Red Mosquito

Those drawings had a certain badassery to them that suggested we expect the same from the songs.
It's not there.

What is "badassery"? What does it sound like?

harmless wrote:What is "badassery"? What does it sound like?

It's when they take blooz by it's ridiculous frill, shake it up violently, give it a few slaps across the face and end up with a masterpiece like 1/2 Full.

Lounge Lizard wrote:

harmless wrote:What is "badassery"? What does it sound like?

It's when they take blooz by it's ridiculous frill, shake it up violently, give it a few slaps across the face and end up with a masterpiece like 1/2 Full.

So it's what you want to listen to. I totally agree.

But the concept of having badass artwork with a style of music you wouldn't expect to go with it *would* be much more interesting if you liked the songs. It's surreal. Lazy comparison, but I'm only using it because it's about surrealism; Pink Floyd is a band in which nothing "matched" anything else in a traditional way at all. And it fucking works. All I'm saying is that all of these songs are thematically in line with the artwork we got, so it's not like the artist did the pictures for a different album.

harmless wrote:so it's not like the artist did the pictures for a different album.

it's like he made those drawings for the album he wished it to be.

Lounge Lizard wrote:

harmless wrote:so it's not like the artist did the pictures for a different album.

it's like he made those drawings for an album he wished it to be.

Doesn't every artist do this? He's allowed to stamp a visual concept on it, and he goes for it. But hey, so did Jeff when he was instrumental in creating the video of MYM. There is an ironic, surreal relationship of artwork and songs here, but I like it. The artwork reminds us we're still listening to Pearl Jam and they're still obsessed with the same things (or Ed is), and I'm perfectly OK with that. The whole thing is very weird indeed, but it's OK and if they're going to do pop, I'd prefer that they threw themselves in and it was weird. It is.

harmless wrote:What is "badassery"? What does it sound like?

So if you had a multiple choice question, and all it said was "badass," right? And the answer choices were Celine Dion, Johnny Mathas, A-Ha, and Josh Homme...would you shake your head and say "Gosh, there's just no way to guess what the expected answer might be!"

Because if you could predict the expected answer there, you must have some understanding of the term.

It's A-Ha, right?

Heathen wrote:It's A-Ha, right?

It's not for me to say.

What a beautiful little gift you gave me there, Heath. Thank you.

McParadigm wrote:

harmless wrote:What is "badassery"? What does it sound like?

So if you had a multiple choice question, and all it said was "badass," right? And the answer choices were Celine Dion, Johnny Mathas, A-Ha, and Josh Homme...would you shake your head and say "Gosh, there's just no way to guess what the expected answer might be!"

Because if you could predict the expected answer there, you must have some understanding of the term.

I could call "badass" anything that I liked. Josh Homme doesn't have a monopoly on what "badass" is, for fuck's sake. Neither do your other three pop artists you mention. I'm not a huge fan, but it would be reasonable to call Prince "badass", others here do, and he's nothing like Josh Homme. Also, in the sense that Josh Homme is pretty homophobic, there's really no accounting for taste nor what "badass" actually is.

Even if you thoroughly hate this song, there is darkness in it. There is loneliness and bleakness "Amongst the Cheese."

Even if you love the black and red "badass" artwork, there are pink hearts in it. There is pop cheese "Amongst the Badass."

The artwork fits together extremely well, and I think it's very clever of the artist to create a piece of art for every track, considering the tracks are so different and should be illustrated by themselves.

Lounge Lizard wrote:

harmless wrote:so it's not like the artist did the pictures for a different album.

it's like he made those drawings for the album he wished it to be.

Certainly the artwork led me to expect a much more aggressive album than this. I think that is fair to say

stip wrote:

Lounge Lizard wrote:

harmless wrote:so it's not like the artist did the pictures for a different album.

it's like he made those drawings for the album he wished it to be.

Certainly the artwork led me to expect a much more aggressive album than this. I think that is fair to say

Yes, that is absolutely fair to say. I'm just not sure that's what was said.

But I guess, even though the artwork did lead me to expect a heavier rock record, I also was fairly sure based on the reviews that it was going to be a very eclectic mishmash of different kinds of songs. It's almost like they threw every genre they've ever tried plus a bit of new stuff into a huge melting pot. And as far as I'm concerned, I always felt that with Brendan O'Brien as producer, if we have to have him produce PJ at all, this eclectic approach is really all that's going to work. Either push this multi-genre pop approach as hard as you can, or get out, because you can't just play old Pearl Jam tunes and expect Brendan O'Brien to make them sound like old Pearl Jam. That was my problem with Backspacer. Here you have a backbone of old Pearl Jam with loads of unexpected wild commercial shit going on, and as long as it tickles my ears, I'm all for it.

The swallowed whole image made me think we were gonna get an epic insignificancish song about the global warming and the planet shitting itself and exploding one day.

I'm finding this an exciting experience, having literally no clue what's going to be released and I guess I'm just enjoying that unpredictability from Pearl Jam again.

stupidmop wrote:The swallowed whole image made me think we were gonna get an epic insignificancish song about the global warming and the planet shitting itself and exploding one day.

Me too, me too.

But I do think we got an "earth / ecology song", and I do think it fits the theme, even if it's in awe of nature rather than watching it go to fire.

harmless wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

harmless wrote:What is "badassery"? What does it sound like?

So if you had a multiple choice question, and all it said was "badass," right? And the answer choices were Celine Dion, Johnny Mathas, A-Ha, and Josh Homme...would you shake your head and say "Gosh, there's just no way to guess what the expected answer might be!"

Because if you could predict the expected answer there, you must have some understanding of the term.

I could call "badass" anything that I liked. Josh Homme doesn't have a monopoly on what "badass" is, for fuck's sake. Neither do your other three pop artists you mention. I'm not a huge fan, but it would be reasonable to call Prince "badass", others here do, and he's nothing like Josh Homme. Also, in the sense that Josh Homme is pretty homophobic, there's really no accounting for taste nor what "badass" actually is.

It's pretty obvious that the term wasn't being used in the "I say badass because I like" way, but to refer to a type of stylistic bent. I picked three artists at random...I happen to only think Homme is "alright," for what it's worth. But I can still guess the answer to the question.

Your point about the hearts popping up all over was far more effective a response than the semantics game.

Homme said the other day that Jay z was a fruitcake.

Gotta admire him for that

McParadigm wrote:

harmless wrote:

McParadigm wrote:

harmless wrote:What is "badassery"? What does it sound like?

So if you had a multiple choice question, and all it said was "badass," right? And the answer choices were Celine Dion, Johnny Mathas, A-Ha, and Josh Homme...would you shake your head and say "Gosh, there's just no way to guess what the expected answer might be!"

Because if you could predict the expected answer there, you must have some understanding of the term.

I could call "badass" anything that I liked. Josh Homme doesn't have a monopoly on what "badass" is, for fuck's sake. Neither do your other three pop artists you mention. I'm not a huge fan, but it would be reasonable to call Prince "badass", others here do, and he's nothing like Josh Homme. Also, in the sense that Josh Homme is pretty homophobic, there's really no accounting for taste nor what "badass" actually is.

It's pretty obvious that the term wasn't being used in the "I say badass because I like" way, but to refer to a type of stylistic bent. I picked three artists at random...I happen to only think Homme is "alright," for what it's worth. But I can still guess the answer to the question.

Your point about the hearts popping up all over was far more effective a response than the semantics game.

Anything is a better argument than semantics, for sure. But there were visual clues in this artwork that eclecticism is what we might get, as well as light and dark. The artwork for SBM was a mindfuck because the song will be, I'm sure of it. We also know they had two sessions; one was "a logical extension of Backspacer", and the other wasn't.