Red Mosquito

Ms Harmless wrote:wasn't "moving at the speed of inspiration", just getting it done and taped, what Ed was saying they were doing during Backspacer and Lightning Bolt? I'm not sure I need any more of that; I want more albums but I also don't think this band does "dashed off" music very well at all

oneway23 wrote:

Ms Harmless wrote:wasn't "moving at the speed of inspiration", just getting it done and taped, what Ed was saying they were doing during Backspacer and Lightning Bolt? I'm not sure I need any more of that; I want more albums but I also don't think this band does "dashed off" music very well at all

Good point...It simply may not be the best version of them, We'll see how they fared with a similar approach on DM.
Can't come soon enough

Thurman Murman wrote:

VinylGuy wrote:I feel there is a story behind Brendan being left off the band´s world in the last years...from producing a supposedly new album to the band scratching those and making another album with another guy, to being kinda close to Vicky Cornell in the middle of a dispute with Soundgarden with the last album...im sure something happened between them.

I dont know about the Cornell connection but i 100% believe that BOB was left behind because the band was not satisfied with the direction things were headed around the Can't Deny Me/upcoming album stage that never happened stage.

tragabigzanda wrote:

Ms Harmless wrote:wasn't "moving at the speed of inspiration", just getting it done and taped, what Ed was saying they were doing during Backspacer and Lightning Bolt? I'm not sure I need any more of that; I want more albums but I also don't think this band does "dashed off" music very well at all

The limiting factor here is maybe Ed’s approach to songwriting. Some of the very best stuff on Vitalogy and No Code were his early experiences writing songs for the band that didn’t necessarily have an end game in mind; they feel more channeled than composed: Not For You, Immortality (Neil Youngish in a sense), Tremor Christ, I Got Shit, Long Road, Sometimes…he’s never really aiming for a hook with any of these songs.

As time went on, I think he started picking up the guitar with the intention of sounding like another artist: “here’s a Bruce song, here’s an REM song,” etc. it’s had such diminishing returns.

Ironically, we’re back at the “here’s a Pearl Jam song” phase (again), which, ugh.

tragabigzanda wrote:they feel more channeled than composed

tragabigzanda wrote:

Ms Harmless wrote:wasn't "moving at the speed of inspiration", just getting it done and taped, what Ed was saying they were doing during Backspacer and Lightning Bolt? I'm not sure I need any more of that; I want more albums but I also don't think this band does "dashed off" music very well at all

The limiting factor here is maybe Ed’s approach to songwriting. Some of the very best stuff on Vitalogy and No Code were his early experiences writing songs for the band that didn’t necessarily have an end game in mind; they feel more channeled than composed: Not For You, Immortality (Neil Youngish in a sense), Tremor Christ, I Got Shit, Long Road, Sometimes…he’s never really aiming for a hook with any of these songs.

As time went on, I think he started picking up the guitar with the intention of sounding like another artist: “here’s a Bruce song, here’s an REM song,” etc. it’s had such diminishing returns.

Ironically, we’re back at the “here’s a Pearl Jam song” phase (again), which, ugh.

tragabigzanda wrote:

Ms Harmless wrote:wasn't "moving at the speed of inspiration", just getting it done and taped, what Ed was saying they were doing during Backspacer and Lightning Bolt? I'm not sure I need any more of that; I want more albums but I also don't think this band does "dashed off" music very well at all

The limiting factor here is maybe Ed’s approach to songwriting. Some of the very best stuff on Vitalogy and No Code were his early experiences writing songs for the band that didn’t necessarily have an end game in mind; they feel more channeled than composed: Not For You, Immortality (Neil Youngish in a sense), Tremor Christ, I Got Shit, Long Road, Sometimes…he’s never really aiming for a hook with any of these songs.

As time went on, I think he started picking up the guitar with the intention of sounding like another artist: “here’s a Bruce song, here’s an REM song,” etc. it’s had such diminishing returns.

Ironically, we’re back at the “here’s a Pearl Jam song” phase (again), which, ugh.

Spoiler: show

Strat wrote:I think at some point, any person, songwriter or otherwise, just kind of does what they do. They stop evolving. I think ed still writes inspired music (see earthling) and music that he is excited about but it just depends on if you, the listener, are sick of it or not.

i think, like trag said, Ed was a "better" writer when he didnt know what he was doing. Still figuring out what the guitar does and can do. I think the entire band was better as well. When you start leaning into "what makes a good song a good song" and look towards guys like Bruce, Petty/whoever....you start to see a Formula that has worked.....which can feel often times uninspired compared to throwing weird pieces at the wall like Grievance.

Monkey_Driven wrote:

Strat wrote:I think at some point, any person, songwriter or otherwise, just kind of does what they do. They stop evolving. I think ed still writes inspired music (see earthling) and music that he is excited about but it just depends on if you, the listener, are sick of it or not.

i think, like trag said, Ed was a "better" writer when he didnt know what he was doing. Still figuring out what the guitar does and can do. I think the entire band was better as well. When you start leaning into "what makes a good song a good song" and look towards guys like Bruce, Petty/whoever....you start to see a Formula that has worked.....which can feel often times uninspired compared to throwing weird pieces at the wall like Grievance.

There is still some experimentation in PJ's music. Ed in particular seems to be very interested in breaking free from the verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus structure in his PJ contributions. Look at DoTC, Seven O'Clock, WES, and SBWM from Gigaton for example.

McParadigm wrote:I agree with all of that, as well

tragabigzanda wrote:The limiting factor here is maybe Ed’s approach to songwriting. Some of the very best stuff on Vitalogy and No Code were his early experiences writing songs for the band that didn’t necessarily have an end game in mind; they feel more channeled than composed

McParadigm wrote:EV was never a guy with a clear, original artistic vision. He was a séance guy. He channeled, and something just….happened. So when it came time to stop channeling and write with a purpose, of course he looked to the guys he had always admired. Of course he wrote songs that imitated them.

Kevin Davis wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:The limiting factor here is maybe Ed’s approach to songwriting. Some of the very best stuff on Vitalogy and No Code were his early experiences writing songs for the band that didn’t necessarily have an end game in mind; they feel more channeled than composed

McParadigm wrote:EV was never a guy with a clear, original artistic vision. He was a séance guy. He channeled, and something just….happened. So when it came time to stop channeling and write with a purpose, of course he looked to the guys he had always admired. Of course he wrote songs that imitated them.

Early on, I don't think Ed really had the technical skill set to write by anything other than feel; songs like "Not For You" and "Corduroy" and "Sometimes" (and even things that feel a bit harmonically richer, like "Around the Bend" and "Dead Man") feel to me like someone with little to no formal musical education picking up an instrument and feeling around using the handful of chord shapes, note patterns, etc., that are familiar and comfortable to them, until they happen upon something that just kind of instinctively works. It feels mysterious and cosmic and emotionally poignant. But as you repeat the exercise, and realize that certain components of composion work the same way every time, that certain note combinations repeatedly evoke similar emotional resonances, etc., the layers of mystery gradually peel away, and you realize you're really just discovering the language of music. You realize that the Em/D chord progression that makes up the core of "Immortality" wasn't a gift from the universe, but rather a simple, common chord pairing that sounds so good (and is used so often) because they're comprised of notes that make sense together in the pentatonic scale. Eventually, your writing becomes driven by what you what you anticipate going in will work, as opposed to what you accidentally discover works via the process.

I think there is some mutual exclusivity to both sides of this process; you can get songs from each mindset/approach that you can't get from the other, and both approaches are limiting in ways that the other is not. A song like "Not For You" would likely not be written by someone with the musical education of 2024 Eddie, as it would not be intellectually or artistically satisfying, because the creative method is so rudimentary (i.e. make one chord shape and slide it up and down the guitar); likewise, a song like "Man of the Hour" would probably be a bit out of reach for someone who was just moving one chord shape around the guitar, to say nothing of the growth in emotional maturity within the writing. I think Eddie has gone through this process personally, but more significantly I think the band has gone through it collectively -- Stone, for example, wrote virtually all of the music on Ten with zero knowledge of where a singer might take it, or even who the singer might be in the first place. So there are these levels of discovery happening individually, and then again collectively when it's all put together. But, somewhat tragicomically, the more a band does it, the harder it becomes to do; every time out, every record, every new song, the band members learn what to expect from each other, all while they're piecing together their own formal and less instinctive senses for what does and doesn't "work" from a purely technical standpoint. There is a lot of good that can come from this, and certainly when you get to the point that PJ is at now, it probably bodes extremely well for them being able to continue making music in a way that is healthy and enjoyable. But artistically, it can lead to some stagnation.

This viewpoint seems to romanticize blissful ignorance in composition, and it isn't meant to. Many artists have continued to chase that mystery despite amassing a more robust technical toolkit. And don't get me wrong, I don't think Eddie is currently operating at classical composer levels of music theory or anything -- he still comes across as a bit of a rube in some regards, and perhaps exists a bit in a weird space where he has just enough knowledge to get in there and fuck things up, but not quite enough for it to be a genuine strength (if that makes sense).

*Looks like others have said roughly the same thing, but…here it is anyway