Do any of you PJ naysayers...

[yofismom]

I don't know how you can pick 2003 as your "Marker In The Sand" (hah) regardless of definition. I

I should have been more clear. I didn't actually mean to say that their music *recorded* after 2003 vs before 2003 was the gorgeous maturity. I meant their sound and playing as a live band, and I picked 2003 b/c in other threads that tour is often referred to as "the beginning of the end." (BTW, I never knew quoting was inherently mock-worthy.)

IMHO there is a fuller sound and parts of en emotional range (for Ed at least) that open up, even as (again focusing on Ed) the sheer vocal power begins to fade. I realize I am limited as a critic for any number of reasons, one of which is that I respond disproportionately to ability to convey emotion especially by the vocalist. In the live recordings and shows, I hear a whole new space opening up beginning in 2003 and continuing since.

And if we're looking for "markers," when did Ed meet Jill? Wasn't it the 2000 tour? Maybe 2003 was the first tour where he'd found stability in his relationship with her?

[yofismom]

[/quote]Do you really think either Backspacer or S/T are one of the three most mature artistic statements they've made? Not just the messages, but everything, music, artwork, etc.? [/quote]

[/quote] Certainly not S/T. .[/quote]

Also, I think that done WELL (which I think s/T is) any sustained political exploration shows a thematic maturity beyond the much more familiar introspective subtleties. I'm a huge fan of introspection, but to be thoughtful and creative across the spectrum from deep inside to world politics, and speak there with some conviction and artistic insight is something I'd call mature. Sure there was political stuff here and there before, but not holding together an album.

And I DON'T mean politics is MORE valuable nor do I particularly want them to emphasize it, I'm just saying, it is part of what makes S/T great. It's not necessary or sufficient, but done right it's a mature type of accomplishment.

But as I said before, my "marker" was live performance and I think even some of the early stuff comes to sound different, with that tradeoff and maturation I was mentioning, on the 2003 tour.

[stip]

The point with the comparison between the two sets of songs wasn't meant to be a one way street back in the other direction. The original statement was that people can't appreciate Pearl Jam's post-2003 maturity because they long for the pre-2003 manic/maniacalism/etc. I picked those songs because the overwhelming sentiment among most "naysayers" is actually the complete opposite. I would argue the pre-2003 songs that are among the most beloved (the ones named in my first post) I are the mature, thought provoking pieces, while the the post-2003 material that is most derided (the other set of songs in that post) is when Pearl Jam attempts to be manic, unleashed rockers. No one is wondering why they don't write songs like Rearviewmirror anymore. People seem more to wonder why they'd bother to write a song like Supersonic. That's why I can't wrap my ahead around where someone would get the idea that the bands current maturity is being unappreciated because people are waiting for another Blood or Whipping. It's just not true. It's actually very possible that the mature, thoughtful pieces from each and every album/era rate higher in the eyes of the "naysayers" than the unbridled rockers do (Ten being the possible exception).

Shouldn't you be comparing those songs you listed to The End, Parachutes, Just Breathe, Man of the Hour, Come Back, Speed of Sound, etc?

Plus pearl jam always had songs like Supersonic. That's not new. Remember Mankind?


Pearl Jam isn't writing different types of songs post 2003. They still have the same fast/aggressive songs, the slower, brooding, acoustic numbers, the mid tempo fist pumping songs, the more off kilter experimental pieces. It's totally fair to compare the output of each era (although you get 7 albums vs. 2 so obviously you'll produce more A material from the early years) in each category. But that's not really what you did in your original post.

I also don't think post 2003 PJ is better (although I prefer it to the 96-03 run). I don't know that the OP thought that either--he just thought it had something that listeners should take seriously. I agree with that.

[stip]

I don't know how you can pick 2003 as your "Marker In The Sand" (hah) regardless of definition. If Roskilde changed them, USA 2000 is the turning point. If Matt Cameron changed them, USA 1998 is the turning point. If Ed's divorce changed them, then the "marker" is the beginning of the Binaural cycle in 1999. The only thing truly different about '03 was the addition of Boom, and Riot Act was there (at the time) weakest studio album, with a handful of clunkers and a lackluster vocal performance. Some don't like S/T and might argue THAT's the great change, but other than Inside Job I think it is better matched with what came before than what came later. The change is either Ed's first solo record or Backspacer, your pick. Giving up the indie arrangement for Target exclusivity, playing Conan instead of Letterman, Oracle and other corporate gigs, repeatedly playing the European festival circuit, the continued decline of Ed's voice...for better or for worse, the band changed post-Avocado in a more stark and less gradual way than at any time since late '94/early '95.

Still, as it became clear when I responded to the "best PJ month" thread in the live forum...Pearl Jam was the best live act on earth from about February '92 to about March '95. They were a "gotta see" act from February '92 to the end of '06, a period of 15 years (though I still want to know what the hell happened to Ed's voice post-pacific rim '95). They're still really good, live and otherwise. That's a better record as a live band than Zeppelin or the Who, for sure.

yeah, I'm not sure I would draw a line at 03 either, and I agree that S/T isn't really any outlier from the previous records.

From a songwriting and stylistic standpoint, Avocado is a left turn from the direction they were heading in with every record since Yield. It was their first full-length since leaving Epic, their first new record after two career-spanning compilation albums, the first record in a decade where they made a concerted effort to do a lot of press again and reclaim commercial visibility (evinced by the band's own comments around this record cycle) and the first record since Yield where they produced a music video that wasn't just a live performance. It's completely reasonable to mark it as a "turning point" for the band.

All the marketing/distribution stuff is definitely true, but in terms of song writing how do you see it as more similar to backspacer than what came before?

[WtOB?]

Some of the posts in this thread are confusing the fuck outta me.

[Heathen]

The point with the comparison between the two sets of songs wasn't meant to be a one way street back in the other direction. The original statement was that people can't appreciate Pearl Jam's post-2003 maturity because they long for the pre-2003 manic/maniacalism/etc. I picked those songs because the overwhelming sentiment among most "naysayers" is actually the complete opposite. I would argue the pre-2003 songs that are among the most beloved (the ones named in my first post) I are the mature, thought provoking pieces, while the the post-2003 material that is most derided (the other set of songs in that post) is when Pearl Jam attempts to be manic, unleashed rockers. No one is wondering why they don't write songs like Rearviewmirror anymore. People seem more to wonder why they'd bother to write a song like Supersonic. That's why I can't wrap my ahead around where someone would get the idea that the bands current maturity is being unappreciated because people are waiting for another Blood or Whipping. It's just not true. It's actually very possible that the mature, thoughtful pieces from each and every album/era rate higher in the eyes of the "naysayers" than the unbridled rockers do (Ten being the possible exception).

Shouldn't you be comparing those songs you listed to The End, Parachutes, Just Breathe, Man of the Hour, Come Back, Speed of Sound, etc?

Plus pearl jam always had songs like Supersonic. That's not new. Remember Mankind?


Pearl Jam isn't writing different types of songs post 2003. They still have the same fast/aggressive songs, the slower, brooding, acoustic numbers, the mid tempo fist pumping songs, the more off kilter experimental pieces. It's totally fair to compare the output of each era (although you get 7 albums vs. 2 so obviously you'll produce more A material from the early years) in each category. But that's not really what you did in your original post.

I also don't think post 2003 PJ is better (although I prefer it to the 96-03 run). I don't know that the OP thought that either--he just thought it had something that listeners should take seriously. I agree with that.

I think you're missing Lament's point entirely and are actually agreeing with him more than with the OP. OP is basically saying "hey guys stop lamenting about the loss of the early days' energy/power and instead embrace the post-2003 mature PJ". It's absurd because PJ has done "mature" way before 2003 and it's precisely the loss of this kind of PJ that the "naysayers" seem to be lamenting about. For the most part those who are bored by the last 2 albums do not want PJ to go back to the early days. Pretty much the opposite really.

[HardTI]

Backspacer sounds like it does because sometimes its too hard to make a really thoughtful piece of art, not because it is intentionally simplistic or 'unbridled' due to artistic choice. It requires lots and lots of effort to make a great record. It becomes even more difficult to pull off when you decide that being rich and having a family is pretty fun....

ahh, the old 'I'm not impressed so they didn't try cuz they are rich' argument.

It's not worse than the 'it's so much deeper than you think' argument (aka 'I'm smarter than you') you pulled out.

[yofismom]

I SAID I MEANT LIVE PERFORMANCES STARTING IN 2003 NOT MATERIAL RECORDED AFTER 2003.
Of course you can discuss the other but don't keep putting it back on me!

I get now why people used to be intimidated to post in the general discussion.

I never would have thought my views were just patently ridiculous. Sorry you feel that way.

[Tuolumne]

Yeah. Backspacer is a tremendous and gorgeously mature album that a band can only make after they've gotten the manic and maniacal rage of albums like No Code, Yield, and Binaural out of their system.

I know we all wish they could tap back into the sheer fury of songs like Who You Are, Off He Goes, Around The Bend, Faithfull, All Those Yesterdays, Of The Girl, Sleight of Hand, and Parting Ways. It's understandable. But instead we get the aged wisdom of Supersonic, Big Wave, and Ole.

Appreciate it, naysayers.

backspacer is a mature album about not taking what you have for granted.. It's not a gorgeous album but it's not trying to be either.

otherwise, that's a fairly hostile response for no reason, isn't it?

Do you really think either Backspacer or S/T are one of the three most mature artistic statements they've made? Not just the messages, but everything, music, artwork, etc.? I think on the whole Backspacer is probably the most juvenile thing they've done, and even S/T doesn't strike me as particularly mature (certainly no more so than the four records that preceded it).

Certainly not S/T. I would say that about backspacer if by mature you mean the themes on the album. If you mean mature in terms of careful and considered craft than no. But I also think there is a logical progression throughout pearl jam's albums such that each album is at least partially in conversation with the one(s) that preceded it. I think it makes sense that those two albums sound the way that they do.

I don't think Backspacer is a juvenile record at all. I think it is a light and carefree and fun record (I've used the phrase unburdened before) that is trying to close the book on the dour heaviness of the three previous albums (and in a lot of ways on the first 8). I think people often assume that a song has to sound weighty and meaningful in a sterotypical way in order for people to think it is about something deep or important, and that's just not true.

Above all else I think Backspacer is a deceptive record, and because it is so superficially light people don't look closer.


Backspacer and S/T are quite possibly my two favorite post Vitalogy Pearl Jam albums (backspacer is definitely 4. Not sure about Yield or S/T), but that reflects my personal preferences. I wouldn't say that they are better than the albums I like less. I do think, quite seriously, that in a number of ways Backspacer is more intelligent than both Yield and No Code (thematically, at least). I think the craft and composition on those records is more careful and deliberate, but that's appropriate given the albums.


Also, if you want to compare Ole, Big Wave, and Supersonic to something compare it to Lukin or Mankind or Leatherman or U. What you did in your post is like someone bitching that Parachutes doesn't rock as hard as why go.

Great response. I think alot of people are "victims" of the early 90s. A great period in music, but there has always been this dismissal from people like us (people in their 30s right now who grew up in the early to mid 90s) that a song has to have all of this emotional weight and seriousness and the sound has to be sprawling and heavy for it to be legit. I have been more than guilty in the past of dismissing 'non-serious' music, I've since wised up. The PJ guys, especially EdVed are also conisseurs of carefree garage rock from the 60s. Look up the lyrics to early Beatles and you'll see some really silly stuff. I've said it before, but Backspacer realized the Lost Dogs element of the band. The stuff they've tossed off in the past like Leatherman, U, All Night, Drifting, etc, or alot of the covers they've done they just developed that side a little more. Say what you want, I can't imagine Backspacer not being in their catalogue. Without it, you have a collection of albums that may be a little too serious and weighty. Take Backspacer, Lost Dogs, and Yield out of their catelogue and you have a band of goth-like depressiveness. By the same token, I wouldn't want 10 albums of Backspacer-like rock either. I hope some of the haters will appreciate it more when looking at it within the context of their entire body of work and how it provides some balance.

[Strat]

I SAID I MEANT LIVE PERFORMANCES STARTING IN 2003 NOT MATERIAL RECORDED AFTER 2003.
Of course you can discuss the other but don't keep putting it back on me!

I get now why people used to be intimidated to post in the general discussion.

I never would have thought my views were just patently ridiculous. Sorry you feel that way.

Mind your manners!

[Kevin Davis]

I should have been more clear. I didn't actually mean to say that their music *recorded* after 2003 vs before 2003 was the gorgeous maturity. I meant their sound and playing as a live band

This I have an even harder time with, and would question what it is about those years that gives you that impression. To my ears, post-2003 (and particularly post-2006) live Pearl Jam is in every way a gaudier, less tasteful, and in most ways considerably less mature affair than the years that came directly before, if perhaps not as gauche as the roaring melodrama of their early performances. I was listening to Saratoga 2000 yesterday, and one of the things that I found myself really missing about those years, apart from the tighter band performances and undiminished vocals, was how reverent Eddie was towards the material--much less peppering of curse words throughout songs that really don't need them, no changing the words to "Given to Fly" to "smoked a joint in a tree" just to get a cheap reaction from the crowd, and in general just far less screaming and hollering, putting the focus instead 100% on the music.

As far as the albums: "maturity" is a really hard thing to gauge in music, because people do regularly seem to equate, as Stip often says, some kind of surface-level artistic depth with an enhanced understanding of the world, which is a red herring. Nothing suggests to me that "Faithful," "All Those Yesterdays," "Of the Girl," and "Sleight of Hand" are actually more mature songs than "Supersonic" or "Big Wave," just that they're (a) better songs, and (b) more serious songs. I'm not sure "Backspacer" is the kind of record I think of when I think of an artist or artists in their "mature" period--a term generally used to describe the coupling of an artist's weathered physical capacity and cumulative personal experience to create something that's emotionally resonant in a manner elusive to the younger artist--but I agree with Stip that it's not a "juvenile" record by any means. Many of the songs on "Backspacer" come from wise, learned places; the songs just don't demand that you notice that about them, which is only a failing if that was a goal of the record, which I presume it wasn't.

[stip]

The point with the comparison between the two sets of songs wasn't meant to be a one way street back in the other direction. The original statement was that people can't appreciate Pearl Jam's post-2003 maturity because they long for the pre-2003 manic/maniacalism/etc. I picked those songs because the overwhelming sentiment among most "naysayers" is actually the complete opposite. I would argue the pre-2003 songs that are among the most beloved (the ones named in my first post) I are the mature, thought provoking pieces, while the the post-2003 material that is most derided (the other set of songs in that post) is when Pearl Jam attempts to be manic, unleashed rockers. No one is wondering why they don't write songs like Rearviewmirror anymore. People seem more to wonder why they'd bother to write a song like Supersonic. That's why I can't wrap my ahead around where someone would get the idea that the bands current maturity is being unappreciated because people are waiting for another Blood or Whipping. It's just not true. It's actually very possible that the mature, thoughtful pieces from each and every album/era rate higher in the eyes of the "naysayers" than the unbridled rockers do (Ten being the possible exception).

Shouldn't you be comparing those songs you listed to The End, Parachutes, Just Breathe, Man of the Hour, Come Back, Speed of Sound, etc?

Plus pearl jam always had songs like Supersonic. That's not new. Remember Mankind?


Pearl Jam isn't writing different types of songs post 2003. They still have the same fast/aggressive songs, the slower, brooding, acoustic numbers, the mid tempo fist pumping songs, the more off kilter experimental pieces. It's totally fair to compare the output of each era (although you get 7 albums vs. 2 so obviously you'll produce more A material from the early years) in each category. But that's not really what you did in your original post.

I also don't think post 2003 PJ is better (although I prefer it to the 96-03 run). I don't know that the OP thought that either--he just thought it had something that listeners should take seriously. I agree with that.

I think you're missing Lament's point entirely and are actually agreeing with him more than with the OP. OP is basically saying "hey guys stop lamenting about the loss of the early days' energy/power and instead embrace the post-2003 mature PJ". It's absurd because PJ has done "mature" way before 2003 and it's precisely the loss of this kind of PJ that the "naysayers" seem to be lamenting about. For the most part those who are bored by the last 2 albums do not want PJ to go back to the early days. Pretty much the opposite really.

well the early days potentially covers a broad swath of time, and everyone defines it differently so I'm not sure what period you (or Lament) are referring to. For me the early years is the first 3 albums. For the OP it sounds like it is the first 7. And I would disagree with you if that was the case. It seems like the vast majority of posters would prefer a return to the late 90s/early 2000 era. (I don't think and don't want pearl jam to return to any of those albums, and don't think they will. I'd love for them to make an album as good as those first 3, but that has nothing to do with how it sounds).

I don't disagree with Lament's read on the early years, and I don't think I was contesting that. I was challenging his cavalier and disingenuous dismissal of the last two records. The OP did not imply that the early period, however it is defined, did not include softer, more meditative songs. And juxtaposing those with modern throw away tracks, as if they are A: unique to the last two records or B: define the last two records is misleading or dishonest. And to start with that accusation kinda derails the thread before it starts.

Of course, apparently I didn't understand the OP either since I thought he was talking about studio albums.

[---]

really excited for the new album

[Heathen]

Let's keep this about albums because who the fuck has heard every live show to compare anyway?

If we're talking albums I don't believe anyone would seriously think 'manic and maniacal energy' could in any way refer to the No Code/Yield/Binaural era.

[Strat]

Let's keep this about albums because who the fuck has heard every live show to compare anyway?

If we're talking albums I don't believe anyone would seriously think 'manic and maniacal energy' could in any way refer to the No Code/Yield/Binaural era.

Spenno!

[Oh, Jimmy]

2003 seems like a perfectly fine dividing line, if we're talking live or studio.

Not the biggest fan of Riot Act, but it really feels like the last album where they were all fully vested. S/T is alright but still feels a little hollow and Backspacer feels like they've given up trying to create anything remotely interesting.

[Chris_H_2]

Can someone sum this thread up for me in the form of haiku please? Thanks.

[stupidmop]

I figured that roskilde and however long it took them to process it, was probably the reason for any changes in how the band thinks of themselves thesebe much more about enjoying themselves and the live shows as much as possible, and taking things less seriously as a whole.

And in terms of live performances it seems to me that the Band and Eddie especially has almost done a full 360 back to early 91/92 before they hit the big time and before all the angst. Jumping/dancing around like prats, having a good time and giving less of a fuck about what they look like.

[darth_vedder]

Lots of words here team. What's the gist?

[Jorge]

Lots of words here team. What's the gist?