Red Mosquito

stip wrote:In all seriousness though, the assumption in everything I said there is that you're still GOOD at what you're doing. if you're not, then it is important to try new things. If you feel restless then you should try new things. If mixing things up is necessary to remain good then you should try new things.

I have a number of lectures that I'm pretty proud of. But I keep refining them every time I give them if I have new insights I think are worth sharing, or I need to update examples, or accommodate new information, etc. I'd be a really shitty teacher if I didn't.

But if I've been teaching American politics for 20 years I don't think I need to start teaching about international relations just because i've been doing American Politics for 20 years, provided I'm still doing it well.

stip wrote:But if I've been teaching American politics for 20 years I don't think I need to start teaching about international relations just because i've been doing American Politics for 20 years, provided I'm still doing it well.

stip wrote:

harmless wrote:

Release_Me wrote:

harmless wrote:

Release_Me wrote:

harmless wrote:

Release_Me wrote:

theplatypus wrote:

Release_Me wrote:One thing I never understand is people's hate for Pearl Jam's best choruses. A chorus is the part of the song which is supposed to be most melodic. Something that get's imprinted into the listener's head. You don't cram the most difficult words into a chorus or try to make it musically 'complex'. When you do, you end up with forgettable songs.

I suppose some people hate Pearl Jam's "best choruses" because they don't think they're Pearl Jam's best choruses. I love a good pop chorus, but I don't think Pearl Jam are particularly good pop songwriters. Save for a few notable exceptions ("Betterman" being the first one that comes to mind), I think their most outright pop songs fall flat. "Infallible" is a song with a very ordinary chorus melody. It's not about darkness or complexity. It's just kind of hackneyed.

Furthermore, why do you approach songs like TV adverts? A chorus isn't a sales pitch. It doesn't have to be the most melodic part of a song, it just often is. Shooting for earworm usually results in lightweight dreck, and that's not what interests me about Pearl Jam. Their strengths are elsewhere.

I think they are great songwriters and the albums I love all have great pop songwriting. Like this one. I am not a fan of when they stepped away from this and tried to be 'difficult'. I love Infallible. It's in my top ten ever PJ songs so I just disagree with your assessment. A chorus isn't a sales pitch if it's melodic. It's just good. I don't like sonic torture ala Binaural and Riot Act. Good songwriting for me is all about the melodies. PJ's strengths are their marrying of great melodies with non-pop themes and Ed's vocals. LB has this and that's why I feel it's a great PJ album.

My biggest problem with "Infallible" at this point is not the chorus, but the part where the chorus fizzles out and you just have Ed going yeah yeah yeah over it. The song is two slow, the rhythm too sluggish, to yeah yeah yeah; there's too much space left. I feel as if they need another chorus, almost like the "Ben, the two of us..." refrain of Rats. At this point the song is good, but not great, because that chorus isn't quite getting up there with the rest of the song.

I think the outro is classic PJ/Ed and actually makes the song jump from very good to great. It's like the culmination of everything the song was building up to. Without it, I would have a feeling of being left high and dry. I've always loved Ed's vocalisations and yeah yeahs.

The "Infallible" chorus sounds like a squashed version of Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale". It's a decent enough chorus but it was better when it was called WSOP. That's my main beef with it; good enough, but derivative. I don't think that any reasons you could find to praise this vocal melody would take away from that, nor the fact that the chorus melody and the verses just do not gel well together.

I'm never one to be put off by the term 'derivative', especially when it comes to Pearl Jam. I don't care what it reminds anyone of. It sounds great when Ed is delivering it and the band is playing, that's it. I didn't care that the vocal melody of GTF sounded like Going to California because I never cared much for the original and PJ does it better. Again, and I've stated it a million times, the uplifting chorus where Ed is trying to exhort us to action goes very well with the uneasy sounding verses where he's pointing out the follies of our ways. If the song carried on completely in the direction the verses were taking it, I wouldn't be here talking about it.

Pearl Jam has always been derivative of their favourite bands, sure. I realise that. The general difference now, more often than not, is that they're no longer taking the ingredients they derive from those bands and traditions and making something at least three times as interesting to my ears. Apparently they always derived from The Who, for example. But I've never liked The Who; I've always liked Pearl Jam. So, whether derivative is acceptable or not will entirely depend on whether you think that what was made with the ingredients is worth the derivation. And I (personally) don't think that stealing melodies from great songs in order to write merely good songs is... as great listening as it could be.

But "Infallible" isn't even the best example of this. LTRP is by far the most derivative song on the album, along with FD. And I think that a few pages ago, I clicked on a link to an interview in which Stone said that LTRP is alright, it's not bad, but it's really not his favourite on the record. And I'm just not sure how a comment like that, on this album's release date, from the guy who wrote the songs, is going to inspire anyone's confidence if they're trying to decide whether or not they like it. In fact, Stone has decided it for me. I feel that I now have his full permission to think it's average for all the same reasons he himself thinks it's average.

I have no idea what Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale" is. I wonder if people on that board are arguing it's derivative of something else. there's a lot of music out there. I suspect most everything can reference something already out there if you look hard enough.

McParadigm wrote:

stip wrote:But if I've been teaching American politics for 20 years I don't think I need to start teaching about international relations just because i've been doing American Politics for 20 years, provided I'm still doing it well.

I believe that any educator whose primary involvement in their field becomes the teaching of that field to others has made a terrible error of judgment, which ultimately hinders their ability to be a great teacher. Apply that to your analogy of Pearl Jam as you will.

digster wrote:I also am not sure that the job requirements are the same (using stip's analogy). I'm sure there are bands who continued to make relevant, exciting work after settling into one spot for the remainder of their careers, but it's hard for me to think of them.

bluestate wrote:So the live MYM video is our special 10C Bonus footage, eh? Am I missing something else?

The funny thing is... the new LB thread is just as much of a mess as the old one... Every time I go in there I feel poisoned somehow... so I'd much rather post here.

Strat wrote:

bluestate wrote:So the live MYM video is our special 10C Bonus footage, eh? Am I missing something else?

The funny thing is... the new LB thread is just as much of a mess as the old one... Every time I go in there I feel poisoned somehow... so I'd much rather post here.

nomorecrackpipes wrote:Stone should do more interviews.

bluestate wrote:So the live MYM video is our special 10C Bonus footage, eh? Am I missing something else?

bluestate wrote:So the live MYM video is our special 10C Bonus footage, eh? Am I missing something else?

McParadigm wrote:So I hadn't actually read the pitchfork review (does anybody ever actually read pitchfork reviews? I didn't think so), but I really am trying to kill some time right now, so I checked it out.

warehouse wrote:

McParadigm wrote:So I hadn't actually read the pitchfork review (does anybody ever actually read pitchfork reviews? I didn't think so), but I really am trying to kill some time right now, so I checked it out.

McParadigm wrote:So I hadn't actually read the pitchfork review (does anybody ever actually read pitchfork reviews? I didn't think so), but I really am trying to kill some time right now, so I checked it out.



Meanwhile, "Wearing Sweatpants" should be an RM post count ranking.