Red Mosquito

cutuphalfdead wrote:

tommymctom wrote:Yeah, Riot Act is excellent. To me it sounds like the last album that the band needed to make, if that makes sense.

Makes perfect sense.

Riot Act sounds like the band strode purposefully into the studio, looked around, and then slowly backed out and turned the lights off.

durdencommatyler wrote:

harmless wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:

harmless wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:

harmless wrote:It's the last timeless album they've made. S/T and Backspacer were both entertaining for a while. It would be good if the next album had something lasting about it. That's actually all I'll ask for this time around.

You obviously don't understand anything about glorious maturity.

Absolutely nothing, I'll freely admit it.

Are those rumored tracks on the new Untitled/T.B.D/Ghost Rides Pearl Jam album?

Absolutely Nothing (3:22), I'll Freely Admit It (4:12), Glorious Maturity (7:39)

The longer the song, the maturer it is.

that makes sense. Inside Job is the most mature number in the catalog.

stip wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:

tommymctom wrote:Yeah, Riot Act is excellent. To me it sounds like the last album that the band needed to make, if that makes sense.

Makes perfect sense.

Riot Act sounds like the band strode purposefully into the studio, looked around, and then slowly backed out and turned the lights off.

Riot Act sounds like the times it was a product of: weary and cynical. I know a lot of people don't like the way Ed sounds on the album, but I think it fits perfectly.

It is majestically produced BUT it is PJ generic

tommymctom wrote:

stip wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:

tommymctom wrote:Yeah, Riot Act is excellent. To me it sounds like the last album that the band needed to make, if that makes sense.

Makes perfect sense.

Riot Act sounds like the band strode purposefully into the studio, looked around, and then slowly backed out and turned the lights off.

Riot Act sounds like the times it was a product of: weary and cynical. I know a lot of people don't like the way Ed sounds on the album, but I think it fits perfectly.

I always thought it was very intentional too. Though I never was sure how everyone expected him to be screaming his head off all the time. If anything that weariness/deeper vocal work seems to be where he's headed.

And it does have a wonderful production but it is also very generic in terms of content. A lot of it.

tommymctom wrote:

stip wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:

tommymctom wrote:Yeah, Riot Act is excellent. To me it sounds like the last album that the band needed to make, if that makes sense.

Makes perfect sense.

Riot Act sounds like the band strode purposefully into the studio, looked around, and then slowly backed out and turned the lights off.

Riot Act sounds like the times it was a product of: weary and cynical. I know a lot of people don't like the way Ed sounds on the album, but I think it fits perfectly.

I agree. But I don't like how it sounds much of the time. And it is a weak crop of songs by their standards, and certainly the writing does not justify 15 tracks.

stip wrote:

tommymctom wrote:

stip wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:

tommymctom wrote:Yeah, Riot Act is excellent. To me it sounds like the last album that the band needed to make, if that makes sense.

Makes perfect sense.

Riot Act sounds like the band strode purposefully into the studio, looked around, and then slowly backed out and turned the lights off.

Riot Act sounds like the times it was a product of: weary and cynical. I know a lot of people don't like the way Ed sounds on the album, but I think it fits perfectly.

I agree. But I don't like how it sounds much of the time. And it is a weak crop of songs by their standards, and certainly the writing does not justify 15 tracks.

14 and a half, I guess. Depending on how you count Arc.

Which songs would you drop?

Personally, I never cared much for Ghost (which is probably the only song on the album I would consider generic pearl jam) and Get Right. I also think Bushleaguer doesn't quite work on the album and sounds much better live. Aside from those it's a very strong album - Can't Keep, LBC, I am Mine, Help Help, Half Full and All or None are among my favorite pearl jam songs. You Are is also a favrite of mine even though it suffers a bit from the lyrics, but I think it's interesting enough musically to overcome that (unlike Inside Job)

I'm not sure what i'd cut. I think Can't keep, save you, and i am mine are great. Everything else is flawed in some way or another. I've liked them all okay at some point or another, but you don't need 15 songs of okay.

I guess Green Disease and Bushleaguer if I was gonna get this down to 13.

Riot Act needs no reordering or cutting. That's crazy talk. It was their last coherent album.

FWIW, though, it always surprises me when people count 'I Am Mine' among the 'perfect' songs on the album. I think it's weaker, not among the weakest but top three? Not IMO.

I can't... I just... I can't...

harmless wrote:Riot Act needs no reordering or cutting. That's crazy talk. It was their last coherent album.

FWIW, though, it always surprises me when people count 'I Am Mine' among the 'perfect' songs on the album. I think it's weaker, not among the weakest but top three? Not IMO.

what do you mean by coherent album?

stip wrote:

harmless wrote:Riot Act needs no reordering or cutting. That's crazy talk. It was their last coherent album.

FWIW, though, it always surprises me when people count 'I Am Mine' among the 'perfect' songs on the album. I think it's weaker, not among the weakest but top three? Not IMO.

what do you mean by coherent album?

Coherent is an adjective. It means "logically or esthetically ordered or integrated." Or "Having clarity or intelligibility."

Thank you, durdencommatyler.

harmless wrote:Thank you, durdencommatyler.

I got your back, homes.

harmless wrote:Riot Act needs no reordering or cutting. That's crazy talk. It was their last coherent album.

FWIW, though, it always surprises me when people count 'I Am Mine' among the 'perfect' songs on the album. I think it's weaker, not among the weakest but top three? Not IMO.

Team Harmless.

I don't buy the coherency on Riot Act. As with Binaural, there's a great album somewhere in those sessions, but what they ended up with was watered down or muddied by awkward/excessive tracklisting, and an exclusion of the stronger tracks.

What stronger tracks did they exclude from Riot Act? I find that much easier to argue for Binaural, as well as the overall point about lack of coherence. I love Binaural, but that's a collection of songs. Riot Act is an album. It's just my opinion but as usual, I'm fascinated that more people don't agree with it.

As for Ed's vocals -- yes, deliberately weary, depressed and downtrodden, and trying to find hope out there somewhere. That's in the lyrics, if you've read them. So it works. Maybe the length of the album mirrors that sluggish, overbearing feeling as well. Depression seems like it's never-ending and overbearing. If that's like Riot Act, then score: it does the job.

Funnily enough, I listened to Riot Act a few days ago.

I have no issues with Ed's vocals, but I was left with the surprising impression that it's a considerably weaker collection of songs than I'd previously thought.

harmless wrote:What stronger tracks did they exclude from Riot Act? I find that much easier to argue for Binaural, as well as the overall point about lack of coherence. I love Binaural, but that's a collection of songs. Riot Act is an album. It's just my opinion but as usual, I'm fascinated that more people don't agree with it.

Yeah, my point about track choices was levelled mainly at Binaural. I think there are two possibly stronger outcomes from the Riot Act sessions:

1) I feel that if they wanted Riot Act to be weathered and murky they should make the point with less songs (cut Get Right, and/or Bush Leaguer/Ghost), so the theme hits a little stronger.
2) Or, to suit my tastes, they could have given the album a sprinkling of hope by adding Down and Undone in place of two of the tracks, and still axed the third one.

The problem, of course, with being a revisionist and altering the track listing, is that you have to be a little selfish and change the album to suit your vision or aim. Regardless, I feel like those two alternatives give a more coherent (or thematically-linked) selection of songs than what we got.

iceagecoming wrote:

harmless wrote:What stronger tracks did they exclude from Riot Act? I find that much easier to argue for Binaural, as well as the overall point about lack of coherence. I love Binaural, but that's a collection of songs. Riot Act is an album. It's just my opinion but as usual, I'm fascinated that more people don't agree with it.

Yeah, my point about track choices was levelled mainly at Binaural. I think there are two possibly stronger outcomes from the Riot Act sessions:

1) I feel that if they wanted Riot Act to be weathered and murky they should make the point with less songs (cut Get Right, and/or Bush Leaguer/Ghost), so the theme hits a little stronger.
2) Or, to suit my tastes, they could have given the album a sprinkling of hope by adding Down and Undone in place of two of the tracks, and still axed the third one.

The problem, of course, with being a revisionist and altering the track listing, is that you have to be a little selfish and change the album to suit your vision or aim. Regardless, I feel like those two alternatives give a more coherent (or thematically-linked) selection of songs than what we got.

I see your points and I think they're reasonable, especially 2). I'm never one to retrack albums, I've tried before but I can't bring myself to. For the good ones, it feels like I'm spoiling an already good thing, and for the bad ones, it makes me feel a bit depressed that I had to reorder an album to make it decent. For me, if an album doesn't stand as it is, it fails. But that means that if it succeeds for me, I won't really mind what was left off it. Especially if I can get a copy of any rejects somewhere else.