Red Mosquito

Thanks K.D., I appreciate the warm welcome brother

Kevin Davis wrote: In a number of ways I think "Yield" is a considerably bolder record than "Vitalogy," whose ambitiousness I feel is frequently overstated because of a few self-consciously arty tracks that claim more of the record's character than they proportionally deserve. I think there's a real "either/or" to the experimentalism on "Vitalogy"--either the tracks are so far into left field that it's difficult to view them as tangible reflections of the band's growth, or they're conventional-sized steps forward down the artistic path they were already laying for themselves. To an extent, "Yield" probably sounds more conservative simply by virtue of being less deliberately confrontational, but I think they were working with a range of sounds, textures, and compositional ideas on "Yield" that were simply beyond their capacity in 1994. "Yield" is kind of a cross between the textural ambition of "No Code" and the more formal songwriting conventions of "Vitalogy" or "Ten" (or, God forbid, "Backspacer"). I can't quite put my finger on it--for me "No Code," "Yield," "Binaural," and "Riot Act" just fit together in a certain mold of record that "Vitalogy" just doesn't quite belong to. I think the band have always had modest experimental urges, and I think on "Vs." and "Vitalogy" they stick out almost to the point of novelty--the songs were either take-no-prisoners rock, heartfelt ballads, or token "weird songs" ("Rats," "Dirty Frank," "WMA," the "Vitalogy" interludes). To me, "No Code" through "Riot Act" sounds like a series of attempts to reconcile the three categories, either juxtaposing the band's most visceral instincts with their most tender ("Off He Goes" into "Habit," "Wishlist" into "Pilate" into "DTE"), creating ballads that feel infused with rock sensibilities ("Light Years," "Sometimes," "Nothing As it Seems"), rockers infused with ballad sensibilities ("Faithfull," "In Hiding"), with everything twisted into its own odd little shape by these recessive experimental instincts that lead to things like "Stupid Mop" when used irresponsibly but which create things like "In My Tree" and "Push Me Pull Me" and "Sleight of Hand" when thrown into a melting pot with the band's other, more conventional impulses.

Agreed with everything you said. I don't see Vitalogy as an experimental record. Binaural, I think is the closest they ever came to pulling off a "Kid A". If only they'd have let Tchad Blake have his way with the album.

I do quite like it when someone comes in and drops a little thought bomb on a thread which blows a seemingly straight ahead discussion into more interesting areas.

KD you should do one of those 33 1/3rd books.

I feel very welcomed Mr. Rat. Thank you for your kind words...sort of.

For the record, I can compare Pablo Honey with Ten - because unlike most of the world - I fucking love Pablo Honey (Stop Whispering & Lurgee are two of my favourite RH songs). The first musical thing I ever purchased was Pablo Honey, on cassette! However, I think both records are considered good, but dated in retrospect, and both records are bands still finding themselves musically. So, there ya go.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I think Ten shits all over Pablo Honey from a great height - but then, I'm a much bigger PJ fan than I am a Radiohead one.

ALSO - Aerosmith - Nine Lives. I was ALL about that record when it came out. Full Circle, Ain't That a Bitch, Hole in My Soul.

Epic.

Incidentally - I have a spare ticket for Glen Hansard tonight at the Barbican in London. Face value, if anyone fancies it...

welcome to the board

digster wrote:I don't know if I'd call Yield as 'experimental' as the previously two records, but I definitely wouldn't call it a step backwards in any way. I'd call stuff like Evolution as off-the-map for PJ as anything on the previous two records. That being said, I think it doesn't wear it's experimentation on it's sleeve the way Vitalogy and No Code does, particularly the former record.

This is nothing i haven't said before, but I wouldn't be willing to call any record a step backwards yet. The two that would obviously come up for discussion here are the last two records, but in many ways both of them are logical thematic responses to the previous record and, in the case of backspacer, exploring new ideas.


There aren't many new ideas, per se, on S/T, but S/T is a record that is hard to understand without seeing it in the context of Riot Act, a sonic response to the subdued crisis of faith you find on that record (which was, in turn, presaged by Binaural). Quite a few bands were going through the same process. R.E.M.'s around the sun and Bruce Springsteen's Devil's and Dust were both muted responses to what all three of these bands would have seen as the catastrophe of the early 90s, and in a lot of ways each record reflects the confusion and powerless of artists you would normally look to for a big bold defiant response to the world around them. And, not surprisingly, all three of these artists followed up those albums with equally politicized roaring and aggressive records dealing with all of the same themes but in a much more invigorated, confrontational way. The music is paralleling the themes. To have expected Riot Act to be followed by anything other than S/T is to misunderstand the way in which PJ records almost always develop out of the one before it. S/T had to be next, and I'm not sure that record could have done what it had to do if it was anything other than a loud, bold, aggressive album. (this is bracketing whether or not the songs could have been better but I don't think this thread was about the 'quality' of the music as much as it was the direction).


And while Backspacer (in terms of its music) certainly does not have to sound like it did the way I think S/T did, the sound still makes sense for where the band was at that time---the lighter, more unburdened sound on that album makes sense after a trio of very heavy albums that had preceded it. Plus, while it is not experimenting in the way we normally think about it, the overall feel of that album represents as real of a sonic departure as you get on a PJ album. It is a lot of things, but not a step backwards.


To be clear though, I am using the phrase 'a step backwards' here to mean that the band is covering ground it has already tread--writing essentially the same kinds of songs they've already written. Collapse into Now represents maybe the first time in REM's history where they really started repeating themselves, and not surprisingly the band decided it was time to call it quits afterwards. U2 has had a whole decade full of songs that recall past glories rather than trying to create new ones. I don't think that's what has happened here. Pearl Jam has yet to write a conservative album.

Kevin Davis wrote:In a number of ways I think "Yield" is a considerably bolder record than "Vitalogy," whose ambitiousness I feel is frequently overstated because of a few self-consciously arty tracks that claim more of the record's character than they proportionally deserve.

I know this post is getting a lot of love, but I stopped reading after the first sentence.

I really love Yield, guys.

I think that Yield,as far as songwriting is concerned, is a more polished version of Vs/Vitalogy with an added drop of No Code for the occasionnal weirdness but where they went for innovation is in the research for sounds more than anything else. coupled with Binaural, this album is very rich in terms of guitar sounds, studio effects and specifically crafted moods while before that (and after that, save for a few songs afterwards) i get the impression that the band mostly plugged in, fiddled a bit with their amps and effects and basically went for it by capturing the sound of the room rather than consciously tweeking it.
of course, i wasn't there but that's how i perceive it.
Riot Act is, in large part, a warmer sounding record that rings more or less like a hi-fidelity capture of the band's now wider palette of tones and approaches without as many studio wizardry involved than on the two previous albums.
then it kinda went to the shitters as if they said "fuck it, let's just plug in and play and put the focus on songwriting" thus losing a lot of spontaneity.

Self wrote:

Kevin Davis wrote:In a number of ways I think "Yield" is a considerably bolder record than "Vitalogy," whose ambitiousness I feel is frequently overstated because of a few self-consciously arty tracks that claim more of the record's character than they proportionally deserve.

I know this post is getting a lot of love, but I stopped reading after the first sentence.

But it's true! Pearl Jam circa Vitalogy could not have pulled off a track like "Push Me, Pull Me". The so called "experimental" tracks on Vitalogy feel more like knee-jerk reactions than fully realized songs.

Kevin Davis's post was better than the Antiquiet release. Yield always felt to be more of a 'modern rock' record with a much more restrained vocal approach and shinier production. However, they did stuff on there that moved them forward:

Faithful uses a palindromic song structure and Ed sings in a much higher register than normal;
No Way was a different feel - more laid back, funky and the breakdown is literally a breakdown;
Given to Fly built on the tom heavy drum patterns from No Code but in a way that was less overbearing and in sync with the music.
Wishlist is brutally simplistic but effective and to the point. The vocals don't ever strain.
DTE feels like a 12 bar blues on a cocktail of LSD and speed and is a return to the riff rock of Vs in a different way
In Hiding - the chorus is vocally very different from the strains and screams that Ed would have inserted in previous records

Everyone talks about Riot Act having restrained vocals but I think this record was where Eddie was through with screaming. But unlike Riot Act this wasn't at the expense of good melodies and hooks. Jeff's bass playing is also much more restrained with fewer ornamentals and a lot of root notes apart from ATY where he turns his bass into a tuba. This is also the record where Mike McCready returns to the band after limited contributions to the previous two albums and results are great.

Regarding the original post I don't really see the links between the albums apart from the fact that they were the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th albums by those bands. Pablo Honey and Ten? LOLWUT. An era defining album vs. an album of detritus with one anthem.

Blenheim Augustine wrote:through with screaming

it's almost as if Ed told us so himself

Why in the world would "Ten" owe debt to the Pixies? I see no correlation there.

conoalias wrote:

Blenheim Augustine wrote:through with screaming

it's almost as if Ed told us so himself

I was going to put that in quotations but I value the intelligence of the inhabitants of this virtual forum too highly.

Blenheim Augustine wrote:Faithful uses a palindromic song structure

Great description, I never really thought of it that way but yeah, very much so.

Blenheim Augustine wrote:Kevin Davis's post was better than the Antiquiet release. Yield always felt to be more of a 'modern rock' record with a much more restrained vocal approach and shinier production. However, they did stuff on there that moved them forward:

Faithful uses a palindromic song structure and Ed sings in a much higher register than normal;
No Way was a different feel - more laid back, funky and the breakdown is literally a breakdown;
Given to Fly built on the tom heavy drum patterns from No Code but in a way that was less overbearing and in sync with the music.
Wishlist is brutally simplistic but effective and to the point. The vocals don't ever strain.
DTE feels like a 12 bar blues on a cocktail of LSD and speed and is a return to the riff rock of Vs in a different way
In Hiding - the chorus is vocally very different from the strains and screams that Ed would have inserted in previous records

Everyone talks about Riot Act having restrained vocals but I think this record was where Eddie was through with screaming. But unlike Riot Act this wasn't at the expense of good melodies and hooks. Jeff's bass playing is also much more restrained with fewer ornamentals and a lot of root notes apart from ATY where he turns his bass into a tuba. This is also the record where Mike McCready returns to the band after limited contributions to the previous two albums and results are great.

very well said

Self wrote:

Kevin Davis wrote:In a number of ways I think "Yield" is a considerably bolder record than "Vitalogy," whose ambitiousness I feel is frequently overstated because of a few self-consciously arty tracks that claim more of the record's character than they proportionally deserve.

I know this post is getting a lot of love, but I stopped reading after the first sentence.

I relate, I do that all the time. When I was in high school and read, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," I was like, "What the fuck, dog? This book doesn't even make any sense." SLAM!

That was the sound of me slamming the book shut.

cutuphalfdead wrote:

Kevin Davis wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:I like Yield an awful lot, certainly more than any of the records that followed, but I do think it's a more conservative album than Vitalogy and No Code.

In a number of ways I think "Yield" is a considerably bolder record than "Vitalogy," whose ambitiousness I feel is frequently overstated because of a few self-consciously arty tracks that claim more of the record's character than they proportionally deserve. I think there's a real "either/or" to the experimentalism on "Vitalogy"--either the tracks are so far into left field that it's difficult to view them as tangible reflections of the band's growth, or they're conventional-sized steps forward down the artistic path they were already laying for themselves. To an extent, "Yield" probably sounds more conservative simply by virtue of being less deliberately confrontational, but I think they were working with a range of sounds, textures, and compositional ideas on "Yield" that were simply beyond their capacity in 1994. "Yield" is kind of a cross between the textural ambition of "No Code" and the more formal songwriting conventions of "Vitalogy" or "Ten" (or, God forbid, "Backspacer"). I can't quite put my finger on it--for me "No Code," "Yield," "Binaural," and "Riot Act" just fit together in a certain mold of record that "Vitalogy" just doesn't quite belong to. I think the band have always had modest experimental urges, and I think on "Vs." and "Vitalogy" they stick out almost to the point of novelty--the songs were either take-no-prisoners rock, heartfelt ballads, or token "weird songs" ("Rats," "Dirty Frank," "WMA," the "Vitalogy" interludes). To me, "No Code" through "Riot Act" sounds like a series of attempts to reconcile the three categories, either juxtaposing the band's most visceral instincts with their most tender ("Off He Goes" into "Habit," "Wishlist" into "Pilate" into "DTE"), creating ballads that feel infused with rock sensibilities ("Light Years," "Sometimes," "Nothing As it Seems"), rockers infused with ballad sensibilities ("Faithfull," "In Hiding"), with everything twisted into its own odd little shape by these recessive experimental instincts that lead to things like "Stupid Mop" when used irresponsibly but which create things like "In My Tree" and "Push Me Pull Me" and "Sleight of Hand" when thrown into a melting pot with the band's other, more conventional impulses.

I've been trying to respond to this for the last 5 minutes because I want to say something more than "this!" but you've really summed it up quite well.

I think this reconciliation of musical idea that in the past were all mostly present, just more separate and distinct, is what really elevated Pearl Jam for me. I didn't get into Pearl Jam until 97, but I still went in order, Ten through Yield. By the time I got current, and then was around for Binaural and Riot Act, it felt like this band was constantly taking their ingredients and melting them together for some sort of concoction that was constantly progressing while still retaining the same base elements.

It's a shame where they decided to go with it afterwards.

Vitalogy remains my favorite of their albums, but I don't necessarily think of it as "bold." Generally I think of it as the closest thing they have to a solo effort--it's really Eddie in charge. To that extent, Yield is "bolder" in the way you describe--they're using multiple voices but the whole thing still sounds really cohesive and like it comes from a unified place. Whereas, for me at least, No Code represents the use of a lot of voices but in a way that ends up feeling uneven.

That is, Vitalogy feels like a record that is largely the product of one person. No Code feels disjointed, like it's a record coming from 3-4 different writers. But Yield feels cohesive again, feels like the effort of one person at one place in time--even though the songs are from a multiplicity of voices, like they were on No Code. That's a credit to the effort that they put in together to finish those songs, I suppose, as well as the production.

All this conversation about Yield is making me hot under the collar, I'm going to have to listen to it on my way home.