Red Mosquito

I don't want to have it walk it back later if I change my mind

Totally fair. Even if I wear out on them over the years (see: Corduroy, Alive, Black), I think a 5 star song is still a 5 star song. And Pendulum is a 5 star song. I don't imagine I'll change my mind on that. But we'll see.

Your opinion will mean more if you wait. Yours is the smartest path.

My backspacer assessments held up, but I had to walk back a lot of S/T, so I'm trying to be cautious.

Pendulum, Infallible, L-bolt, MYM, and Yellow Moon are all great songs. I don't think I'll change my mind on that. It's just a question of how good.

And one day I might just decide to call sirens a 5 star song.

Sirens is so good. Man! This album has a lot going for it.

It's really good. It's not groundbreaking, but it's well executed. An easy, enjoyable, spirited, often moving listen

stip wrote:It's really good. It's not groundbreaking, but it's well executed. An easy, enjoyable, spirited, often moving listen

Absolutely. I completely agree. It hits all the right notes in me.

I wonder if the next record will have a sharper focus. One of the problems with a record where you really have a lot of songs that don't really sound like each other is that they don't necessarily create or sustain a mood that elevates the songs around it. I listen to this on shuffle all the time and don't feel like I'm losing much

But I think that's one element that I really like about this album. This isn't a concept piece or a faux-concept piece or a mood piece. It really is just a collection of great songs. I think maybe they were trying to do something like this with Backspacer, but Lightning Bolt doesn't feel as frivolous too me. But it does feel more free.

Maybe you already addressed this, but I haven't seen it -- you've held all along that the next album will inform the previous. Has Lightning Bolt changed your opinion of, or given you a new perspective of Backspacer?

For me, it's actually weakened Backspacer considerably.

durdencommatyler wrote:But I think that's one element that I really like about this album. This isn't a concept piece or a faux-concept piece or a mood piece. It really is just a collection of great songs. I think maybe they were trying to do something like this with Backspacer, but Lightning Bolt doesn't feel as frivolous too me. But it does feel more free.

Maybe you already addressed this, but I haven't seen it -- you've held all along that the next album will inform the previous. Has Lightning Bolt changed your opinion of, or given you a new perspective of Backspacer?

For me, it's actually weakened Backspacer considerably.

My favorite thing about Lightning Bolt might be that it made Backspacer a bump in the road rather than the beginning of a trend.

numbers wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:But I think that's one element that I really like about this album. This isn't a concept piece or a faux-concept piece or a mood piece. It really is just a collection of great songs. I think maybe they were trying to do something like this with Backspacer, but Lightning Bolt doesn't feel as frivolous too me. But it does feel more free.

Maybe you already addressed this, but I haven't seen it -- you've held all along that the next album will inform the previous. Has Lightning Bolt changed your opinion of, or given you a new perspective of Backspacer?

For me, it's actually weakened Backspacer considerably.

My favorite thing about Lightning Bolt might be that it made Backspacer a bump in the road rather than the beginning of a trend.

Yep.

I appreciate Backspacer more as an outlier, on the one hand. But on the other, it feels more like a misfire than ever before.

stip wrote:I wonder if the next record will have a sharper focus. One of the problems with a record where you really have a lot of songs that don't really sound like each other is that they don't necessarily create or sustain a mood that elevates the songs around it. I listen to this on shuffle all the time and don't feel like I'm losing much

That's a problem for me.

durdencommatyler wrote:

numbers wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:But I think that's one element that I really like about this album. This isn't a concept piece or a faux-concept piece or a mood piece. It really is just a collection of great songs. I think maybe they were trying to do something like this with Backspacer, but Lightning Bolt doesn't feel as frivolous too me. But it does feel more free.

Maybe you already addressed this, but I haven't seen it -- you've held all along that the next album will inform the previous. Has Lightning Bolt changed your opinion of, or given you a new perspective of Backspacer?

For me, it's actually weakened Backspacer considerably.

My favorite thing about Lightning Bolt might be that it made Backspacer a bump in the road rather than the beginning of a trend.

Yep.

I appreciate Backspacer more as an outlier, on the one hand. But on the other, it feels more like a misfire than ever before.

To me it shows that they really just sleepwalked through making that album. Until now I had worried that they just didnt care about making new music with the band anymore, but this album has restored my faith. The way they've toured this album shows how they are into it, the 09 tour that coincided with Backspacer's release was nothing special, except for maybe that grunge reunion show they did in LA.

durdencommatyler wrote:But I think that's one element that I really like about this album. This isn't a concept piece or a faux-concept piece or a mood piece. It really is just a collection of great songs. I think maybe they were trying to do something like this with Backspacer, but Lightning Bolt doesn't feel as frivolous too me. But it does feel more free.

Maybe you already addressed this, but I haven't seen it -- you've held all along that the next album will inform the previous. Has Lightning Bolt changed your opinion of, or given you a new perspective of Backspacer?

For me, it's actually weakened Backspacer considerably.

I gave backspacer a listen the other day and still really loved it. But backspacer is one of my favorite PJ records. Having said that, I think, more than any other PJ album, lightning bolt is an attempt to, not reproduce, but perfect, a previous record. Another attempt at the same idea that you didn't quite do what you could with the first time.

Lightning bolt is reaching farther, and is more interesting. Backspacer is reveling in its freedom to not have to say much for quite a few songs.

durdencommatyler wrote:

numbers wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:But I think that's one element that I really like about this album. This isn't a concept piece or a faux-concept piece or a mood piece. It really is just a collection of great songs. I think maybe they were trying to do something like this with Backspacer, but Lightning Bolt doesn't feel as frivolous too me. But it does feel more free.

Maybe you already addressed this, but I haven't seen it -- you've held all along that the next album will inform the previous. Has Lightning Bolt changed your opinion of, or given you a new perspective of Backspacer?

For me, it's actually weakened Backspacer considerably.

My favorite thing about Lightning Bolt might be that it made Backspacer a bump in the road rather than the beginning of a trend.

Yep.

I appreciate Backspacer more as an outlier, on the one hand. But on the other, it feels more like a misfire than ever before.

that's been the comment regarding backspacer we've seen the most here. I argued that people tend to appreciate the last album more once it no longer has to bear the weight of the catalog. Or, at the very least, it enables people to evaluate it more clearly. But there is usually a much cleaner break then we have here, so L-bolt invites direct comparisons to Backspacer in a way that Binaural did not invite direct comparisons to Yield, for instance.

Do you guys give out 5 stars when a song reaches a specific level of greatness and then within the 5 stars songs there's still a lot of room for differences in quality? Or do you enjoy all your 5 star songs about equally?
I asking because I couldn't give songs like Pendulum 5 stars myself even though I really like it a lot. There are just so many songs that I enjoy so much more. Do you think Pendulum gets close to the greatness of Corduroy, Immortality, whatever 5 stars song there are for you?

Mike wrote:Do you guys give out 5 stars when a song reaches a specific level of greatness and then within the 5 stars songs there's still a lot of room for differences in quality? Or do you enjoy all your 5 star songs about equally?
I asking because I couldn't give songs like Pendulum 5 stars myself even though I really like it a lot. There are just so many songs that I enjoy so much more. Do you think Pendulum gets close to the greatness of Corduroy, Immortality, whatever 5 stars song there are for you?

For me, yes, it's this. If I try to score songs against other songs, especially ones so far back in the catalogue, I start getting confused because they all vary in style and I might prefer one style slightly over another, which is unfair towards the song itself. So to stop my brain playing games with me, I just judge songs according to how much I'm enjoying them at the time, and I usually only compare them to others on the album or during that PJ "era".

BurtReynolds wrote:

stip wrote:I wonder if the next record will have a sharper focus. One of the problems with a record where you really have a lot of songs that don't really sound like each other is that they don't necessarily create or sustain a mood that elevates the songs around it. I listen to this on shuffle all the time and don't feel like I'm losing much

That's a problem for me.

I'd say this too. I've played around with a few alternative track orders for this, and I usually prefer them, particularly Stip's recommendation to me the other day of... arg I can't remember. But it was good. The record could carry more weight, as you say stip, by getting into a groove and building on it.

numbers wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:But I think that's one element that I really like about this album. This isn't a concept piece or a faux-concept piece or a mood piece. It really is just a collection of great songs. I think maybe they were trying to do something like this with Backspacer, but Lightning Bolt doesn't feel as frivolous too me. But it does feel more free.

Maybe you already addressed this, but I haven't seen it -- you've held all along that the next album will inform the previous. Has Lightning Bolt changed your opinion of, or given you a new perspective of Backspacer?

For me, it's actually weakened Backspacer considerably.

My favorite thing about Lightning Bolt might be that it made Backspacer a bump in the road rather than the beginning of a trend.

I agree, with the huge caveat that I don't think we're going to be getting rid of BoB in a hurry.

Mike wrote:Do you guys give out 5 stars when a song reaches a specific level of greatness and then within the 5 stars songs there's still a lot of room for differences in quality? Or do you enjoy all your 5 star songs about equally?
I asking because I couldn't give songs like Pendulum 5 stars myself even though I really like it a lot. There are just so many songs that I enjoy so much more. Do you think Pendulum gets close to the greatness of Corduroy, Immortality, whatever 5 stars song there are for you?

Every one of those ranks is a threshold for me. Plenty of variation within them.

stip wrote:

Mike wrote:Do you guys give out 5 stars when a song reaches a specific level of greatness and then within the 5 stars songs there's still a lot of room for differences in quality? Or do you enjoy all your 5 star songs about equally?
I asking because I couldn't give songs like Pendulum 5 stars myself even though I really like it a lot. There are just so many songs that I enjoy so much more. Do you think Pendulum gets close to the greatness of Corduroy, Immortality, whatever 5 stars song there are for you?

Every one of those ranks is a threshold for me. Plenty of variation within them.

Word.