UNPOPULAR PEARL JAM OPINIONS

[evenslow]

Leash is great

[LetMeSleep]

Leash has never been great. I like it a lot and always have but I'm quite realistic about it.

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

I prefer moody, creative Pearl Jam to derivative, predictable Pearl Jam. There's an unpopular opinion for you.

[evenslow]

I prefer moody, creative Pearl Jam to derivative, predictable Pearl Jam. There's an unpopular opinion for you.

Stuff like Leash is great and stuff like Cropduster is great. It's especially great those two songs come from the same band.

Spoiler: show

Great

[tommymtcom]

It would be an ok song if written by a teenager.

[Monkey_Driven]

It would be an ok song if written by a teenager.

Even then it would kind of suck.

[Jorge]

I like that deliberately awkward musical transition between the verse and the... chorus? It sounds cool. That's it, the rest of the song is bad

[gardenparty]

I don't get the bashing of Leash. I've always found it to be a fun little song

The lyrics are no more cringe worthy than those of In My Tree or Present Tense

[Kevin Davis]

It's not only the lyrics (though "troubled souls unite!" is easily a more ridiculous line than anything on "No Code") -- it's that the band sounds like a chorus of testosterone-pumped orangutans grunting "drop the leash! drop the leash!" in unison (assuming it's the full band and not just a multi-tracked choir of Eddies). I get that rock and roll is supposed to be all about being young and dumb and full of you-know-what, but...ugh.

[gardenparty]

It's not only the lyrics (though "troubled souls unite!" is easily a more ridiculous line than anything on "No Code") -- it's that the band sounds like a chorus of testosterone-pumped orangutans grunting "drop the leash! drop the leash!" in unison (assuming it's the full band and not just a multi-tracked choir of Eddies). I get that rock and roll is supposed to be all about being young and dumb and full of you-know-what, but...ugh.

In 1993 I was also young dumb and full of fun
I haven't listened to the studio recording in many years but none of the above mentioned things ever bothered me. I just found it be a playful slab of hard rock. Good guitars, nice energy.

[chewm]

I get the bashing on Leash, but I love it.

[bodysnatcher]

Is Leash about an overbearing girlfriend?

[knee tunes]

From matt, fine. I get it. But from you, Spenno? I can't...

If listening to uninspired drivel like "Get Right" and "Half-Full" gets you excited, there's nothing I can do for you. And as for the lyrics, I would be more fond of them if Ed hadn't lifted like 1/2 of them directly from Ishmael and A People's History of the United States.

I will never, ever understand the love some of you have for that album. Is it a good listen? Sure. Does it even compare to the six albums that preceded it? No. Not even close.

This also applies to their respective album tours. 2006 is so much better than 2003 it isn't even funny.

Half-Full is probably about the most exciting song I know.

and ya know why? Because it is

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

I don't have a problem with any Pearl Jam songs until the S/T album, including "Leash". I have never really cared about lyrics. I never listen to Ten but you would be stupid to say those aren't good songs. As far as "Get Right" and "Half Full" and "Cropduster" and all of the other RA songs that people shit on...I think they are fine songs, but they don't have the "wicked heavy serious" vibe of Binaural so people dismiss them as toss offs. I think the S/T era is when the "uninspired drivel" really started in the songwriting department, and even then, Matt and Jeff were submitting pretty good stuff musically. What happened to them after Eddie O'Brien pissed on them is another story.

[lecherouslittlestump]

Leash is essentially 80s cock rock. It sounds like something from Whitesnake.

Ten and VS are the "angsty" albums and they've aged badly.

[McParadigm]

I don't have a problem with any Pearl Jam songs until the S/T album, including "Leash". I have never really cared about lyrics. I never listen to Ten but you would be stupid to say those aren't good songs

Lyrics are far and away my primary musical draw, but I think early Pearl Jam was the exception to the rule in that simple, sometimes unspecified, and basically unexamined emotion served them well. Leash included. That whole album is guilty of the same stuff that Leash is...Go is really a pretty ridiculous song ("sonofabitch-ah") with a wanky solo that sounds entirely too professional for the mood surrounding it. Animal and Rearviewmirror are adolescent in their response to hurt. Good christ, Indifference is sulky. And these are some of the best songs on the album.

It just doesn't matter. Unfiltered, unwavering disatisfaction and resolve are exactly what was making them great. It's also probably why their more professional and more calculated later years fall so flat. Beyond that, Vs is one of the best recorded and performed hard albums I've ever heard...so well delivered, in fact, that even that stupid, stupid bridge in Glorified G sounds a little bit cathartic in the moment. And Leash sounds great.

[Jorge]

Do we have a music vs. lyrics thread? That split has always been fascinating to me.

[PHATJ]

Do we have a music vs. lyrics thread? That split has always been fascinating to me.

I'm deeply in the music camp.

[Jorge]

Same, but in my case I wonder if that comes from listening primarily to instrumental music as a kid, as well as music in a language I didn't understand yet (English). Lyrics have always felt secondary.

[PHATJ]

Same, but I wonder if that comes from listening primarily to instrumental music as a kid, as well as music in a language I didn't understand yet (English). Lyrics have always felt secondary.

I listened to almost no instrumental music as a kid, and English is the only language I speak, and I have always gravitated toward the music side. Hell, I'm even a singer and I care far more about the music than the lyrics.