Song of the Moment: Sirens

[VinylGuy]

Listening to the live version.

Love it.

[stip]

Pearl Jam's early identity was that they (and their fans) stood against this kind of music even though there was always probably a part of them that wanted to embrace it but were too embarrassed to do so because so much of it was mind numbing schlocky crap.

I used to convince myself of this in the early days but I can't buy into this logic anymore. If this was true there would've been at least a dozen PJ songs that would have never been written. As for Last Kiss, well I won't even go there.

and I think pearl jam moved in this direction long before many of their fans did--I think sirens is just more striking because it emulates something that was oppositional to what many of us thought pearl jam was/is.

[digster]

I don't know if it's necessarily that people are closed to any version of this type of music; I think, in some cases, it's more that there are certain tropes to this style of songwriting/production that are less aesthetic choices and more bad choices. Like, using the 80s power ballad thing as an example (not that Sirens is necessarily in that mold), I don't like the style because I've rarely heard times when the songwriting and production decisions inherent to that style didn't make a song suck more. Just saying this because I do sort of agree with plat that this isn't that far off the beaten path. It's maybe a song further down the road from where they went with Backspacer, in terms of production aesthetics.

[stip]

I don't know if it's necessarily that people are closed to any version of this type of music; I think, in some cases, it's more that there are certain tropes to this style of songwriting/production that are less aesthetic choices and more bad choices. Like, using the 80s power ballad thing as an example (not that Sirens is necessarily in that mold), I don't like the style because I've rarely heard times when the songwriting and production decisions inherent to that style didn't make a song suck more. Just saying this because I do sort of agree with plat that this isn't that far off the beaten path. It's maybe a song further down the road from where they went with Backspacer, in terms of production aesthetics.

I think this explains why you wouldn't like the song, not why you wouldn't be willing to engage it in the first place. And there were so many 180s in such a brief period of time, to a degree we never really saw here before, that there's got to be more going on. It's not like Sirens itself was a difficult song that required multiple listens to figure out musically...

[Lament]

they put an (earlier?) version of "Alive" on a Coca-Cola cassette tape when I was 12

Sellouts.

RIP Pearl Jam.

[harmless]

I don't know if it's necessarily that people are closed to any version of this type of music; I think, in some cases, it's more that there are certain tropes to this style of songwriting/production that are less aesthetic choices and more bad choices. Like, using the 80s power ballad thing as an example (not that Sirens is necessarily in that mold), I don't like the style because I've rarely heard times when the songwriting and production decisions inherent to that style didn't make a song suck more. Just saying this because I do sort of agree with plat that this isn't that far off the beaten path. It's maybe a song further down the road from where they went with Backspacer, in terms of production aesthetics.

I think this explains why you wouldn't like the song, not why you wouldn't be willing to engage it in the first place. And there were so many 180s in such a brief period of time, to a degree we never really saw here before, that there's got to be more going on. It's not like Sirens itself was a difficult song that required multiple listens to figure out musically...

I think this is why I talked about the "massive new direction" thing that Jorge disagreed with. While the music is still within the Pearl Jam ballpark, the structural / arrangement / production choices are not, or haven't been in the past, at least. So, same problems many people had with The Fixer, but this is the second song to divide the community in such a way, and -- due to its length and subject matter -- a much bigger statement of intent. And it's not an intent that many thought PJ would ever have. I think the irony is that many would like to think that some members of PJ should be fighting this kind of music -- Jeff and Stone should be stamping their foot because this stuff is just so awful -- when in fact, all of the members look very happy and comfortable playing the song, at least given the very little interview and video evidence we have. It's almost as if Stone finds it a breath of fresh air, and some people are finding that kind of difficult.

[digster]

Stone can be as big a cheeseball as any of them, to be fair.

[Ledbetterdays]

Can some kind soul point me in the direction of the link for the sirens video mp3 download please?

Hate getting bottom paged. Anyone able to help with this?

Sirens Video Audio
https://www.wetransfer.com/downloads/b3 ... 230/527cf8#

[harmless]

I really like the tone of Matt's drums in this song.

[harmless]

OK, I think I've figured out one of the most difficult things to deal with when I heard the song for the first (twenty) time(s). The fucker has radically altered my perception of the album, and I was hoping we wouldn't get a song that did that. Before Sirens, I was joining the dots and getting a full picture... as I always do with every album, before the inevitable disappointment that it won't all fit. That's why I wish more had been made of the sirens / search-and-rescue backdrop of the song, because that would've fitted the theme more explicitly, although it sort of still does inadvertently. In as much as other songs are also about being in relationship in the midst of chaos.

[harmless]

Holy shit, it does sound like Nickelback.

[dprival78]

Holy shit, it does sound like Nickelback.

is that the record for most cliches packed into the first 30 seconds of a song?

[McParadigm]

Holy shit, it does sound like Nickelback.

is that the record for most cliches packed into the first 30 seconds of a song?

Previous record holder: Nickelback

[harmless]

Holy shit, it does sound like Nickelback.

is that the record for most cliches packed into the first 30 seconds of a song?

Previous record holder: Nickelback

I guess the rebuttal for that would be "The only reason Sirens packs fewer cliches into the first 30 seconds is that the tempo is slower".

[McParadigm]

Fun fact: Sirens contains the only recognizably profound circus in the history of history

[dprival78]

Holy shit, it does sound like Nickelback.

is that the record for most cliches packed into the first 30 seconds of a song?

Previous record holder: Nickelback

I guess the rebuttal for that would be "The only reason Sirens packs fewer cliches into the first 30 seconds is that the tempo is slower".

it does have its fair share.. but at least they're spread out a little.

and most importantly, not sung by a douche bag

[McParadigm]

Maybe Ed stumbled upon a Chautauqua, and mistook it for a circus.

[Lament]

not sung by a douche bag

[Lament]

Oh fuck guys, he's literally sitting on a Lightning Bolt in that picture.

[Birds in Hell]

I'm really starting to eat up the reverby slide-down guitar. That's a good overdub.

That's a favourite of mine too.

I wonder if I genuinely think this song is OK or if I'm just super, super into that guitar part.