Lightning Bolt: The Official Album Thread

[Strat]

That stereogum review is spot on.

[harmless]

Without being too OTT I've been feeling a tad crap lately and this album has really helped me. So I give thanks for that

I've been depressed and anxious for a stupid amount of time now, so I'm in exactly the right place for my favourite band of all time to be producing easily palatable / accessible music. They do it better here than they did on Backspacer.

[Juvenal]

Without being too OTT I've been feeling a tad crap lately and this album has really helped me. So I give thanks for that

I've been depressed and anxious for a stupid amount of time now, so I'm in exactly the right place for my favourite band of all time to be producing easily palatable / accessible music. They do it better here than they did on Backspacer.

Exactly.

[Lament]

He's talked about s/t almost being a concept record, and even considering adding Pink Floyd like sound elements, before.

Aw

What could have been eh?

I think that would have been seen as ed taking the Townshend worship too far.

If they would've come out and been all "CHECK IT OUT, OUR NEW ALBUM IS A CONCEPT ALBUM!" and made it the centerpiece of their marketing campaign, I think people would've been very critical. However, I think if it were something that they didn't really mention at first, and then maybe a month or two after it was out, in either an interview or some stage banter Ed was like "The album actually is meant to tell the story of..." it could've been cool. Sort of a "Now that you've all listened to and developed what you think each of these songs means, here's some food for thought..." That would have had a decent number of us running back to the stereo to give things another listen/attempt at interpretation.

[stupidmop]

That stereogum review is spot on.

Yeah

Each successive record has felt like some attempt at course correction, or a facsimile of what Pearl Jam imagined people expected them to be. Even when that approach works —as it does on most of Lightning Bolt —it still feels somehow removed from the band we’ve known and loved. They sounded best when they were striving and not always succeeding, their art-rock detours always more interesting than their middle-age rewrites of “Spin the Black Circle.”

It’s just that I can’t help but still long for the days when the notion of Pearl Jam writing about mortality meant that the music would sound searching, too. Maybe a little messy. I still long for the days when Pearl Jam summed up their albums with a single cipher, but imbued them with the gravity of thousands more.

I'm always sad when press and reviews match my negative thinking. It's not just board crazies.

[harmless]

Ha. This guy shits on Pearl Jam lite but likes Sleeping By Myself:

http://www.mstarz.com/articles/20018/20 ... stream.htm

I just find it really funny when people shit on Lightning Bolt for being "PJ Lite" on a level worse than Backspacer.

[stip]

I can't remember them now, but there were a couple times as I listened to this in the car this morning where I was like "damnit, Ed, you don't have to explain that!"

what are some examples of this, chud?

[Heathen]

That stereogum review is spot on.

I almost expected to see Jorge as the author.

[stip]

Those fifteen year olds are in their 30s now.

I've been on a Tool kick lately. I love Maynard's stupid lyrics. The dumberer the better.

Couldn't get into Puscifer at all though.

I loved tool but really got tired quickly of 10,000 days. Not an album that justifies a decade long follow up.

[stip]

Okay, here's one:

Inside Job > LTRP

I hope they both get cancer

It's a real possibility.

Guys, I wish i didn't have to be the one to tell you this, but songs can't get cancer.

[McParadigm]

That stereogum review is spot on.

This part was a nail/head moment, I thought:

A certain version of Pearl Jam ended with Riot Act. Since their third record, 1994′s Vitalogy, the band had continuously eschewed their mainstream success in favor of leaning more deliberately alternative, messing with their sound, and, speaking objectively about my favorites albums of theirs, simply making music that sounded uglier. I’m in a certain (but vocal) pseudo-minority of the fanbase that finds Yield, the middle of this process, to be a hidden masterpiece. I’m in a considerably smaller part of the fanbase that loves Riot Act. Sure, that album is all dulled burnt orange hues and wearied midnight wanderings, but even as many fans bemoaned the grayscale of Vedder’s delivery on it (pretty rightfully, though I’d argue it works for many of those songs) ironically it felt like the last moment Pearl Jam really gave us something. Each successive record has felt like some attempt at course correction, or a facsimile of what Pearl Jam imagined people expected them to be. Even when that approach works — as it does on most of Lightning Bolt — it still feels somehow removed from the band we’ve known and loved. They sounded best when they were striving and not always succeeding, their art-rock detours always more interesting than their middle-age rewrites of “Spin the Black Circle.”

[Jorge]

Ha. This guy shits on Pearl Jam lite but likes Sleeping By Myself:

http://www.mstarz.com/articles/20018/20 ... stream.htm

I just find it really funny when people shit on Lightning Bolt for being "PJ Lite" on a level worse than Backspacer.

It's weird that he calls "Sleeping With Myself" a "downtempo ballad".

[stupidmop]

(Hell, they even jack the "Jeepers, Creepers" melody for certain sections of "Let The Records Play")

Lol.

[McParadigm]

Guys, I wish i didn't have to be the one to tell you this, but songs can't get cancer.

Let the Records Play can never get cancer.

Does that seem right to you?

[Heathen]

Guys, I wish i didn't have to be the one to tell you this, but songs can't get cancer.

Let the Records Play can never get cancer.

Does that seem right to you?

It's because it's already dead.

[Tuolumne]

I dunno, that Stereogum review is alot like RM, where there's some people that go, "I wish they were making the style from Binaural/Riot Act", which sounds alot like in the No Code era most of us heard from ex-fans "I wish they made music like Ten". It's just the nature of a band changing and not meeting you where you're at in a particular moment. Sure there's some songs that miss or could have been executed or included differently, but it's very reminiscent of that No Code era. I consider many members of this board to be "middle era" PJ fans, just like there are devotees (to this day) of "early" PJ. We're currently in "late era" PJ. It's just the changing nature of any band that goes this long. Over the several years I've been reading this and other boards, I've not been convinced it's anything otherwise.

[harmless]

Wow, that Stereogum review will be the best one we read of this album, surely.

[Heathen]

Wow, that Stereogum review will be the best one we read of this album, surely.

stip is crying

[JH]

Knowing now that Pendulum was originally going to be on Backspacer, does anyone think this artwork wasn't originally intended for The Fixer?



In one of the interviews around Backspacer, Tom Tomorrow mentioned that the CD he got from PJ that inspired his artwork actually had another track on it that didn't make the final release.

Sorry if someone else has mentioned it in the previous 1400 pages about Lightning Bolt.

[harmless]

I dunno, that Stereogum review is alot like RM, where there's some people that go, "I wish they were making the style from Binaural/Riot Act", which sounds alot like in the No Code era most of us heard from ex-fans "I wish they made music like Ten". It's just the nature of a band changing and not meeting you where you're at in a particular moment. Sure there's some songs that miss or could have been executed or included differently, but it's very reminiscent of that No Code era. I consider many members of this board to be "middle era" PJ fans, just like there are devotees (to this day) of "early" PJ. We're currently in "late era" PJ. It's just the changing nature of any band that goes this long. Over the several years I've been reading this and other boards, I've not been convinced it's anything otherwise.

I find the review to be ultimately positive. The reviewer doesn't resonate with what the album is, but fairly acknowledges its strengths.