Celebration Rock with Steven Hyden (PJ Audio History)

[Jorge]

Welllll I take your point but those songs also have a 20+ year headstart.

[BurtReynolds]

Yeah, Just Breathe was huge here. Lots of fucking tattoos, really. The same with The Fixer.

You sure those tats weren't for the Taylor Swift song?

[VinylGuy]

Yeah, Just Breathe was huge here. Lots of fucking tattoos, really. The same with The Fixer.

You sure those tats weren't for the Taylor Swift song?

Nope, Pearl Jam is way more popular than Taylor here in Argentina...and about the album discussion, backspacer and lb actually sold pretty well here. You can even get the vinyl in some stores....i was really surprised to see a lot of friends of mine getting backspacer and telling me how good it was...it was weird...

As for the songs i would say Got Some, Fixer, Just Breathe, UK,Among The Wabes, MYM, Sirens, SBM and Pendulum are pretty well known.

[evenslow]

Among The Wabes

PJ at their best.

[Jorge]

I find it really hard to believe that Pearl Jam is more popular than Taylor Swift in Argentina. That's not even remotely possible. And I live in Argentina.

[Jorge]

This is a terrible way to compare their popularity, but the biggest Argentine Pearl Jam fanpage on Facebook has around 26k likes, while the biggest Argentine Taylor Swift fanpage has over a million and a half.

[evenslow]

I'm guessing the answer here is pretty simple and VG doesn't hang much with Taylor Swift fans.

[evenslow]

This is a terrible way to compare their popularity, but the biggest Argentine Pearl Jam fanpage on Facebook has around 26k likes, while the biggest Argentine Taylor Swift fanpage has over a million and a half.

This is waaaay too objective of you.

[Jorge]

All my friends are 16 year old girls so I have a skewed perspective.

[VinylGuy]

Well, i think so.. of course Swift is a popular pop act, but PJ really got into a new territory in the last 15 years here in Arg, while in 1996-2004 there was barely an interest for the band recent output...since those 2 shows in 2005, they went from a well known band to something you HAVE to see and listen to.

[BurtReynolds]

Facebook/Twitter activity is probably a more accurate barometer of relevance than radio plays or music review scores.

[joostone]

Yeah, i wasnt even referring to media outlets but casual music fans...They loved Backspacer and LB, and the band gained a lot of fans because of them.

Really? I haven't met one. In fact I would not have had any interaction with a person regarding PJ and their last two albums if I didn't post here. Zero.

Ditto.

Not really. Well, It's certainly true for Backspacer. Backspacer had their biggest hits in years. Sold well and was very well received by critics. It gained lots of fans, especially combined with 'Into the Wild'. In 2007-2009 lots of new and younger fans arrived. Lightning Bolt however was not very well received by most critics, C- average. Most casual fans liked it less than BS, most of this community rates it less or equal to BS. Both MiM and Sirens failed to have radio impact comparable to fixer and just breathe. Can't find the exact sales figures, but Im pretty sure BS sold (or streamed) twice as much as LB.

[Norah]

I have a casual fan friend and every so often amongst the waves or some shit will come up on his ipod. I usually tell him to change it if I'm around to hear it.

I don't even think he likes it that much, just not disgusted enough to remove it.

[Tuolumne]

The RM bubble is real. The last 10 years are generally decently regarded. They are far from the zeitgeist, but popular music in general is not leading the culture at this point. PJ is the "band from the grunge era that survived." That's their narrative. Yes, they were part of the grunge era, but they're also the band that's big enough to headline major festivals. That's how the kids today evaluate whether an old act was big in their day and if they're a band whose catalogue they should respect.

I didn't grow up a Springsteen fan, but the fact that he stuck around and made records and and attracted his audience year after year, album after album told me something. I wasn't that familiar with Nebraska or Tunnel of Love. But he stayed present, engaged his audience with The Rising and Magic, and kept a conversation going with his listeners. Without even listening to those 2 albums, it just told me that he means something to his audience and perhaps I should pay more attention. I did, I checked out those older albums, and they're darn good, and those newer ones are pretty good too. Now, you could certainly debate if they're up to par with his older work or not, but they were good enough to keep the conversation going with his listeners, so I give them validity. I certainly wasn't off in some far corner of the internet debating the merits of "Waiting on a Sunny Day" and how it just wasn't up to snuff with the deep cuts on the The River. Fuck that. But his recent output and tours and the relevancy he has with his audience signaled something to me. I'm not at all familiar with Devils and Dust or Human Touch or even been to his live show, but I consider myself a fan.

That's kinda where PJ is getting at these days. There is a general sense that, yeah they're older, but they're around and kicking and slaying some pretty massive audiences. A casual PJ fan is thinking "Man, I might have missed out on some stuff I ignored, like Yield, and I like that tune from Backspacer maybe I'll check it out." There might be a 26 year old student who's paying a little deeper attention to music history than his EDM listening roommates, and because PJ is still around and kicking and not playing state fairs but playing Bonnaroos and Wrigley, might be thinking "hey they're still going strong, I might want to add a few songs to my shuffle or listen to their Pandora station." But those fans count. Fuck the entitled cynics on the internet. No, they're not capturing the youth Zeitgeist, but I'd argue almost no one is these days. But they're longevity speak for itself. They'll never have anything close to a Ten-like hold on any kind of audience, but they can stay extremely respectable and come up w/ some cool late period albums. Those albums would never break through on some large level, but they could burnish a respected catalogue.

These are the sorts of conversation happening around them, but unfortunately this place is a dumpster fire burning inside it's own bubble.

I like to come on and brain dump, and hope some conversation can spark among the very intelligent and critical thinking people on this board. But they're only a handful who seem to have a pulse, which gives me a little hope. No one here is gonna like what I'm saying, but fuck it I really don't care. I'll just disappear b/c I really only feel the need to come on here once in awhile anyways.

[Jorge]

The what? You only feel the what???

[Tuolumne]

The what? You only feel the what???

Thanks theplatypus. #MakePJGreatAgain #LockThemUp

[Self]

There's also the "n Roll" part.

[Tuolumne]

From the bottom of my heart, thank you guys for making my point with an exclamation mark. Now, I've got work to do or just other parts of the internet I'd much rather be spending my time. See ya when I see ya.

[digster]

I'm constantly amazed how dangerously close Pearl Jam came to being stuck in the purgatory of the state fair circuit.

[stip]

what breaks differently in the world where they end up there? Its an interesting and terrifying thought