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Post by Paul on May 1, 2006 9:21:50 GMT -5
That's interesting that Binaural is your #3; many hate that one. I played some PJ for a friend of mine over the weekend who isn't that into them. Since he only really knew Ten, I figured I'd give him some highlights of each album. I played about 3 to 5 songs off each album up through Binaural, and he really liked No Code and Binaural the best (and Ten). He was kinda shocked how drastically different PJ was from Ten, to Vs. to Vitalogy to No Code...the dude is kind of a mellow fellow, so it wasn't surprising to me that he made the most comments about NC and Binaural...
Tracks he really dug:
Sometimes
Who You Are
In My Tree
Off He Goes
Of The Girl
Light Years
Sleight of Hand
Parting Ways
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Post by Paul on May 1, 2006 9:24:47 GMT -5
The ONLY problem I have with Ten is the production.
That's a pretty big problem for me as well...The songs for the most part are fine, but that super slick sound is just terrible.
I used to like "Once", but as time has gone on, that one didn't hold up so well for me...
"Oceans" and "Alive" are currently my favorites from 10.
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Post by Galactus on May 1, 2006 9:29:14 GMT -5
What's your favorite song from each album?
Mine-
1. Ten- Oceans
2. Vs. - Indifference
3. Vitalogy - Corduroy
4. No Code - Red Mosquito
5. Yield - Given To Fly
6. Binayural - Light Years
7. Riot Act - I Am Mine
8. Pearl Jam - Severed Hand
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Post by Paul on May 1, 2006 9:36:11 GMT -5
What's your favorite song from each album? Mine- 1. Ten- Oceans 2. Vs. - Indifference 3. Vitalogy - Corduroy 4. No Code - Red Mosquito 5. Yield - Given To Fly 6. Binayural - Light Years 7. Riot Act - I Am Mine 8. Pearl Jam - Severed Hand That's a tuffy! PJ for me is such a mood band, and pending on my mood I have various favorites... For now, and this is subject to change by tomorrow: Ten - Alive Vs. - Animal Vitalogy - Tremor Christ No Code - In My Tree Yield - Do The Evolution Binaural - Parting Ways Riot Act - Green Disease Pearl Jam - Severed Hand That was difficult, and I already want to change my list... Nice call on Red Mosquito by the way; definitely one of my favorites...Mike reminds me of Robby Krieger of the Doors on that number; the tone of the guitar and the technique while playing is very reminisent for Mr. Krieger IMO. (I'm thinking of the fuzzy slide guitar). |
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Post by Paul on May 1, 2006 10:15:54 GMT -5
Review from Pop Matters: 9 out of 10....
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
(J)
Rating: 9
US release date: 2 May 2006
UK release date: 1 May 2006
by Michael Metivie
With rock veterans Pearl Jam, the term “back-to-basics” is meaningless. Working from punk and classic rock templates, all they ever had was basics. The band made a determined effort from their inception to see how much creativity they could wring out of a couple guitars, bass, and drums. So to ascribe the critical and commercial buzz surrounding their eighth studio album to a “back-to-basics” ethos on behalf of the band is pure radio-speak bullshit. The band never forayed into collaborations with the London Symphony Orchestra or gospel choirs. Even pianos are few and far between in the Pearl Jam canon. Instead of delving into superficial experimentalism, the band grew sideways. Since the general public stopped paying close attention around 1995, the band has been slowly perfecting everything it already did well, digging deeper into its roots and paying better attention to melody and songcraft. Pearl Jam is another straight-up collection of raw, blistered rock and moody mid-tempo balladry. The difference here, and the reason for excitement, is that the self-titled record more consistently achieves the grandeur, rage, and beauty they’ve always pursued, throughout its entirety.
The album’s first single, “World Wide Suicide”, has been a surprise radio/internet download phenomenon right out of the gate—so much so that one of my high school students even asked me if I knew it. The song’s charms are more immediate than any Pearl Jam single in recent memory ("Nothing As It Seems” anyone?), displaying Vedder’s underrated talent for writing rock and roll as catchy as it is emotional. It’s got a big, clear-cut chorus, and Vedder’s unmistakable throaty scream, but it’s also wordy as hell. Starting with a newspaper obit for a fallen G.I., and moving rapidly to a president who tells the world to pray “while the devil’s on his shoulder”, the sheer amount of verbiage packed into the song’s three and half minutes makes its popular success even more of a puzzle. Perhaps mainstream music fans are finally hungry and ready for anti-war rhetoric in their rock and roll. It also helps that the music provides a spoonful of sugar for the medicine, unlike the thudding, purple poetry of “Bushleaguer”, from 2002’s uneven Riot Act.
The themes of action and engagement are dominant on Pearl Jam, and not only in the lyrics. Musically, it’s among the band’s most aggressive efforts. The first five songs are breathlessly possessed, beginning with “Life Wasted”. “You’re always saying you’re too weak to be strong / You’re harder on yourself than just about anyone / Why swim the channel just to get this far / Halfway there, why would you turn around?” is a call to arms, a renouncement of defeatism as the band collectively pummels their instruments. “Comatose” is needle-sharp punk that recalls “Spin the Black Circle” with its kinetic force and rubbed-raw vocals declaring “High above I’ll break the law / If it’s illegal to be in love / Leave the hatred on the cross.” The chunky guitar assault of “Marker in the Sand” supports an examination of religion as a positive/negative force in the world, charged and enervating on the verses before melting into a steadily rising chorus. Vedder expounds on the current culture war between Islam and Christianity, “Now you got both sides claiming ‘killing in God’s name’ / But God is nowhere to be found / Conveniently”, the music stretching out into a spiky bridge.
Countless bands that have followed in Pearl Jam’s wake have tried to imitate Vedder’s passion but instead translated it into solipsism, using pale imitations of his trademark voice to peddle the most annoying “Why me?” shtick. But Pearl Jam has always looked outward to give both personal and character songs greater context. From “Rearviewmirror” to “MFC” and now with “Gone”, one of Vedder’s recurring themes has been escapism via the highway. The flipside to getting in the trenches of issue-oriented rock is the need to get away, “Oh the lights of the city / They only look good when I’m speeding”. It’s a simple line, but enough to convey the exhausting omnipresence of urban sprawl. “If nothing is everything / Then I will have it all” isn’t nihilism, it’s Henry David Thoreau. “Gone” starts out like a dirge, a low moan in the dark, then builds efficiently into one of their more convincing anthems. This summer, packed amphitheaters will be singing along to “Gonna leave ‘em all behind me / Cause this time I’m gone” and the irony will be delicious.
I’ve gone this far without even mentioning the two most astounding tracks on Pearl Jam, such is the strength and consistency of the album. Every song feels like it’s earned the right to be included, where previous efforts could sometimes fall prey to hit-or-miss syndrome. “Unemployable” feels like the big payoff of Vedder’s work writing in the third person. Over drummer Matt Cameron’s tricky time signature shifts, Vedder tells the story of a regular Joe sacrificed to the gods of capitalism. It’s got the Springsteen stink of realism with run-on details like “He’s got a big gold ring that says ‘Jesus Saves’ / And it’s dented from the punch thrown at work that day / When he smashed the metal locker where he kept his things / After the big boss say ‘You best be on your way’”. It’s also got the smooth ring of poetry, “His brain weighs the curse of thirty bills unpaid.” But best of all, the battery of Cameron and bassist Jeff Ament give the song a bottom-heavy southern rock feel on the low-end, while guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready skate around in circles on top. It’s Pearl Jam at its most “well-oiled machine”, the “blood on all the pistons / running [the] transmission” Vedder sings of on “Comatose”. Better put: it fucking rocks.
“Army Reserve” is just as good if not better, a devastating portrait of a family affected by the war in Iraq, a mother trying hard to keep it together while her husband is overseas. What could have been dreadfully heavy-handed and sentimental, is instead almost exhilarating at the song’s climax, “I’m not blind / I can see it coming / Looks like lightning / In my child’s eye”. The line sounds one thousand percent better than it reads. Vedder nearly explodes, and if you hear “love’s like lightning” instead of “looks like lightning” it might not be a coincidence. The music, penned by Ament, is a spacey mixture of Neil Finn with a dash of U2, and again includes tempo and rhythm changes that enhance the song’s progression. It sounds like nothing and everything they’ve ever done all at once. The rest of the album shares that quality, from the sparse and elegant “Parachutes” to the torchy “Come Back”. To glide over them here in no way represents their worth, or importance in the grand scheme of Pearl Jam, which seems to be, to quote “Big Wave”, to “scream in affirmation”. Pretty basic.
— 1 May 2006
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Post by Thorngrub on May 1, 2006 10:36:40 GMT -5
 Yup. I got this package . . . opened it up . . . and the new PJ album was contained within. I couldn't believe it . . . I didn't think I'd receive it that soon. *Hell yeah!* \m/ I cranked that puppy all weekend long . . . The 1st 3 or 4 songs are straight-up rockers, they each find their own particular groove after repeat listens. My favorite "feel-good" song: parachutes |
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Post by Paul on May 1, 2006 10:45:37 GMT -5
Whoo-hoo; some "parachutes" love! It's easily an instant classic for me; glad you like it!
What do you think of "Marker In the Sand"? That crunchy riff is very reminisent of AC/DC....
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Post by Thorngrub on May 1, 2006 11:19:36 GMT -5
hhmm; haven't familiarized meself enuff to recognize that one by name, yet.
Will let ya know . . . tomorrow !
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Post by Paul on May 1, 2006 12:04:59 GMT -5
cool, looking forward to further analysis...
I hope I haven't hyped this album too much for y'all....I really do think its worthy of the praise, and it's really gotten me excited to be a Pearl Jam fan...I didn't feel comfortable going to bat for Riot Act so much, b/c it's a very inconsisten album at best, but this one, is just solid in every way.
I've read some negative reviews and the people writing them are so stupid I don't bother posting them here....Most say they hate Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam should've quit after Vs. After reading something like that, I just assume the person writing is a complete dick and doesn't know shit about them. I mean really, how can people get paid to write reviews like that? What a bunch of mindless sheep!
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Post by Paul on May 1, 2006 12:10:39 GMT -5
yet another review.....(this one from Chicago)
-----------------------------------------------------
`Pearl Jam' gives fans fix of lean and nasty
By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published April 30, 2006
With their self-titled eighth album, "Pearl Jam" (J Records), and first in four years, the alternative-rock veterans put some snap back in their step, some nastiness back in their guitars.
Eddie Vedder is growling, howling and mumbling about trying to keep his chin up amid an epidemic of "World Wide Suicide"; the war in Iraq hangs over several of these songs like a dark cloak. But the political specifics are kept to a minimum and the sentiments are disappointingly bland ("It's a shame to awake in a world of pain"). The rage is more explicitly articulated by the guitars of Mike McCready and Stone Gossard, who haven't sounded this ferocious since the grunge glory days of "Vs." (1993) and "Vitalogy" (1994).
They keep the blood pumping, even though the songs lack the melodic dynamics that characterized the best moments on the underrated "Riot Act" (2002). There are a couple of nods in that more spacious direction, notably the Beatles-like melancholy of "Parachutes" and the staggering ballad "Come Back"; the latter comes closest to packing the emotional punch of Vedder's best performances, from "Jeremy" to "Love Boat Captain."
But Vedder's baritone mostly provides gritty texture rather than narrative structure. On "Life Wasted," "Big Wave," "Comatose" and "Severed Hand," he's in full roar alongside the rest of the band, and what a band it still can be. For fans who love their Pearl Jam lean and tough, their storehouse of classic-rock guitar riffs pumped through a rhythm section stoked on punk caffeine, these songs will provide an instant fix.
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Post by Thorngrub on May 1, 2006 12:32:24 GMT -5
Peeps be talkin' about TEN's lacka-production problems.
Me? I ain't never had one problem with how any song
on that album EVER sounded. In fact . . . there is a particular
"trademark" -sound to THAT album and ONLY that album,
which Pearl Jam NEVER revisited again, ever.
IF that "trademark"-signature sound from TEN happens to BE
the "lack of production" y'all are talkin about. ..
then I say, "Would that they had KEPT their "lack of production value"
throughout their career. Cuz TEN has this unique sound to it,
which I cherish, and which they never replicated.
~It sounds more "liquid", or mercurial than all post-efforts
~It established a more "alternative" sound for this band
~It remains the flagship album for them, after all these years
Now, I myself happen to think NO CODE is the point at which pearl jam reached their peak.
That album personifies everything this band strove for: a perfect balance of post-Neil Young
ballads, exquisite production values which lent an amazingly lucid sound to the tracks,
and the most heart-felt playing, singing, and lyrics from their career.
Still: NO CODE, albeit featuring a virtually flawless production in their sound, still did not replicate the "liquid", nearly fretless-sound from their debut. But it did establish Pearl Jam to be a musical force to be reckoned with.
My feelings are mixed, but easy to live with: TEN established a "new force" in music, somewhere between and paradoxically beyond old-school rock'n'roll values & the alternative movement. Then, Pearl Jam surprised everybody by eschewing the "alternative" movement of their music, in favor of straight up "old school" values: They just decided to start rockin' w/that raw, plugged-in amped-up "garage rock" feel, and screw the aforementioned "liquid /fretless - alternative" sound of TEN. This choice is alternately disappointing, and in the long run, pleasing to me.
Because, sure, back-to-basics garage rockin is always a good thing (if done right), and Pearl Jam sure know how to do it right. From "Vs" on, these guys never looked back at their "alternative" roots. I, for one, wish fervently they had held onto that unique TEN-vibe; but it has not diminished my love for this band, seeing as how they've virtually exploded all over the sonic map with a wide array of experimental sounds and techniques.
As for their latest "self- titled", I am somewhat relieved they're looking back to their YIELD-era straight-ahead rockin'. The first 3 or 4 tracks come rockin' out of the garage w/fierce, back-to-basics plugged in riffs and forward -looking, impassioned vocals.
I am just waiting for the repeat listens to see if this album ends up ahead of YIELD.
It will be a great thing if it succeeds . . .
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Post by Kensterberg on May 1, 2006 13:13:48 GMT -5
Since Yield is one of my least favorite PJ albums, I fully expect that the avacado album will exceed it, by a fair amount.
Glad to see others loving Binaural, as IMHO that's a really ignored and underrated record. I'm now really curious to hear the new one, as the reviews from all over have been so positive. Though I don't know about that reviewer who characterized Love Boat Captain as one of Vedder's best performances. IMO that's one that should be forgotten, or brushed off under a rug some place.
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Post by Paul on May 1, 2006 13:27:29 GMT -5
thonrs: great write up about Pearl Jam; I love reading others passionate views about this band. It makes me smile (no code reference).
Its not the lack of production w/ Ten, it's the OVER production! The songs stayed in the oven too too long, and came out slick and glossy. I for one have never been a fan of that sound and prefer the more gritty sound (proably a big reason why I like the Kinks so much as well)....
I hear what you're saying about the 'liquid' feel of Ten; it makes sence. As I said in an earlier post, I was really surprised how much I enjoyed that album after listening to it last week. "Alive" floored me! Listen to "State Of Love And Trust (SOLAT), a b-side from the Ten days, and that's even a more gritty sound...Had Ten been a bit more stripped down, I'd probably rank it higher.
For years, I've considered the Holy Trinity or PJ records to be Vitalogy, No Code, and Yield, but recently Yield has lost ground w/ me and I've really embraced Binaural. With the new album, I don't know where it falls, b/c it's too early to tell, but after just a few spins (less than 10) I'm thinking this is going to be in my top 3....I'll make my final judgement shortly after May 30th when I get to hear these songs live....
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Post by Thorngrub on May 1, 2006 13:33:46 GMT -5
"slick & glossy" = *perfect* description of TEN's sound! So it is the "overproduction" that I love on that album, which I keep hearing a lot of others complain about!
Man, that "overproduction" is what lent this band their unique, and yes, "slick & glossy" sound, as far as I'm concerned. It's what I love about TEN so much . . .
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Post by Paul on May 1, 2006 13:35:11 GMT -5
Since Yield is one of my least favorite PJ albums, I fully expect that the avacado album will exceed it, by a fair amount. Glad to see others loving Binaural, as IMHO that's a really ignored and underrated record. I'm now really curious to hear the new one, as the reviews from all over have been so positive. Though I don't know about that reviewer who characterized Love Boat Captain as one of Vedder's best performances. IMO that's one that should be forgotten, or brushed off under a rug some place. LBC isn't one of my favorites either. It's OK, but not the epic song I think they were aiming for. I'm looking forward to all of y'alls reviews once you hear the album for yourselves! Again, I hope the expectation aren't too high w/ all the positve reviews. I think most rock fans, and all Pearl Jam fans should like this one; it really has something for everyone, and as I've noted before there isn't a bad song on the album! Mike's solo on "Comatose" is mind blowing! It clocks in at maybe 12 seconds, but wow what a 12 seconds! The song in general has been tough for me to place b/c it's so aggressive I'm not always in the mood to hear it. It's gone from 6th to 11th place in my rankings....Its a good song nontheless, but as always w/ Pearl Jam there are moody songs throughout the album; sometimes you'll be in the mood and the songs will hit you like no other, and other times you won't want to hear them at all. I just love the fact that they have 8 studio albums, and all have a different sound and vibe; that's really cool IMO. Is it May 30th yet? |
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