sound on Yield would improve the record, but not by that much.

I didn't single out production in my post, definitely not the audio engineering aspect of it. It's difficult to chose the appropriate term as production/arranging/writing/composing have so much overlap these days that they are often used interchangeably. It's especially complicated with PJ as for most of their career the producers, BOB included, weren't really involved with the composition so the role of the producers changed considerably.

bluestate wrote:No, PJ isn't doing any of that right now for sure. But when I listen to the unreleased demos from the Avocado sessions I can't help but feel like that band could still be alive and kicking in there somewhere. For some reason, they made an intentional choice to go the "lets make more mainstream accessible/stadium-ready music" route for the past 3 albums. But all things run their course. Eventually they could get bored with that and try something completely different.

Unfortunately those great Avocado demo's are now 10 years old.

stip wrote: I still think that the overall ideas behind the songs, the lyrics, the basic writing is still on par for what we've always expected from them.

That's the whole point.

stip wrote:But Eddie has lost a few steps, while they simultaneously adopted a presentation style that A: features him more prominently and B: makes the music a bit too clean (presumably to complement A)

I presume you're talking about the vocals here? This is something to be expected and i take it for granted with singers who reached a certain age.

The music isn't really cleaner, it's just messier and Eddie's vocals have nothing to with it, as there's nothing problematic enough that couldn't be handled in the mixing no matter what the music around is.

When it comes to the writing/composing aspect i think Eddie knows what works for his songs better than the rest of the band and BOB. His, recent especially, songs aren't a good fit for the overproduced sound with the busy but not in a good way disjointed compositions. Ed's been writing what's now labelled "should be on Ed's solo record" for ever yet the songs tended to sound better when he was a jerk to work with. I bored people with the Speed Of Sound demo vs. finished version example numerous time but it is a very good example of what one of the issues in the band's composing the final versions is compared to even as recent as the early 00's. I think what makes that demo a good example is that it has enough elements to make the original direction it was supposed to have clear - and it wasn't the finished vegas rock one we ended up with. Leaving that song quieter and sparser would let it retain some dignity. The overall impression it would leave would be different even though it would be the same relatively unimpressive song.

As for the more stylistic bold directions they would in theory be pursuing had other people in the band been given more space (pretending that JA didn't write and co-write half of Lightning Bolt). My opinion is had anybody in the band been accomplished enough as a songwriter that would be a very strong argument that i could agree with. But none of them really is. I'm not interested in them pursuing a style for the sake of it because i don't think they're talented enough to do it at a level that would make it worth it at the end. It would just be another meh record in a different style.

Strat wrote:

bluestate wrote:No, PJ isn't doing any of that right now for sure. But when I listen to the unreleased demos from the Avocado sessions I can't help but feel like that band could still be alive and kicking in there somewhere. For some reason, they made an intentional choice to go the "lets make more mainstream accessible/stadium-ready music" route for the past 3 albums. But all things run their course. Eventually they could get bored with that and try something completely different.

Unfortunately those great Avocado demo's are now 10 years old.

Pearl Jam is the worst.

E.H. Ruddock wrote:

Strat wrote:

bluestate wrote:No, PJ isn't doing any of that right now for sure. But when I listen to the unreleased demos from the Avocado sessions I can't help but feel like that band could still be alive and kicking in there somewhere. For some reason, they made an intentional choice to go the "lets make more mainstream accessible/stadium-ready music" route for the past 3 albums. But all things run their course. Eventually they could get bored with that and try something completely different.

Unfortunately those great Avocado demo's are now 10 years old.

Pearl Jam is the worst.

So dramatic

Strat wrote:

E.H. Ruddock wrote:

Strat wrote:

bluestate wrote:No, PJ isn't doing any of that right now for sure. But when I listen to the unreleased demos from the Avocado sessions I can't help but feel like that band could still be alive and kicking in there somewhere. For some reason, they made an intentional choice to go the "lets make more mainstream accessible/stadium-ready music" route for the past 3 albums. But all things run their course. Eventually they could get bored with that and try something completely different.

Unfortunately those great Avocado demo's are now 10 years old.

Pearl Jam is the worst.

So dramatic

who me or them

Mine wrote:

stip wrote: I still think that the overall ideas behind the songs, the lyrics, the basic writing is still on par for what we've always expected from them.

That's the whole point.

stip wrote:But Eddie has lost a few steps, while they simultaneously adopted a presentation style that A: features him more prominently and B: makes the music a bit too clean (presumably to complement A)

I presume you're talking about the vocals here? This is something to be expected and i take it for granted with singers who reached a certain age.

The music isn't really cleaner, it's just messier and Eddie's vocals have nothing to with it, as there's nothing problematic enough that couldn't be handled in the mixing no matter what the music around is.

I meant cleaner in the overall feel of the sound. Something polished, occasionally bordering on antiseptic.

I'll still get excited about a new album (despite my best efforts) because every new album provides at least a few new songs that enhance the entire PJ canon... thinking of Parachutes, Army Reserve, Johnny Guitar, and Yellow Moon off the top of my head... these are just personal preferences, of course, but these songs wouldn't exist in my PJ catalog if the band just said, "the hell with it... let's stop making mediocre albums". I'd rather have the precious few new gems than nothing at all.

bluestate wrote:I'll still get excited about a new album (despite my best efforts) because every new album provides at least a few new songs that enhance the entire PJ canon... thinking of Parachutes, Army Reserve, Johnny Guitar, and Yellow Moon off the top of my head... these are just personal preferences, of course, but these songs wouldn't exist in my PJ catalog if the band just said, "the hell with it... let's stop making mediocre albums". I'd rather have the precious few new gems than nothing at all.