Gigaton: Official album thread

[Strat]

I think the Stone thing people are talking about here is an old issue that is done and over. I've brought this up here in the past (w/ some RM mocking of course), but there is pretty good evidence in the book Grunge is Dead where Regan Hagar, once of Stone's very best friends, just rips into Ed and the band for the thing that happened in the mid-90s w/ Brad. Basically, the band intervened with Epic and Epic then did not promote the early Brad albums. There's nothing straight from Stone's mouth on all of this, but we know he wasn't exactly thrilled w/ the Vitalogy/No Code era, or w/ Binaural era either and this was also when he was really invested in Brad as his outlet and where he may have felt more of being a leader. I think those were the lean years when he was "checked out". I think in this current era starting about 10 years ago and on, he's been much more involved and motivated in the band then he was from 94-00.

The big revelation to me on the whole PJ20 thing was just how close Ed and Jeff are. It is their vision of the band that prevailed, the whole DIY, fan club, rarities, changing setlists, that aspect is I believe Ed and Jeff's vision, w/ Mike jumping on board. Stone is more of the world-conquering let's be U2 or Coldplay vision and have one monster radio hit after another. He's said more recently he's been pleasantly surprised by how things have turned out, success-wise, for the band now. So, with them being stadium and festival headliners and such I think he's come around to thinking maybe everything worked out the way it was supposed to, even if he wasn't down with it at the time.

I think there's a story to be told some day (maybe PJ40?) that may go into all of this, I would think that would be a very interesting thing to see. Just my personal read on it.

Some good thoughts here. I can add a couple:

-I know from my friend at Sony Music, who has handled legal issues for Epic and the band since the early days, that Jeff is the band's archivist. Any B-sides, memorabilia, box sets, etc are all instigated and driven by him. I'm not sure that translates to him having the same involvement in new releases, and the quality gap between RNDM's Ghost Riding and Lighting Bolt leads me to suspect he's as checked out at the rest of them when it comes to PJ.

-I think your perceptions on Stone are pretty right on, and I would add that he seems to have grown a lot as a person outside of the music. He was a stoner in the band's earlier days, and I don't get that impression now. And his environmental work seems pretty important to him now. I'm totally projecting from my own experiences in the record biz, but I'm guessing that he now regards his pursuit of fame as not all that important now.

-Stone as the "hitmaker" is a funny concept, because I think that was true in the beginning, but then he came up with some of the weirder riffs as the band progressed (Animal, No Way, DTE, etc). Those songs were angry and gnarly and likely a reflection of whatever he was feeling at the time. His riffs now are again very radio-friendly (Amongst the Waves, LTRP, Life Wasted). I think he's just gotten to a point where he wants to pick up a guitar, write a quick classic rock riff with a smart hook, then get home to his family and work on other stuff.

Stone has a great cover of hank williams "cool water". ive seen a couple interviews of him talking about Hank Williams. I think stone changed his approach to writing music after digging into someone like hank williams. Becoming more of a generic songwriter approach and doing more with melody over simile progressions, instead of odd changes, hooks, and riffs.

[Tuolumne]

At the end of the day, I wouldn't change anything. The Ten era riffs are made off of sorta cheesy riffs, if you want to be cynical about it. All the way to the Target deal and accessibility of albums like Backspacer. To me, that's the Stone side of the band coming through, while the middle years of being anti-corporate or being unaccessible is the Ed/Jeff side. I hope we get equally diverse visions pushed to us in the future.

[LoathedVermin72]

tl;dr

[epilogue]

tl;dr

Stone is somehow their hitmaker and the their wildcard and he got better after discovering Hank Williams.

Jeff likes his other band better and memorabilia better than Pearl Jam.

Ed looks like a cat.

#moneygrab

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[epilogue]

tl;dr

Stone is somehow their hitmaker and the their wildcard and he got boring after discovering Hank Williams.

Jeff likes his other band better and memorabilia better than Pearl Jam.

Ed looks like a cat.

#moneygrab

FTFY

I was summarizing, not editorializing.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[epilogue]

tl;dr

Stone is somehow their hitmaker and the their wildcard and he got boring after discovering Hank Williams.

Jeff likes his other band better and memorabilia better than Pearl Jam.

Ed looks like a cat.

#moneygrab

FTFY

I was summarizing, not editorializing.

And the cat comment, then?

Correct

[Strat]

tl;dr

Stone is somehow their hitmaker and the their wildcard and he got better after discovering Hank Williams.

Jeff likes his other band better and memorabilia better than Pearl Jam.

Ed looks like a cat.

#moneygrab

Stone thinks he got better. I like weird stone. RIVAL ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

i Love pearl jam.

[epilogue]

Rival is so awesome.

[epilogue]

And I think listening to Hank Williams can only make people better.

[Strat]

And I think listening to Hank Williams can only make people better.

That's a good point.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[epilogue]

tl;dr

Stone is somehow their hitmaker and the their wildcard and he got better after discovering Hank Williams.

Jeff likes his other band better and memorabilia better than Pearl Jam.

Ed looks like a cat.

#moneygrab

Stone thinks he got better. I like weird stone. RIVAL ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

i Love pearl jam.

Team Strat. But I don't think the boys are interested in weird records any more.

Vitalogy to Riot Act is such a glorious run of records. Just fucking lights out. If that's the last of the "weird" from PJ, I can hardly complain about it.

[digster]

Most of the players in the band still commit to 'weird' stuff, Stone included. There's some stuff on Moonlander that's fairly audacious. Jeff's got his projects that branch out. Even Eddie decided to release an entire album solely consisting of songs on ukulele, which doesn't really scream commercial potential. I didn't necessarily like all these projects, but I feel like it's hard to argue that Pearl Jam is the place where the guys' most conservative musical tendencies tend to come to the forefront. Why that is, or whose decision that is, is speculative, but it certainly feels like it's happening.

[E.H. Ruddock]

When is that EP supposed to come out?

[Jorge]

Even Eddie decided to release an entire album solely consisting of songs on ukulele, which doesn't really scream commercial potential.

I guess but it's also a pretty low-cost high-reward project. The songs themselves are fairly standard.

[evenslow]

When is that EP supposed to come out?

Look for it in Spring 2010:

PEARL JAM TO RELEASE EXTRA TRACKS FROM BACKSPACER SESSIONS
GUITARIST MIKE MCCREADY EXPLAINS WHY THE NEW ALBUM HAS ONLY 11 SONGS.

09/18/2009
Pearl Jam's Backspacer, which just got its exclusive release at Target stores on Sunday, is a lean, 11-track album that focuses less on the group's penchant for long live jams and more on intense, three-minute garage-rock tunes. In the age of epic double albums and never-ending streams of bonus tracks, it seems unusual for a rock act to keep it so efficient. That's not to say they took a more casual approach this time around — they kept things tight on purpose.

"We had about 17 to 20 ideas going into this project, and when we had 11 about finished, [producer] Brendan [O'Brien] and [frontman] Ed [Vedder] sat down and said, 'This looks like a really good record,' " guitarist Mike McCready told MTV News. "[Guitarist] Stone [Gossard] had been talking about wanting to have a record that was shorter and more concise, and I think we achieved that."

The inspiration to keep the album concise came mostly from their urge to capture the vibe of albums they loved growing up. "It hearkens back to our favorite records," McCready explained. "Aerosmith's Rocks had nine songs; all the old Van Halen albums had eight or nine songs. I'm dating myself, but those are really good records to me, and you don't have to have a lot of stuff on them."

So, will those other songs that didn't make the cut get banished to the bottom of the group's B-sides pile? Not quite. In fact, they've got big plans for those too. "We still have other songs that are out there that are from this session that we may do something with in about six months," McCready said.

[KurtLeon]

When is that EP supposed to come out?

Look for it in Spring 2010:

PEARL JAM TO RELEASE EXTRA TRACKS FROM BACKSPACER SESSIONS
GUITARIST MIKE MCCREADY EXPLAINS WHY THE NEW ALBUM HAS ONLY 11 SONGS.

09/18/2009
Pearl Jam's Backspacer, which just got its exclusive release at Target stores on Sunday, is a lean, 11-track album that focuses less on the group's penchant for long live jams and more on intense, three-minute garage-rock tunes. In the age of epic double albums and never-ending streams of bonus tracks, it seems unusual for a rock act to keep it so efficient. That's not to say they took a more casual approach this time around — they kept things tight on purpose.

"We had about 17 to 20 ideas going into this project, and when we had 11 about finished, [producer] Brendan [O'Brien] and [frontman] Ed [Vedder] sat down and said, 'This looks like a really good record,' " guitarist Mike McCready told MTV News. "[Guitarist] Stone [Gossard] had been talking about wanting to have a record that was shorter and more concise, and I think we achieved that."

The inspiration to keep the album concise came mostly from their urge to capture the vibe of albums they loved growing up. "It hearkens back to our favorite records," McCready explained. "Aerosmith's Rocks had nine songs; all the old Van Halen albums had eight or nine songs. I'm dating myself, but those are really good records to me, and you don't have to have a lot of stuff on them."

So, will those other songs that didn't make the cut get banished to the bottom of the group's B-sides pile? Not quite. In fact, they've got big plans for those too. "We still have other songs that are out there that are from this session that we may do something with in about six months," McCready said.

I got the leaks, they suck

[evenslow]

When is that EP supposed to come out?

Look for it in Spring 2010:

PEARL JAM TO RELEASE EXTRA TRACKS FROM BACKSPACER SESSIONS
GUITARIST MIKE MCCREADY EXPLAINS WHY THE NEW ALBUM HAS ONLY 11 SONGS.

09/18/2009
Pearl Jam's Backspacer, which just got its exclusive release at Target stores on Sunday, is a lean, 11-track album that focuses less on the group's penchant for long live jams and more on intense, three-minute garage-rock tunes. In the age of epic double albums and never-ending streams of bonus tracks, it seems unusual for a rock act to keep it so efficient. That's not to say they took a more casual approach this time around — they kept things tight on purpose.

"We had about 17 to 20 ideas going into this project, and when we had 11 about finished, [producer] Brendan [O'Brien] and [frontman] Ed [Vedder] sat down and said, 'This looks like a really good record,' " guitarist Mike McCready told MTV News. "[Guitarist] Stone [Gossard] had been talking about wanting to have a record that was shorter and more concise, and I think we achieved that."

The inspiration to keep the album concise came mostly from their urge to capture the vibe of albums they loved growing up. "It hearkens back to our favorite records," McCready explained. "Aerosmith's Rocks had nine songs; all the old Van Halen albums had eight or nine songs. I'm dating myself, but those are really good records to me, and you don't have to have a lot of stuff on them."

So, will those other songs that didn't make the cut get banished to the bottom of the group's B-sides pile? Not quite. In fact, they've got big plans for those too. "We still have other songs that are out there that are from this session that we may do something with in about six months," McCready said.

I got the leaks, they suck

Can we expect another patented KL leak o' the leaks anytime soon?