Red Mosquito

I guess this is single #4. Release LB as a single just before leg 2 and Getaway released around Jan 20 for the australian tour.

Mike wrote:It would be totally okay to write songs he can't pull off perfectly if they did not talk about "writing songs that would be great live" all the time. "Oh yeah, we're keeping it simpler so it will be good live, blablabalbla live live concerts blablalba but Ed will not write vocal melodies that he can sing live. That would make too much sense"

Exactly. I don't buy all this stuff about them writing songs that "sound good live" anyway. What they mean is, stuff that's easier for them to play because they don't get to practice that much anymore. I wish they would be honest about that, yanno? Because honestly, I don't think they only just started to write songs that "sounded good live" at S/T. The pre-S/T material sounded pretty great live, imo. Sounding good live is not a problem they ever needed to fix, it's just spin. So yeah, fine, make songs easier to play live, down-tune them so that Ed finds them easier to sing. That's perfectly fine. But then don't pretend you're still the best live band in the world. Know what I mean? (Tbf, I'm not sure it's Pearl Jam that keeps that myth alive anyway, but their marketing and fan base.)

harmless wrote:

Release_Me wrote:I just don't get the idea that Ed shouldn't write songs which are vocally challenging just because they will be hard to sing live. Songs should be written the way that makes them sound best.

Songs should be written to Ed's voice. I think Getaway is a pretty good song, but let's not pretend that Ed couldn't be writing similarly great songs that he was capable of singing in recorded and live contexts. Good songs and performable songs are not mutually exclusive concepts.

I think he's doing that, writing to his voice. He's not writing Jesus Christ Pose. Getaway is a great song, partly because of Ed's intensity in the vocal and a lot of it is the key he's singing in. Down tuning that one really takes away the edge. If he weren't pushing himself at all in the studio, we'd get something that sounds like the Riot Act rockers vocally, which I'm sorry but I don't want at all. This particular song sounds great written the way it was. Whether it can be performed like that regularly or not is besides the point. He's written other songs on the same album which are not as taxing and will not be lowered live, so yes, it's not a mutually exclusive thing.

I would be perfectly fine with Riot Act rockers. I would be fine with no "rockers" at all. Honestly? I never even used the word "rocker" before discussing post-Riot Act Pearl Jam...

I agree with Release_Me, Eddie's performance is a lot better on Getaway than on Get Right. If he did it Get Right style, it would be a terrible start to the album. Now however it's a surprisingly good start.

Mike wrote:It would be totally okay to write songs he can't pull off perfectly if they did not talk about "writing songs that would be great live" all the time. "Oh yeah, we're keeping it simpler so it will be good live, blablabalbla live live concerts blablalba but Ed will not write vocal melodies that he can sing live. That would make too much sense"

The comment about writing songs which would be great live didn't have anything to do with the difficulty or simplicity, I don't think. I think it had to do with the songs being more outward and crowd involving and just translating well in a live setting.

Ed is choosing to lower the key for some of the songs and that's totally understandable. He also skips entire parts of older songs which are difficult or half asses them when he feels like it. It's all part and parcel of touring for him now.

I want an album full of Sleeping By Myselfs.

Just watched the EPK. Jeff should have writing credits for this song. He shaped at least half of the song!

Josh Homme never attempts notes like Ed does, and nobody treats that as a weakness. He's younger too.

There's one reason I don't care for Josh Homme.

Release_Me wrote:

Mike wrote:It would be totally okay to write songs he can't pull off perfectly if they did not talk about "writing songs that would be great live" all the time. "Oh yeah, we're keeping it simpler so it will be good live, blablabalbla live live concerts blablalba but Ed will not write vocal melodies that he can sing live. That would make too much sense"

The comment about writing songs which would be great live didn't have anything to do with the difficulty or simplicity, I don't think. I think it had to do with the songs being more outward and crowd involving and just translating well in a live setting.

Which, again, the old songs were. I don't have any idea why the new songs are any more the above than the mid-period stuff. Obviously we disagree on that, but to say Backspacer is "good live" as opposed Binaural is just ludicrous. There's obviously some other criteria that Pearl Jam are going by when they make these decisions. Maybe it's that they just don't like Binaural / Riot Act, or that they think the casual fanbase doesn't. Whatever. But at least be honest about the reasons, and it's fuck all to do with Backspacer-style songs being more effective in a live setting.

Release_Me wrote:Ed is choosing to lower the key for some of the songs and that's totally understandable. He also skips entire parts of older songs which are difficult or half asses them when he feels like it. It's all part and parcel of touring for him now.

It would be understandable for older material that was difficult to sing (e.g. "Blood") but it's not quite so understandable that he keeps writing stuff that is impossible to pull off live. I don't understand that, no. I'm not sure why it's understandable that he "skips entire parts of older songs which are more difficult or half asses them". Just play different songs, imo, not all the "rockers" that everyone wants to hear you butcher. Not that it, or my opinion, really matters.

Release_Me wrote:There's one reason I don't care for Josh Homme.

You don't care for Josh Homme because he doesn't attempt to sing like Axl Rose?

Release_Me wrote:

Mike wrote:It would be totally okay to write songs he can't pull off perfectly if they did not talk about "writing songs that would be great live" all the time. "Oh yeah, we're keeping it simpler so it will be good live, blablabalbla live live concerts blablalba but Ed will not write vocal melodies that he can sing live. That would make too much sense"

The comment about writing songs which would be great live didn't have anything to do with the difficulty or simplicity, I don't think. I think it had to do with the songs being more outward and crowd involving and just translating well in a live setting.

I think there were some comments speaking about simplicity but I'm talking about Backspacer interviews here. Even if it is just about having more outward songs and wanting them to be translate well in a live setting they're still thinking about the concerts a lot when writing songs. It would make sense to write songs that are manageable live then and that doesn't mean to make the songs boring. Ed can still pull of Corduroy or Hail, Hail. He could write songs like that.

Mike wrote:

Release_Me wrote:

Mike wrote:It would be totally okay to write songs he can't pull off perfectly if they did not talk about "writing songs that would be great live" all the time. "Oh yeah, we're keeping it simpler so it will be good live, blablabalbla live live concerts blablalba but Ed will not write vocal melodies that he can sing live. That would make too much sense"

The comment about writing songs which would be great live didn't have anything to do with the difficulty or simplicity, I don't think. I think it had to do with the songs being more outward and crowd involving and just translating well in a live setting.

I think there were some comments speaking about simplicity but I'm talking about Backspacer interviews here. Even if it is just about having more outward songs and wanting them to be translate well in a live setting they're still thinking about the concerts a lot when writing songs. It would make sense to write songs that are manageable live then and that doesn't mean to make the songs boring. Ed can still pull of Corduroy or Hail, Hail. He could write songs like that.

If they wanted to write simpler songs they could pull off live that were still as great as older songs, they could. But they're not, because they can't really be bothered. They want serviceable stuff that "does the job".

I can't wait to watch this real epk. It's the 22 min thing, right?

I really like how Getaway sounds in the EPK. (Aside from Ed)

stip wrote:I can't wait to watch this real epk. It's the 22 min thing, right?

Yup.

Bringing in complete ideas may be stifling. In bands that I have been in, those types of songs played out quite predictably with little to no input from others being accepted by the songwriter. Jamming on an idea often can reap huge rewards. Even if the idea is fleshed out in song form, the songwriter doing a demo with other instrumentation takes it a long way down the road towards finished form.

LetMeSleep wrote:Bringing in complete ideas may be stifling. In bands that I have been in, those types of songs played out quite predictably with little to no input from others being accepted by the songwriter. Jamming on an idea often can reap huge rewards. Even if the idea is fleshed out in song form, the songwriter doing a demo with other instrumentation takes it a long way down the road towards finished form.

I couldn't agree more. This might be their biggest problem at the moment.

Actually, one review of LB that I read picked up the fact that it sounds like a jukebox compilation, and suggested that it may be because the band has 4 different songwriters that each bring in more-or-less finished ideas, and Ed just sings on top of them.