Red Mosquito

Jaeti wrote:Not the first to observe this, but the Gigaton/Dark Matter pairing feels akin to No Code/Yield.

Gigaton is a winding and more opaque experience, whereas Dark Matter just buoys you straight through from start to finish.

Love them both.

Yeah, I think that and Riot Act/ST are the closest parallels. A longer, immersive album followed by something more direct, focused on writing melodic rock songs. It's definitely interesting (and similar to someone like Neil Young) how their album-to-album transitions start mirroring themselves over the course of the whole career.

yeah, i agree with this.

Man, I love “Take the Long Way” and “Buckle Up” so much — apart from “Dance,” they’re my favorite things on the record. It always bums me out to see them rated so low.

Kevin Davis wrote:Man, I love “Take the Long Way” and “Buckle Up” so much — apart from “Dance,” they’re my favorite things on the record. It always bums me out to see them rated so low.

Same!

"Take the Long Way" was just such a huge grower for me. It helps that it's got the best solo on the album. That was my gateway into it as a song.

TTLW is such a fiercely great song.

what an album

Birds in Hell wrote:TTLW is such a fiercely great song.

what does it for you?

stip wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:TTLW is such a fiercely great song.

what does it for you?

Matt's off-kilter pop sensibility, the crunchy guitars, those backing vocals in the chorus - it's all great stuff.

As I posted elsewhere in this new album period, I hope this new enthusiasm for writing as a band doesn't mean Matt ends up having fewer opportunities to bring in bangers like this.

It certainly felt like a long time since Matt had been able to go off like that, indulging in his kind of approach. Backspacer only had The Fixer and Johnny Guitar (which at least in The Fixer's case, changed pretty heavily) and LB had nothing.

Birds in Hell wrote:

stip wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:TTLW is such a fiercely great song.

what does it for you?

Matt's off-kilter pop sensibility, the crunchy guitars, those backing vocals in the chorus - it's all great stuff.

As I posted elsewhere in this new album period, I hope this new enthusiasm for writing as a band doesn't mean Matt ends up having fewer opportunities to bring in bangers like this.

Listening now and I also really love some of the background guitar overdubs, like the fuzzy, almost Kyuss-esque lead under the intro and second verse.

Ed also sounds fantastic on this one, right in his comfortable vocal range. The outro/bridge is so good!

This is the band I always hope for them to be.

Birds in Hell wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:

stip wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:TTLW is such a fiercely great song.

what does it for you?

Matt's off-kilter pop sensibility, the crunchy guitars, those backing vocals in the chorus - it's all great stuff.

As I posted elsewhere in this new album period, I hope this new enthusiasm for writing as a band doesn't mean Matt ends up having fewer opportunities to bring in bangers like this.

Listening now and I also really love some of the background guitar overdubs, like the fuzzy, almost Kyuss-esque lead under the intro and second verse.

Ed also sounds fantastic on this one, right in his comfortable vocal range. The outro/bridge is so good!

This is the band I always hope for them to be.

this remains, comfortably, the song I like the least on the album. A pearl jam for all seasons. I do like the solo and background vocals. and even the lesser songs on gigaton are fine

stip wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:

stip wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:TTLW is such a fiercely great song.

what does it for you?

Matt's off-kilter pop sensibility, the crunchy guitars, those backing vocals in the chorus - it's all great stuff.

As I posted elsewhere in this new album period, I hope this new enthusiasm for writing as a band doesn't mean Matt ends up having fewer opportunities to bring in bangers like this.

Listening now and I also really love some of the background guitar overdubs, like the fuzzy, almost Kyuss-esque lead under the intro and second verse.

Ed also sounds fantastic on this one, right in his comfortable vocal range. The outro/bridge is so good!

This is the band I always hope for them to be.

this remains, comfortably, the song I like the least on the album. A pearl jam for all seasons. I do like the solo and background vocals. and even the lesser songs on gigaton are fine

I agree TTLW is my least favorite on the album. I feel like React/Respond was a much better version of this song

Kevin Davis wrote:Man, I love “Take the Long Way” and “Buckle Up” so much — apart from “Dance,” they’re my favorite things on the record. It always bums me out to see them rated so low.

yeah, those two are very very good.

Birds in Hell wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:

stip wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:TTLW is such a fiercely great song.

what does it for you?

Matt's off-kilter pop sensibility, the crunchy guitars, those backing vocals in the chorus - it's all great stuff.

As I posted elsewhere in this new album period, I hope this new enthusiasm for writing as a band doesn't mean Matt ends up having fewer opportunities to bring in bangers like this.

Listening now and I also really love some of the background guitar overdubs, like the fuzzy, almost Kyuss-esque lead under the intro and second verse.

Ed also sounds fantastic on this one, right in his comfortable vocal range. The outro/bridge is so good!

This is the band I always hope for them to be.

Like you, I really enjoy Take the Long Way. However, I'm not really worried about losing Matt songs, if that's a thing that actually happens. I say this as someone who also loves You Are and thinks highly of other Matt songs. In the vaunted early days of Pearl Jam, Dave K and Dave A didn't contribute heavily to the songwriting from what I understand. Sure, Jack Irons did, but while I love his artistic and strange contributions, they're not typically what I'm pining for either. Dark Matter has clarified for me that the Pearl Jam I love best is the one where they are hashing this stuff out together, on the fly.

VinylGuy wrote:

Kevin Davis wrote:Man, I love “Take the Long Way” and “Buckle Up” so much — apart from “Dance,” they’re my favorite things on the record. It always bums me out to see them rated so low.

yeah, those two are very very good.

I do really really like Buckle Up

Does anyone have a theory/explanation for why the background vocals are omitted in the second chorus of TTLW?

It’s always bugged me, like my headphones aren’t plugged in right and I’m missing part of the song. Interesting that Jeff/Stone/Matt(?) sing the backing vocals in both choruses live…

Feeling greedy. I want Get it Back live Monday night!

ridleybradout wrote:Does anyone have a theory/explanation for why the background vocals are omitted in the second chorus of TTLW?

It’s always bugged me, like my headphones aren’t plugged in right and I’m missing part of the song. Interesting that Jeff/Stone/Matt(?) sing the backing vocals in both choruses live…

i never noticed. im actually usually more distracted by Matt’s seeming removal entirely

I love TTLW a lot but I am so frustrated with the lack of bass in this song. What happened there?? Is it on purpose? Is it a mistake?