Pearl Jam - C or D?

Anyway, they're announcing a new LP soon, aren't they?

there's a countdown clock, supposedly to that announcement and/or a new single in a couple days: http://pearljam.com/countdown#PearlJam2013

I was using "like" as it should be used: Pearl Jam could have been like REM or U2 or Radiohead, which is not the same as Pearl Jam should sound like. They're all very different, very popular bands. But from my perspective, the others have done more to shake up their sound than Pearl Jam has, which is not to say that Pearl Jam has not shaken up its sound, just that it defaults pretty safe. Which is perhaps why PJ in theory is a little better than PJ in practice. I've gone through phases of listening to the band a lot, and phases of nada, but I've seen the band live a bunch, which appears to be its milieu.

Anyway, you can definitely hear how REM has been an influence on both PJ and Radiohead, even though neither sounds much like REM. You're right that PJ was never a critic fave, but they've also been pretty comfortable in their little niche. I've never heard the radical searching and shifting that the aforementioned acts have done (esp. U2, like them or not), and maybe PJ doesn't want or need to do that. But then, I've never liked "Yellow Ledbetter," which for some is the ultimate PJ song but for me is the band at its most safe and generic.

Still thinking out loud here - I have no grand "theorem" - but in many ways I do think PJ has pushed itself politically as a means of challenging its fans. The music may not veer far, but the band has been pretty in your face about its interests, maybe even more than Radiohead and certainly more than U2. I saw a Vote for Change show in Grand Rapids, MI, and when Vedder thanked the Dixie Chicks for playing a show the same night in Ohio, some fans booed, and he, to his credit, paused the show and chastised the haters. I was struck by the reaction, since PJ does not disguise its politics, yet still attracts the odd meathead or two. I mean, I've seen Springsteen booed a few times, too, for similar reasons, but he's much more subtle than PJ with on-stage politics.

(I do think it's revisionism to think REM was received as much more than a really good rock band for the first half of its career, though.)

Pearl Jam could have been Grand Funk Railroad

Pearl Jam shaking up their sound is exactly where they fucked up - this is a band that lost their mainstream audience to Creed.

They were a sensitive hard rock group in tune with the times with a singer who sounded like Cher and an audience young enough to hear that as "passion" rather than Cher. They screamed "don't look at us!" long enough that the fans stopped identifying with the "us" and when they brought out the bongos many a yarling monotheist was happy to take the heartland they weren't comfortable with.

U2 and REM were iconic cult bands who grew more pop with each album. Pearl Jam's debut went 10x platinum and everything since has sold less. REM had nothing to teach them ("alternative" commercial instincts fucked them both over commercially from 96 on) and all U2 could have taught them is to "flaunt it."

and if anything Radiohead learned from Pearl Jam - as long as your emotive singer stays recognizable and you keep your cred, you'll still be a big draw even after your sales taper.

But if I had never heard the band and you told me they were a rock and roll act, then played me Out of Time or Automatic, I wouldn't get it.

not even by the time you got to "ignoreland"?

this is wayyyy too much time to spend on discussing an ill-considered false binary, bring on the new PJ single already

A considerable chunk of its fanbase -- maybe its entire fanbase -- is meatheads though who, as croup says, also like Creed.

i think the "not for you" memo did successfully push the circle apart a bit between those bands on the venn diagram. There a lot of grad students with PJ, Foo, Coldplay and Kings Of Leon but no Creed.

Pearl Jam nurtured the cult and left the casual fans to Creed the same way Radiohead did for Coldplay. or how Kanye seems to be doing now for J. Cole.

This thread's been prompting some relistens. I like Backspacer less than I remember - I dig the S-K vibe of "Got Some," actually I like the whole opening trio. But it's really hit-or-miss after that. Miss the heftier production of the s/t.

in many ways I do think PJ has pushed itself politically as a means of challenging its fans. The music may not veer far, but the band has been pretty in your face about its interests

totally agree about this.

also, out of time is a pretty patchy album imo. it was Losing My Religion that made them mainstream, not the rest of the tracks on the album.

Don't forget "The One I Love" and "Stand."

Pearl Jam nurtured the cult and left the casual fans to Creed the same way Radiohead did for Coldplay.

also otm.

a considerable chunk of pj's fans might be meatheads, but i struggle to think of artists of their stature for whom that's not true. you can't blame a band for their fans (not that i'm saying you were, alfred).

personally, i'm not bothered about whether pj get experimental or not. for me they've always been more Springsteen-esque heart-on-sleeve, right on stadium rock than REM or U2, and they do it very well - i don't think they need to reinvent their wheel especially. That Eddie's never quite gotten entirely comfortable with being a stadium-size frontman - especially post-Roskilde tragedy - kind of makes them a better big-venue experience, also.

listened to Vs. on the way to work the other day for the first time in ages, and it blew me away. such a taut, powerful record. and jesus, someone show me the modern young band of according stature writing about the kind of stuff vedder was writing about - if anything, lyrics like WMA and Glorified G seem even more controversial today than they were in 1993.

agreed, alfred - i was talking more specifically in the sense of Out Of Time breaking the group "mainstream", though as you say, they were at least half of the way there by the time of Green.

REM def. was on the way there - heck, Green is as varied and chamber rocky as Automatic - but the point stands that after the stuff of Document and Green gave the guys a foothold, it was the sensitive chamber-y stuff - Religion, Everybody Hurts, Man on the Moon, etc, - that broke the band big, which is an odd trajectory.

for me they've always been more Springsteen-esque heart-on-sleeve

What got me/us on this road is the fact that for all their Springsteen-esque heart on sleeve bigness, PJ has long fallen a little short on the anthem front. Ten, of course, is packed with them. The other albums, slightly less so. I have no idea if that's been by design or a product of limitation. And I certainly don't mean that this is a bad thing, either. Just talking.

tbf they only averaged like 3-6 giant anthems on the rest of their 90s albums, which is pretty good for any band that didn't make Ten

i think PJ purposefully evaded anthemicism to a certain extent, once eddie began to become uncomfortable with the trajectory of his fame. their - to my mind - most experimental and least-anthemic album, no code, is also my favourite of theirs.

quick question: who prefers the remaster of Ten, with a lot of the rick parashar reverb excise, that came with the deluxe reissue a few years back? i think i do.

to the original, i mean.

i was excited about that when it came out, because i prefer the sound of the Brendan O'Brien albums so much that that album feels like a sore thumb in their catalog now, but actually listening to it there was a little bit of an uncanny valley effect going on. it served some songs well, but for the most part i had no desire to replace the originals in my iPod like i hoped to.

I have no idea if that's been by design or a product of limitation

The last two albums have their share of anthems, including the lead singles of each. Def a conscious move.

can't blame a band for their fans (not that i'm saying you were, alfred).

otherwise I'd loathe Dylan.

i definitely wouldn't replace them. but i feel a lot of that airy sound made the album sound dated, like it had aged quite badly. i don't know, maybe i'm just over familiar with the album and it made it seem a little fresh again, for a bit.

i dig the remaster a lot. I love being able to hear them sound like, I dunno, like a band playing in a room together. the effects were really unneccessary given how good those songs were, and made the songs colder somehow

the drum machines were dated in 1991!

I listened to Ten for the first time in eons when the remaster came out, and it sounded like ti was recorded in the world's biggest empty locker room. Remaster fixed that.

(PJ at its most REM)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr-iwhABAX8

Not that big into REM, but "Unemployable" is in my top 5 for PJ songs since 1999. Possibly #1.

Unemployable, The Fixer, Get Right, and 2 others... maybe Parachutes.

I never get the urge to listen to Ten.

Ten is the reason i am cautious not to overplay albums i love. it was my first favorite album, and the first album i ruined for myself with overexposure.

granted, i owned like ten CDs at the time, it's easier to rotate different records now.

yeah i don't listen to it much now, it's permanently in my head forever

I think Ten is fine, when I play it. It's such a definitive outlier in their catalog, like, I dunno, Appetite for Destruction.

I remember when the album came out and they played the Troc in Philly and all of my friends were too cool to come along so I stayed home. Or even, I'm not sure too cool is the right way to put it. Just on a totally different plane. But then, I didn't want to go see Nirvana when they played JC Dobbs, so I guess we're even.

I don't think Pearl Jam could have sustained an entire career with their Ten sound. I love the album, it has great songs, but I do feel like the production makes it dated, and I think the world would have passed them by completely as opposed to now, where they're still a fairly successful band, but don't do the major numbers they did at the onset of their career.

Admittedly, I'm mostly a fan of Ten through Vitalogy, Yield, and Riot Act, but I think they easily made the right career mood. and most 'diehard' PJ heads fav albums/tracks are usually not from Ten.

tbf pretty much every big alt band that made a big breakthrough album in '90-'91 made a major adjustment in their studio sound/production choices by the next album to adjust to the new status quo. of course, a lot of them adjusted to sound more Butch Vig/Nirvana, while Nirvana chose to switch it up from that.

My problem is that PJ post Ten worried too much over what they didn't want to be, rather than accentuate the strengths they did have. As a result I see a patchy back catalogue with a lack of real identity and band whose legacy is destined to be Ten...and some other stuff that was less anthemic but did ok.

The thing is I can get PJ's post-Ten sound and songwriting better elsewhere.

Watched PJ20; I admit I had no idea about Vedder's real-life dad issues. In any case, the whole band seem like pretty genuine dudes.

My problem is that PJ post Ten worried too much over what they didn't want to be, rather than accentuate the strengths they did have.

diff strokes, I guess, but to my ears they stopped worrying and learned to love their bombs around '98.

I concur w/ that, I much prefer the stuff they've done post-hysteria.

same here, never really had time for them til vitalogy

yeah the dad thing I knew from the Ten liner notes : the lyrics to Alive ended with "Edward Louis Severson III" and he said in interviews about his dad and stuff

he famously sent Pete Townsend a father's day card as a teenager, thanking him for Quadrophenia <3

tbh their discomfort with where they were coming from and what they were becoming circa Ten is what makes Vs, Vitalogy and No Code such electrifying, intriguing records for me. And that's part of their natural evolution - kudos to them for developing beyond the sound of their smash hit debut, for having complicated feelings about that sound, for not being satisfied with it.

ps does anyone know if no code might be reissued, deluxe-style, in the future? i am jonesing for a copy on vinyl but the prices on ebay are way, way beyond my comfort zone.

I wonder if the dudes did have problems with it, or more that they were willing to compromise to keep Eddie happy. Like, I'm sure half the guys would have been happy staying in "Ten" mode, esp. given how cheeseball rocker they get on stage.

Who was the first to cut their hair?

their fans