PHATJ wrote:I'm still going with this.
1. Vitalogy
2. Binaural
3. Yield
4. Vs.
5. Ten
6. No Code
7. Riot Act
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8. Lightning Bolt
9. Pearl Jam
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10. Backspacer
1. Vitalogy - Quite simply, this album is a masterpiece, and it belongs in the conversation with the best rock albums ever made.
2. Binaural - This has grown so much for me over the years. Once a bottom feeder on my list, now rightfully near the top. Sleight of Hand is absolutely PERFECT.
The top two have separated themselves from the pack. These are easily my favorites and when I listen to PJ, these are the albums I reach for first.
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3. Yield - Consistently strong album. This is the "happy" sounding PJ that I can (and still do) get into (unlike Backspacer).
4. Vs. - Raw, blistering energy, powerful. A classic in its own right. I still love listening to Vs. all these years later.
These two can't quite compete with the very best of PJ, but they are wonderful nonetheless. So far I'd be giving each album 5/5 stars.
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5. No Code - This one is difficult to place for me, and this is as high as I can reasonably place it. There is a lot to love about No Code, and there are many very good songs, but this was the first PJ album that also gave me songs that I just plain didn't care about.
6. Ten - I've placed this as high as number one in years long past. And in reality, it has as many top shelf songs as any PJ album (probably more). But it is 25 years old now, and I might listen to the album once a year. It is the reason PJ is PJ, and it is the reason this band has been my favorite band since I was 11 years old. But it has nothing left for me to discover, and my desire to regularly listen to Ten went away ten years ago.
These two are the "difficult to rank" albums for me. Ultimately, they fall in the middle of the pack, but they are pretty interchangeable in which place. No Code gets the edge simply because I'm more apt to listen to it these days.
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7. Riot Act - There is a lot of material here. Much of it is very good, but I find very little on Riot Act to reach the heights of the albums that came before it. I also just think it's a bit too long. And the bottom end tracks on this album are some of my least favorite in the PJ catalog.
8. Pearl Jam - Terrible production, some decent songs, some horseshit songs (I'm looking at you, WWS). I really think this could have been a much stronger album with the inclusion of Cold Confession and Let it Ride, and some reasonably good production. It's just not that fun to listen to in its current state, which is a shame.
These two albums both show a great potential that simply wasn't reached. I'd love to hear a remastered and "complete" version of S/T and I just wish RA was a more focused and shorter version of itself.
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9. Lightning Bolt - I only like about 4 or 5 songs on LB, and the rest is pretty crappy. And worst of all, I find LB to be aging terribly for me. When this first came out, I was hopeful of getting an album that would at least be strong enough to be mid tier PJ, but this just isn't it.
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10. Backspacer - Fuck this shit.
