Hail Hail! This is the Pearl Jam Albums Poll

of course two of the songs i named are cameron-written, huh

oh ha i'm gonna see pearl jam with my mom at jazz fest in a few weeks, sick

felt like him doing Lennon's "Imagine" was a bit rote

Eddie's a real cornball too, but mostly he makes it work. I do not want to hear this, though.

Off He Goes might be my favourite PJ song. No Code definitely my favourite album, though they're all strong, tbh. Sirens off Lightning Bolt is such a ridiculous song, right on the edge of being fatally over-the-top - and yet it still works so well.

favourite Pearl Jam song is a good question... Maybe I Got ID?

I'm quite surprised Vitalogy won, it's the album that turned me off them after being bang into Ten and Vs. I remember it being this wilfully obscure mish-mash. I was only 15 or something, sure there's loads of good stuff going on that I didn't get.

But y'know, I was already a Mr Bungle fan so wasn't a stranger to wilfully obscure mish-mashes.

It's got some great tracks but it's a typical 90s eclectic 'let's do it all and mix it all up' kind of record (the kind of thing I used to love back then), but it's also really jarring. This disconnected hodge-podge of big shouty rock tracks, stoic goth-funkers, ballads and weird sketches. Def got some of their best work: 'Better Man', 'Corduroy', 'Immortality'. Not a fan of any of the rockers on here - all just sound awkward and laboured. I do like the weirdo tracks, all of them, from Pry, To to Aye Davanita. Even Bugs I used to think was teh funneh back then.

I recall Tremor Christ was the one I liked best.

Yeah, I Got ID would be in my top two or three; love the spectral Neil Young guitar solos throughout. I wrote a thing about PJ's 10 best tracks the other day for the Guardian and described the song as a grungey take on Just My Imagination; certainly, it's the best of Eddie's heartbroken-streetperson-mumbling-to-self works.

Aye Davanita is a great track in its own right, but there is SO MUCH TO SKIP on Vitalogy.

I love Vitalogy. "Last Exit", "Tremor Christ", "Spin the Black Circle", "Nothingman", "Betterman", "Not for You", "Whipping", "Corduroy"....even "Satan's Bed", while not a great track, has a good verse riff.

Listening to it now - gotta admit the three opening tracks have all been banging.

I'm just not keen on things like Spin The Black Circle, Blood, Last Exit. I like 'Lukin' though - that's Pearl Jam doing heavy rock really well.

Ha well, I thoroughly enjoyed those four rockers that opened the record, now Nothing Man is on and I'm getting all yawny.

I really really don't like it on No Code the way Sometimes fades out and this horrible big brute of a track follows it up. I love 'Sometimes' and 'Hail Hail' is fine; they just don't sit nicely next to each other.

I love that!

although point taken about their rockers. They're better at what that Grantland critic called "midtempo plus"

Done with first listen of Vitalogy in 20 years - pretty good! Definitely far smoother/more accessible than my recollections, and for all the obviously self indulgent moments it never really drags.

My least favourite bits were actually the two "---Man" tracks - never really liked PJ when they got too soppy.

those are like the best songs. Better Man is one of their best songs. You are wrong!

No. They are like a tired farmer singing about tractors.

Strange, even as a hard rockin' teen, I always preferred Pearl Jam when they weren't being deliberately spiky and shouty. Bar a handful of exceptions, mid-tempo plus rockers, ballads, funky jams and weirdo outliers were what they were best at in my view. Not sure why that is.. Vedder's got a good hoarse shout but it feels strained and I never feel like the band gels very well when doing this.

I'm listening to Yellow Ledbetter for the first time in probably 20 years. It's really good innit?

i love mikey's guitar sound on that. still gets me in the feels

I got id might be my favorite ... either that or Off He Goes, or Red Mosquito, or Dissident

also Just Breathe makes me cry big fat blobby tears

Going again tonight. Thx stubhub. Both tickets combined were less than one purchased on Ticketmaster at face value.

my favorite pearl jam song is "sad," which, wow, i'm still extremely mad that it's a b-side

thats a goodun

I love "Brain of J", the verse riff is one that's weirdly aggro and almost heavy metally for PJ. great chorus too.

PJ never had a lot of Zep worship, Hendrix, Neil Young, etc, were more their thing, but Yield has some songs that dialed-up the Zep a bit more. a little overboard in "Given to Fly" which is basically just the verse of "Going to California"

yeah Jack Irons era brings out some Zep vibes

We got "Glorified G" tonight!

so glad this thread has stayed high

I've listened to nothing but PJ for the past two days because of this thread. Stoked for the eventual trax poll!

My #1 is "I Got Id" but seeing how only Ed and Jack play on it I may put "Corduroy" up top

those are both good candidates

I found Lightning Bolt to be a disappointment (barring the opening tracks) after really liking the previous two

'Brain of J' is an example of an excellent hard'n'fast PJ song. For the most part I don't think they sound beefy enough to pull that sound off, but that and 'Lukin' are great.

In Berlin for the gig on Thursday and I’m excited like a kid at Xmas.. actually my first time in the city and I’m normally diving into the history books pre trip but all I’ve been doing is listening to their discography- from 1991-2006 not a dud I reckon. Last time I saw them was in Trieste a few years ago and they blew me away with a personal top 5 concert -.

sorry man, i know my context is just vastly different but i have to register that i'm just legitimately blown the fuck away that someone can be in berlin or trieste and be "excited like a kid at xmas" by a pearl jam concert in 2018.

i am right there with fionnland in spirit, i would be the same way!

I would be excited, too. I am kicking myself that I was too swamped with work to make their London gigs a few weeks back.

They played here in Krakow last night. I would have gone but I have a newborn. (Not that I blame him...)

caught the 2 recent London shows.... there's really no other mainstream rock band i can think of who can play to crowds of 20,000 most nights worldwide, and still have maybe 50% of people
know every song and for a ton of them nearly every word. it really is a pretty amazing atmosphere seeing them for that reason alone... seeing them last night and how the fuck do the vast majority of fans around me know "the words" to yellow ledbetter in 2018? it's a pretty weird thing.

anyway the show was a rare reschedule due to Eddie having voice issues last month, so they played a pretty hefty 3 hour set that ran 18 minutes over curfew (going on past events at the venue it may cost them about around £180k in fines - thanks guys) and had a ton of fan requests:

Oceans
Nothing as It Seems
Go
Corduroy
Save You
Do the Evolution
Given to Fly
In Hiding
I Am Mine
Green Disease
Even Flow
Daughter (with Dead Moon's "It's Okay" tag)
You Are
Satan's Bed
Can't Deny Me
Mankind
Whipping
Lukin
Rearviewmirror
I Won't Back Down (Tom Petty cover)
Fatal
Around the Bend
Jeremy
Mind Your Manners
Breath
Crazy Mary(Victoria Williams cover)
Porch
Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town
Wasted Reprise
Alive
Baba O'Riley (The Who cover)
Yellow Ledbetter
All Along the Watchtower

(that run from Satan's Bed to RVM - woah)

so the 1st london show only had a 9 song overlap with last night.... the first night also had

Of the Girl
Low Light
Animal
Brain of J.
Wishlist
Deep
Severed Hand
Love Boat Captain
Down
Parting Ways
Off He Goes
Sleeping by Myself
Footsteps
Why Go
Better Man
Last Kiss
Black
Rockin' in the Free World

THESE SETLISTS ARE HOT.

argh I forgot they were playing and missed those shows so sick about it

That's an insane London 2 setlist.

Had my second best Pearl Jam gig in Berlin the other week - Waldbühne is such a great venue, lovely sunny day, some fun people in the line waiting and an ace set:

Wash
Sometimes
Corduroy
Why Go
Save You
Given To Fly
Red Mosquito (w/ Danny Clinch)
In My Tree
Even Flow
Wishlist
Habit
Angie (Rolling Stones cover)
Daughter (with Dead Moon's "It's Okay" tag)
Deep
Mind Your Manners
Unthought Known
Lukin
Porch

Encore:

Thin Air
Thumbing My Way
Breath
Do The Evolution
Black (with Todd Rundgren's "Time Heals" tag)
Rearviewmirror

Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd cover)
Alive
Rockin’ in the Free World (Neil Young Cover, w/ J. Mascis)

The crowd was absolutely wild too, found myself happily enough in a proper pit (Eddie gave us a 5 star review in that regard). Well worth the bruises for the next week. Berlin was p much my favourite city I've visited too.

Pretty much the only band that can pull off these classic rock warhorse covers.

They're good people.

What about Vs.?

Oh I see, sorry — these are just your faves.

on a whim, listened to Yield and Binaural today while grinding through some copy-editing, possibly the first time i've given either a front-to-back listen in twenty years. unfortunately i have nothing new to say: Yield has some great singles and an overall sense of punchy focus, but the back bench of songs isn't their best, while Binaural has some great moody jams but a little too much crunchy mid-tempo rock and even less inspiration in the songwriting. "Nothing As It Seems" still stands out but otherwise i can barely remember what i just listened to.

wow agreed on both counts

love "low light" and "in hiding" iirc though