Lightning Bolt: the official album thread

General Pearl Jam discussion.
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Rank Lightning Bolt

5 stars
1
1%
4 stars
4
5%
3 stars
29
37%
2 stars
30
38%
1 star
14
18%
 
Total votes: 78

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Jorge
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by Jorge »

stupidmop wrote:the music doesn't match the lyrics
Care to expand on this?

Of all the things you could say about "Thumbing My Way", I think the least of them is that there's some sort of contrapuntal dissonance between the lyrics and the music. They seem to me like they go together beautifully.

I'm a fan of the song, but totally understand most other criticisms towards it.
Last edited by Jorge on Mon August 12, 2013 10:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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harmless
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by harmless »

Depression is a boring meandering mess, though. As a pair, this and AoN might be the best two acoustic songs on a PJ album. I don't get your 'music doesn't match the lyrics' thing...
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Birds in Hell
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by Birds in Hell »

Alarms of Nautical.
Last edited by Birds in Hell on Mon August 12, 2013 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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harmless
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by harmless »

Sgt. Crackpot wrote:
harmless wrote:At the risk of flogging a dead horse, Matt didn't do Inside Job any favours. But I find the piano to be quite tasteful, and that's a rarity for PJ.
Most of what Matt does is very subtle. He does use some quite advanced techniques on some songs, but due to the subtleties, he comes across as boring.
Spoiler: show
Image
Jack Irons had a little more in the way of advanced techniques, but he made them blatantly obvious. This made him so much cooler.
Spoiler: show
Image
And Dave A even cooler than that. What's the point of using rudiments, ghost-notes, backbeats, all of that cool stuff, and then mixing them so low in the mix you can't even hear them? I know Matt plays these subtleties, I've watched his Drum Cam, but FFS, you can't hear any of the subtleties at all when you're far off because of how terribly flabby he likes to tune his drums.
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harmless
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by harmless »

Birds in Hell wrote:Alarms of Nautical.
:peace:
RisingTides wrote:There is more kindness on the internet than we would care to admit to ourselves. Sometimes we are so afraid of falling victim to a ruse, we miss out on actual opportunities.
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Thejambi
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by Thejambi »

Thumbing my way is a perfect match of lyrical content and musical mood.
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by stupidmop »

I've always thought the music sounded too pretty. If you took away ed's voice, the music isn't dark at all, it's actually kind of hopeful and the lyrics seem pretty bleak. Not that it has to be completely dark for this kind of song to work i guess, i just don't like how it works here. When i want to wallow in depressing music, i want it to be properly depressing :lol:

I love All or none btw.
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by harmless »

It's got a lot of bittersweet nostalgia to it as well, though. I wouldn't describe it as 'depressing' as much as melancholy, which is that quality of being both emotionally affected as well as sad. Depression is misery with more blunt edges.
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by stupidmop »

I had to replay the song and check out the lyrics.

I guess it's kind of wistful sounding. Which doesn't seem to be the kind of thing i enjoy listening to. I don't know. Music is still too pretty sounding for me, like just shy of saccharine/cheesy.

The chop suey version sounds better but i don't know why.
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by mastaflatch »

harmless wrote:
stupidmop wrote:Thumbing my way. I tried listening to it again after seeing some of the lyrics in the 'non iconic lyrics' thread and yeah, no.
TMW is fucking great, some days it's my favourite song on Riot Act.
i wholeheartedly agree. most often than not, it's the PJ song i hate the most. it's horrendous. the lyrics are trite and don't convey the emotional distress they mean to and the music is too sweet to give this mess a credible support. and the glimmers of hope in the last part are forced - i don't believe it for a second. it's also boring which is the biggest sin one can make in a rock song, ballad or not.
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by elliseamos »

mastaflatch wrote:
harmless wrote:
stupidmop wrote:Thumbing my way. I tried listening to it again after seeing some of the lyrics in the 'non iconic lyrics' thread and yeah, no.
TMW is fucking great, some days it's my favourite song on Riot Act.
i wholeheartedly *disagree. most often than not, it's the PJ song i hate the most. it's horrendous. the lyrics are trite and don't convey the emotional distress they mean to and the music is too sweet to give this mess a credible support. and the glimmers of hope in the last part are forced - i don't believe it for a second. it's also boring which is the biggest sin one can make in a rock song, ballad or not.
yeah?
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by harmless »

Shame. I don't get that but hey.
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by mastaflatch »

elliseamos wrote:
mastaflatch wrote:
harmless wrote:
stupidmop wrote:Thumbing my way. I tried listening to it again after seeing some of the lyrics in the 'non iconic lyrics' thread and yeah, no.
TMW is fucking great, some days it's my favourite song on Riot Act.
i wholeheartedly *disagree. most often than not, it's the PJ song i hate the most. it's horrendous. the lyrics are trite and don't convey the emotional distress they mean to and the music is too sweet to give this mess a credible support. and the glimmers of hope in the last part are forced - i don't believe it for a second. it's also boring which is the biggest sin one can make in a rock song, ballad or not.
yeah?
i was being conciously misleading :)
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Jorge
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by Jorge »

I was way confused by the first sentence in that post
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by stip »

i quite like the lyrics. Its really just the music for me.
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by elliseamos »

mastaflatch wrote:
elliseamos wrote:
mastaflatch wrote:
harmless wrote:
stupidmop wrote:Thumbing my way. I tried listening to it again after seeing some of the lyrics in the 'non iconic lyrics' thread and yeah, no.
TMW is fucking great, some days it's my favourite song on Riot Act.
i wholeheartedly *disagree. most often than not, it's the PJ song i hate the most. it's horrendous. the lyrics are trite and don't convey the emotional distress they mean to and the music is too sweet to give this mess a credible support. and the glimmers of hope in the last part are forced - i don't believe it for a second. it's also boring which is the biggest sin one can make in a rock song, ballad or not.
yeah?
i was being conciously misleading :)
nevermind then. :peace:
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by sward »

stip wrote:
harmless wrote:
stupidmop wrote:What do we think of my 'They came back after the break and Ed fixered this album to the point that not even BoB is happy' conspiracy theory?
ItsOkay wrote:
harmless wrote:
EJ wrote:I wonder which song was penned by BOB.
"That's What Young People Do" - secret track.
ugh. Most dishearting quote about this album so far.
Yeah i think it beats Jeff- 'I got no clue i haven't listened to those songs in a year' and Stone - going from 'I think it's gonna alienate people' to ' it sounds like pearl jam'
"I think it's gonna alienate people, like No Code did." That's the single most depressing quote we have about the new album that never happened. Why do they always do this?
If someone (not me) chronicled everything these guys have said about the record I'm not sure we could conclude anything because they've said everything, and half of it contradicts the other shit.

"It's going to alienate people"
"we had to go back and write more songs because they sounded too much like backspacer" (same session as the alienate comment)
"it sounds like a logical progression of backspacer"
it sounds like the ramones
it sounds like motorhead
it sounds like pink floyd
it has some long songs on it
it has a pop song
it sounds like pearl jam
Which article had Stone saying it was going to alienate people?
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stip
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by stip »

i forget. people were citing it earlier. I do remember the article, just not when/where it was from.
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by Thejambi »

They just say shit because they had to say something.

Honestly, the three songs we have still don't paint a very clear picture of what the album will be. Describing each one individually really takes you to 3 different places. I get hints of every album since Binaural listening to MYM , LB and FD.

So far I'm getting that it is going to feel like a Yield.
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harmless
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Re: Lightning Bolt - October 15

Post by harmless »

I'm definitely getting the feeling that it'll be eclectic. There will be some of that punk pop as well as some stretched-out stuff. I'd be OK with that.
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