Red Mosquito

Matters wrote:I have trouble understanding why anyone would want a Pearl Jam concert to start w 3-4 low energy songs.

Jorge wrote:Which album is best for intoxicated enjoyment?

Spoiler: show

Mike wrote:All the talk about the new album and what people want from Pearl Jam made me wonder how much how you got to know Pearl Jam influenced your opinion and your taste regarding Pearl Jams music. For many reviewers Pearl Jams definite best period is always 1991-1994 and here we have many fans of the middle period as well.
I got to know Pearl Jam in a pretty uncommon way. My first contact was downloading random Pearl Jam songs from Kazaa in 2002/2003 when I was 13 when someone on a forum talked about how great they are. Coming from germany, I actually never heard of them before. I didn't even know their biggest hits as they're very rarely played on the radio here. Pretty much no one else around me listened to them or knew about them which is probably pretty different to the U.S. My journey into Pearl Jam fandom was almost completely uninfluenced. After downloading some songs (I think it was Porch and Better Man) I just started to buy Pearl Jam records whenever I saw one in a record store. I had no idea which ones were the good/popular ones.
Due to this, Lost Dogs was just as influential in my Pearl Jam journey as Ten was and I never held a notion about how Pearl Jam SHOULD sound. I got to know Riot Act around the same time as I got to know Vs. Twenty years later I know all of the history and which albums are held in which regard, but I think about Pearl Jam completely differently than how they are talked about when reading reviews for example. To me, No Code or Riot Act are not experimental middle era Pearl Jam but just Pearl Jam how I got to know them from the beginning. There were already eight albums including Lost Dogs for me to discover at the same time at pretty influential teenage years. Undone is quintessential Pearl Jam to me just as Porch is.

I think this is why I'm always a bit weirded out when there is talk about Pearl Jam returning to form or Pearl Jam focusing on what they do best. Not intellectually weirded out, as I now know Pearl Jams story, but more emotionally as that is not my Pearl Jam story.

Jorge wrote:Honest to God, I think "Sleight of Hand" would make me cry

The Town wrote:

Jorge wrote:Which album is best for intoxicated enjoyment?

Difficult to say which album. Probably more personal preference than anything.
Lost Dogs and Riot Act are great for sure
Songs that've been a step above tonight:
- Undone
- Dead Man
- Whale Song
- Get Right
- Green Disease

Reading Mike's post really made me want to listen to Undone, and it didn't disappoint.

Altered states can help channel a sacred feeling from experiencing the music in a way that incorporates past phases with today's perspective.
Don't get me wrong sometimes you get stoned and it just sounds good without all that heady psychology 101.
But on nights like tonight, I'm having fun with the deep feels.

I played Pearl Jam on a couple family road trips to Colorado from Texas growing up, and now as an adult I live in the state. PJ is a constant presence and the different meaning, almost like phases, albums and songs take on over time provides a special kind of joy. I never would've thought I'd be living here until I did. The different perspectives of the same place and the same music are powerful.

Mike's post on page 224.
I relate to a lot of your experience.

Spoiler: show

Mike wrote:All the talk about the new album and what people want from Pearl Jam made me wonder how much how you got to know Pearl Jam influenced your opinion and your taste regarding Pearl Jams music. For many reviewers Pearl Jams definite best period is always 1991-1994 and here we have many fans of the middle period as well.
I got to know Pearl Jam in a pretty uncommon way. My first contact was downloading random Pearl Jam songs from Kazaa in 2002/2003 when I was 13 when someone on a forum talked about how great they are. Coming from germany, I actually never heard of them before. I didn't even know their biggest hits as they're very rarely played on the radio here. Pretty much no one else around me listened to them or knew about them which is probably pretty different to the U.S. My journey into Pearl Jam fandom was almost completely uninfluenced. After downloading some songs (I think it was Porch and Better Man) I just started to buy Pearl Jam records whenever I saw one in a record store. I had no idea which ones were the good/popular ones.
Due to this, Lost Dogs was just as influential in my Pearl Jam journey as Ten was and I never held a notion about how Pearl Jam SHOULD sound. I got to know Riot Act around the same time as I got to know Vs. Twenty years later I know all of the history and which albums are held in which regard, but I think about Pearl Jam completely differently than how they are talked about when reading reviews for example. To me, No Code or Riot Act are not experimental middle era Pearl Jam but just Pearl Jam how I got to know them from the beginning. There were already eight albums including Lost Dogs for me to discover at the same time at pretty influential teenage years. Undone is quintessential Pearl Jam to me just as Porch is.

I think this is why I'm always a bit weirded out when there is talk about Pearl Jam returning to form or Pearl Jam focusing on what they do best. Not intellectually weirded out, as I now know Pearl Jams story, but more emotionally as that is not my Pearl Jam story.

Jorge wrote:Honest to God, I think "Sleight of Hand" would make me cry

it's one of the best for such a listen.

On another note, I think any band you have a deep connection with lends itself well to psychedelics too.
You are probably literally changing brain connections, turbocharging new appreciation.