Let's Actually Listen to the Album: Pearl Jam

[Ms Harmless]

I also still don't feel anything for "Army Reserve"

[liebzz]

I feel like the record happily ends at "Wasted Reprise" - not because it's particularly great in itself but because I love songs placed as bookends

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die...

[LetMeSleep]

The harshness of the mix doesn’t help ST. I still rank it pretty highly but the harsh to opening to MITS and Come Back, the abrupt entry of the drums on Inside Job. These jar.

I’m yet to hear the 2017 remix.

[stip]

I really wish they expanded on Unemployable; it's a really good song, in my opinion, but it feels like they're wrapping it up right as it's about to reach its high point.

Anyways, over time, this record has improved quite a bit for me, in part do to enjoying some songs that I used to not be a fan of (Marker, Severed Hand, Come Back). It still has the same problem some of the latter PJ albums hit, where the record stumbles in the back half, but I really enjoy this record when I put it on now. I love that opening run of three songs, and have always been a big fan of Life Wasted, and I feel like it's knocked as lunkhead rocker more than it deserves; it's a deceptively nimble track.

that opening run is fantastic

[stip]

The harshness of the mix doesn’t help ST. I still rank it pretty highly but the harsh to opening to MITS and Come Back, the abrupt entry of the drums on Inside Job. These jar.

I’m yet to hear the 2017 remix.

it doesnt help marker, unfortunately.

[Ms Harmless]

the grating jangly guitar part in my left ear was almost too much when I was trying to listen to "Army Reserve"

[NewKurtLeon]

Life Wasted - 2017 Mix
World Wide Suicide
Marker In The Sand
Comatose - 2017 Mix
Severed Hand - 2017 Mix
Parachutes
Unemployable
Gone - 2017 Mix
Let It Ride
Big Wave - 2017 Mix
Come Back - 2017 Mix
Inside Job

The Only Cloud In The Sky - Hidden Track

Singles:
World Wide Suicide - Of The Earth as B-Side
Severed Hand - Army Reserve as B-Side
Come Back - Cold Confession as B-Side

Thats my take

Still fucking love this album, it was the first disc I ever bought with my own money, and it was the first release I saw as a real fan (started to listen to PJ around 2003, Riot Act was already out)

[griffinxi]

This is the PJ album I dislike the most.

The production is grating and metallic--the guitars sound so flaccid. Matt's drum sound has never been worse, his playing pretty much by-the-numbers except for the "Big Wave" outro which is pretty interesting. Do you remember how fantastic his kit sounded on Superunknown? Sure, there are lots of reasons for that--I think his playing is more of a natural fit for Soundgarden's songwriting (and even in the songs he himself writes for PJ), but I can't help but struggle with the disparity.

It's not like I blame him--what drummer could make something interesting out of "Come Back"?

The songwriting here overall is so bland and unforgettable, with a few exceptions--"Unemployable" followed closely by "Parachutes"--the only songs that feel like they were written w/ a sure hand. Everything else has a sketchbook feel, a bunch of demos and tangents. (Okay, maybe WWS is a decent song too).

What bothers me the most is that people felt like "Riot Act" needed some kind of rejoinder, and--this is it? Riot Act to my ears is superior in every conceivable way--production, songwriting, sequencing, performances, lyrics, mood.

[oneway23]

Matt's cymbals do sound like he's slapping cellophane on this one.

I liked the 2017 re-mix. Gave the album a little more heft in the low-end, but, the crushed dynamics were unfortunately already baked into the mix prior to mastering. Everything was tracked really hot. Not much to salvage that aspect of the record, I'm afraid.

[bune]

I really liked the Spotify mix that came out. has there ever been an acknowledgement of where that came from?

[oneway23]

I really liked the Spotify mix that came out. has there ever been an acknowledgement of where that came from?

I think the albums were all re-mastered in 24/96 a few years ago, acting as the basis for the most recent vinyl re-issues.
Pretty sure Avocado re-mix was done a bit clandestinely during this process.

I re-bought them all digitally, as they were made available around the same time as the vinyl.

[VinylGuy]

I really liked the Spotify mix that came out. has there ever been an acknowledgement of where that came from?

I dont think its available anymore on Spotify.

[oneway23]

I really liked the Spotify mix that came out. has there ever been an acknowledgement of where that came from?

I dont think its available anymore on Spotify.

Not sure about Spotify, but, it's definitely still available on Tidal.

[stip]

spotify has it still, unless it went down a week ago

[VinylGuy]

I saw just the O Brien mix and the original one.

[EJ]

I don't think any of the new mixes make enough of an improvement on the sound of this record. Really unfortunate.

[bune]

I really liked the Spotify mix that came out. has there ever been an acknowledgement of where that came from?

I think the albums were all re-mastered in 24/96 a few years ago, acting as the basis for the most recent vinyl re-issues.
Pretty sure Avocado re-mix was done a bit clandestinely during this process.

I re-bought them all digitally, as they were made available around the same time as the vinyl.

I have the 24/96 mix and I can tell you that while it is a brighter mix, it is not the same as the Spotify one. There was a waveform that someone did of the two back when it was released and you can see so much more room for the music in the Spotify versions.

[oneway23]

I really liked the Spotify mix that came out. has there ever been an acknowledgement of where that came from?

I think the albums were all re-mastered in 24/96 a few years ago, acting as the basis for the most recent vinyl re-issues.
Pretty sure Avocado re-mix was done a bit clandestinely during this process.

I re-bought them all digitally, as they were made available around the same time as the vinyl.

I have the 24/96 mix and I can tell you that while it is a brighter mix, it is not the same as the Spotify one. There was a waveform that someone did of the two back when it was released and you can see so much more room for the music in the Spotify versions.

Interesting. I find it curious that Roon would label both my 24/96 version and the 16/44 version on Tidal as the same release, even listing them under the "versions" tab, which is done when Roon processes what it considers to be a "duplicate." It's even file-tagged on Tidal in exactly the same way as the version I bought from HDTracks, with 2017 mix in parentheses.

I doubt that there would be two distinct mixes released at or around the same time. Are you certain that you are not talking about a 24/96 vinyl rip? I've downloaded a couple of those, and that could definitely fool a DR meter or show distinct waveforms.

Did you buy the 2017 mix in high-resolution yourself, or did you find it somewhere? No judgement here, as I just admitted to testing various vinyl rips, I'm just curious.

[bune]

I'm going to have to find that thread because it was a lot of discovery and it happened by accident. I even emailed HDtracks with the waveform asking why it was brickwalled and they said so? which was rough.

[Kylus]

I've got a bit of a soft spot for this album, as it was the first one that I really got to experience at release as a fan, and the first tour I got to see the band on. I remember being beyond hyped as a teenager that this and 10,000 Days by Tool were being released on the same day. That said, I'd definitely place it toward the bottom of my album rankings, mostly because of the front half of the record (though I seem to be in a minority here reading through the thread).

Life Wasted is a great high-energy opener, but the next four songs are aggressively...fine. WWS might be the most mediocre song the band have recorded. Severed Hand is solid, and a pretty good live song but for the most part the opening 5 song strech just sort of runs together - maybe a resequencing would help to split up all of those upper/mid tempo 'rock' songs.

I'm not a huge fan of Parachutes, the vocal performance is interesting but the melody just seems to meander a bit too much. I appreciate that it's at least something different though, and from then on I really enjoy the rest of the record.

Unemployable is a great song start to finish, and I agree with griffinxi in that it feels like one of the more fully fleshed out cuts on the album- it doesn't feel like a second-rate attempt at recreating something else.
Big Wave is goofy but I absolutely love it and it hits for me in a way that none of the other up-tempo rock songs on the record do.

The verses on Gone are great, and the chorus almost gets there but doesn't quite reach the heights of a song like 'In Hiding'.
Come Back could have turned out terribly, but Eddie's vocal saves it. He really sells the performance, especially in that last chorus/outro.

I'm a big fan of Army Reserve and Inside Job, for much of the same reason I like the verses on Gone so much. They've got a sort of dark, ambient vibe that reminds me a little of Binaural but just a bit sunnier. That's the vibe that really sticks in my mind when I picture this album. Also, the bass groove on the Army Reserve verses rules.

Overall it's not a record that I go back to that often, but it's fun to throw on occasionally. Think it works well as a late evening in the summertime album.