Red Mosquito

Ms Harmless wrote:as always, people who hate it are allowed to write huge diatribes here and it's "let them speak", but as soon as you defend it because you like it, it must be because you're fooling yourself and you just need to "give it time"

i'm not sure i've read anyone say that they hate it. they're critiquing aspects of it, which any openminded, non-group-think person should do, for better or worse. it's kind of telling how people misinterpret that as hating it.

stip wrote:It's the most wonderful time of the year

sorry, didn't mean to bottom-page this . . .

here - some light reading. The TSIS review once I remember how to post from blogger without B setting it up for me.

Dark Matter

It’s been almost four years since we’ve gotten new music from Pearl Jam. We’ve had an election, a pandemic, existential threats to democracy and the planet, a few small tours, and an avalanche of side projects. And now, finally, Dark Matter’s eponymous first single has arrived.

The choice of lead single is always revealing, though exactly what’s revealed can’t be known until we have the full record. There are times Pearl Jam will showcase something out of left field – a Who You Are, Nothing As It Seems, or Dance of the Clairvoyants. Sometimes these songs are essential for unpacking the DNA of the album (Who You Are or Nothing As It Seems). Sometimes they are just a chance to showcase something they’re proud of (Dance… is a full stop masterpiece but something of an outlier on Gigaton). But usually the single is a guarantor for the album - a declaration of purpose (every single since Given To Fly, with the exception of Dance) and an approximation of the feel and sound of the record.

Pearl Jam is also an older band with a rich legacy. They defined an era, have been memorialized in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (in fact, a quote from Light Years is up on the walls in the museum), and still immediately sell out shows anywhere in the world. But that Pearl Jam has endured and thrived creates challenges of its own. Each new piece of music is forced to grapple with the legacy of what came before. It forces us to ask why, for all their success, doesn’t Pearl Jam feel like it did when we were younger?

Sometimes it’s music. The criminally underrated Lightning Bolt explored aging and mortality and legacy, wearing its heart proudly on its sleeve, and is generally considered to be one of Pearl Jam’s lesser works. But it wasn’t the themes. Gigaton explored the same ideas, albeit with less overt sentimentality. However, the production felt more intimate, the performances looser, the experience more organic. And Gigaton remains well regarded within the fan community.

But sometimes it is the expectations we have for music. Most of us, as we age, don’t consume new music with the imperial ferocity we once did. And even if we do, new bands will rarely hit quite as hard as the ones who were the touchstones of our youth – the songs and artists that soundtracked our transformation from who we were into who we are and might still be. Over time those artists we depended on break up, or worse. Their music ends. And so what music remains shoulders a heavy weight. We ask it to not only recapture the feeling of our youth, but, in a way we are rarely conscious of, to also validate our journey from then to now. When an older artist finds a way to speak to us, in language simultaneously familiar and new, we feel confident that our past experiences were all necessary steps on the road that led us here. It's not that the music makes us feel young again as much as it connects past and present in a way that makes us feel richer, fuller, timeless, and alive.

All of this ran through my head, even if I didn’t realize it, as I stayed up until midnight for the release (like I did when I was younger and will ONLY do for Pearl Jam). I’m not just eager to hear new music, and to get a sense of what the album will sound and feel like. I’m anxious to discover what Pearl Jam means to me now– to see if they are still capable of embracing my past and present, and can keep building the bridge between them.

Seems like they are.

Pearl Jam writes albums, and it’s hard to get a full sense of what a song means without placing it in conversation with the songs that surround it. But this also gives the lead single a temporary purity. It gets to stand on its own, for a little while, as a complete thought. And with the caveat that the experience of Dark Matter may change in the context of the album, lets dive in.

Dark Matter is a three-and-a-half-minute song that feels longer and yet not quite long enough. It is simultaneously new and recognizable, and weirdly fresh. A song that could have only come from Pearl Jam while lacking a direct 1-1 analog with anything that’s come before. Producer Andrew Watt is a huge Pearl Jam fan and the deep knowledge of their music he brought to the recording process is fully on display. The vocals feel like the 2000s era rerecording’s of Brother and Alone – applying Eddie’s more weathered and grounded range to older songs he would have once belted into space. There are vaguely electronic flourishes to the guitars reminiscent of You Are, and some of Riot Act’s road weariness is present. The deep, thunderous groove is reminiscent of Temple of the Dog. It has some of the fragile precision of Dance of the Clairvoyants and at the same time feels like it could fall apart at any moment in a way reminiscent of No Code. And yet the swing for the fences bombast of Ten and Vs is all over the song. Underneath it all, hints of Binaural’ s atmosphere. All coming together in a way that feels familiar and comforting without being repetitive or safe.

In some ways, this is the song Can’t Deny Me very much wanted to be, but never was. It’s angry, but the anger doesn’t feel performative. It’s running through some of the same critiques embedded in Gigaton, but while Gigaton was noteworthy for its inward, reflective focus and surprisingly non-judgmental tone, there is a fierce urgency to the performances in Dark Matter, even when its playful. It embraces a clarity of purpose while letting go of the guilt haunting Gigaton. If Gigaton quietly recommits you to a cause, Dark Matter feels like a rally. It looks outward, fosters solidarity (that chorus feels organically huge and enveloping and should elicit a natural, rather than engineered, reaction live), and howls at the structural but still contestable unfairness in the world – a stance that has been at the heart of their best music since Pearl Jam began.

Dark Matter is not the most innovative song they’ve ever written, but it is elevated by some ferocious performances. Matt is given the space to drive the proceedings and gives the song an immensity to help it meet the moment. Mike and Stone play sharp and angry with an angular ferocity, and Mike’s solo rises from that space to wrap its claws around Dark Matter’s throat. Jeff is a little buried in the mix, but there are moments where his chunky playing pushes through in a way that calls to mind classic performances like Why Go. The deceptively simple structure hides many exciting flourishes – something new revealed with each listen.

Eddie sounds great, but his voice is pushed back into the mix. The music drives the song, and Eddie is contributing his instrument in critical ways, rather than the band serving as his background players. The end result feels collaborative – a band playing together, feeding off each other’s energy. Eddie sounds weathered and wounded, but he has wrapped himself around his voice, keeping it in a controlled and protective space, and when he lets it off the leash we get intense punctuation that avoids drifting into the screechy territory that defined his work on S/T or Backspacer. He sounds vulnerable, but not like a victim, and sings like someone who has uncovered the wisdom and power and confidence at the heart of vulnerability.

The longer Dark Matter goes on the less measured and more unhinged it becomes. There is a rising intensity that gets angrier the longer it goes on. The music and lyrics feel almost extractive. A blunt drill powered by brute, wrenching force. Painful, destructive, outrageous. The performance captures the experience of living in a world not designed for living well. This is not presented as a revelation. It plays instead like a confirmation of known grievances that must nevertheless be named. The central ‘dark matter’ image makes sense in this context – the hidden substance that makes up our world is injustice. The source of our profound alienation from each other. Oppositional and totalizing, but only so long as it remains invisible.

Dark Matter is not a youthful song. It’s not trying to recapture that energy. That’s why it’s successful. As we get older we learn that context and compromise define what it means to live in the world. Gray mutes the bright, sharp colors we saw with younger eyes, and life inevitably forces us into choices that are no choice at all. This is both true and terrible, and to pretend the world is otherwise would be dishonest. It’s why mid and late life attempts to capture the energy and worldview of our younger selves so often rings inauthentic and insincere.

Instead, Dark Matter redefines what it means to age, and understands that, fire is not the sole possession of youth. We never stop needing light, heat, and potential. We just burn a different fuel to get it. Dark Matter owns what we’ve learned, and refuses to surrender to the dark, not in spite of the gray but because of it.

This is an interesting choice for a single. It's not particularly catchy and the syncopated vocals in the chorus lack that singalong quality. Seems to be more of a "statement single" than anything they expect to light up the charts. Single #2 will probably be the more accessible one

[quote="Chris_H_2"][quote="guitar_davey"][quote="tree_"]give it time.. they're just excited to have new stuff[/quote]
Some people just enjoy liking what they like. Presumably for most of us on this board, Pearl Jam is one of those things.[/quote]
and the people that's aren't goo goo over it are perfectly fine with people liking it however they want. but it feels as if some of the people that do like it believe that other people aren't entitled to not like it, as if it's some personal affront or something. it's some weird, culty thing that comes up every release cycle.[/quote]


No. It just baffles me that the same people who clearly aren't into this band or this song (or gave up on the band years ago, which is perfectly fair) need to race to their keyboards every time and hammer on about how lame Pearl Jam has gotten. It's kind of exhausting. And for those of us who get a little joy out of this band, yeah, I guess it does feel slightly personal.

Jorge wrote:Nobody else thinks this would fit right in with Lightning Bolt? Sounds so slick and plasticky

No.

There's really no controversy here.

79 percent rate it a 4 or 5.

It's like a Trump primary.

Obviously, at the end of the day, there are no right or wrong answers with your taste in music.

But, it's good to see the board united like this.

guitar_davey wrote:

Chris_H_2 wrote:

guitar_davey wrote:

tree_ wrote:give it time.. they're just excited to have new stuff

Some people just enjoy liking what they like. Presumably for most of us on this board, Pearl Jam is one of those things.

and the people that's aren't goo goo over it are perfectly fine with people liking it however they want. but it feels as if some of the people that do like it believe that other people aren't entitled to not like it, as if it's some personal affront or something. it's some weird, culty thing that comes up every release cycle.

No. It just baffles me that the same people who clearly aren't into this band or this song (or gave up on the band years ago, which is perfectly fair) need to race to their keyboards every time and hammer on about how lame Pearl Jam has gotten. It's kind of exhausting. And for those of us who get a little joy out of this band, yeah, I guess it does feel slightly personal.

there's always the option of foe'ing certain posters

guitar_davey wrote:

Chris_H_2 wrote:

guitar_davey wrote:

tree_ wrote:give it time.. they're just excited to have new stuff

Some people just enjoy liking what they like. Presumably for most of us on this board, Pearl Jam is one of those things.

and the people that's aren't goo goo over it are perfectly fine with people liking it however they want. but it feels as if some of the people that do like it believe that other people aren't entitled to not like it, as if it's some personal affront or something. it's some weird, culty thing that comes up every release cycle.

No. It just baffles me that the same people who clearly aren't into this band or this song (or gave up on the band years ago, which is perfectly fair) need to race to their keyboards every time and hammer on about how lame Pearl Jam has gotten. It's kind of exhausting. And for those of us who get a little joy out of this band, yeah, I guess it does feel slightly personal.

The annoying part is how it's always insinuated that they are critical thinkers and were in a cult.

Hate it all you want. Truly don't care. Trag offers wonderful insights (though I'll never understand how he can hate a song he loves just because of the production), but you ain't find me going into the foo fighters thread all the time talking about how they should fucking retire

Is anyone really harping against this song so hard? I've only read a couple pages of this thread but there seem to be more posts lamenting negative opinions than actual negative opinions

Jorge wrote:Is anyone really harping against this song so hard? I've only read a couple pages of this thread but there seem to be more posts lamenting negative opinions than actual negative opinions

By RM standards its been pretty tame since the worst reactions are mild indifference and most folks seem pretty stoked. Few are calling it an out and out masterpiece.

Ms Harmless wrote:

Jorge wrote:Nobody else thinks this would fit right in with Lightning Bolt? Sounds so slick and plasticky

it sounds slick and polished but not terrible, and the passionate, articulate musical performance is overriding every problem Lightning Bolt had; and the lyrics aren't awful

I'll say this...After a couple of life-altering scares for me & my wife over the past few years, the cloying, saccharine stuff is sounding a little more earnest these days

Jorge wrote:Is anyone really harping against this song so hard? I've only read a couple pages of this thread but there seem to be more posts lamenting negative opinions than actual negative opinions

I think people are reacting negatively to the condescending nature of tree's posts.

I hope Spenno likes it.

Farmer John wrote:I hope Spenno likes it.

My vote is he won't.

The votes are lining up accordingly. Only surprise thus far is sailor ....

I voted 3 stars. It's alright. I really wish it didn't sound so polished and quantized

tommy wrote:

Jorge wrote:Is anyone really harping against this song so hard? I've only read a couple pages of this thread but there seem to be more posts lamenting negative opinions than actual negative opinions

I think people are reacting negatively to the condescending nature of tree's posts.

I think it's just the same thing that happens any time they put out music (and, for all I know, the same thing happens at every other band's message board; this is the only one I frequent). There has always been a bizarre thing when it comes to music that doesn't seem to have a correlation to any other kind of art; no one would ask why you bother having an opinion on a famous director's new movie, even if you haven't liked their last few films.

But anyway, one striking thing about this is that the music is one of the few times I can recall them sonically trying to sound a bit like the band that made Ten. It's not too overt, but I feel like ever since Vs. they've kind of gotten out of their way not to sound like that (even S/T, which was heavily marketed as the Return to Rock, didn't really sound anything like Ten).

Ms Harmless wrote:as always, people who hate it are allowed to write huge diatribes here and it's "let them speak", but as soon as you defend it because you like it, it must be because you're fooling yourself and you just need to "give it time"

I see your huge diatribe and raise you stip's post.

i too voted three stars. and i too take exception with the production, just as i have with the last three albums.

I will never get tired of hearing new Pearl Jam. I'm still processing the song. I think I've listened a dozen or so times and I keep getting caught off guard by some different aspect or another. I'm not always drawn to the "heavy" PJ stuff, especially off the bat. But there is a sort of blanket joy and excitement in hearing this band fresh again. The chorus keeps getting me. And that solo toward the end is fucking epic. I goddamn love that.

It's 2024 and we have NEW PEARL JAM! I can't believe it.