anyone hear like pearl jam?

for some reason, i own all of their albums, except for the one with the avacado on the cover. i'm not sure why i own them, but i do. so i'm going to listen to all of them, starting right now, with ten.

wish me luck.

you'll need all the luck in the world to get through all of them, track after track. that's what i found anyway when i undertook the same task.

i still think vs, vitalogy and no code are all gravy, and the other albums have their moments.

they were gods to me when i was 16. when i got to interview them, aged 25, less so, but it was still a trip. they're still pretty wonderful live too, they do the stadium-sincerity thing well.

Go back to the Nineties, y'all.

what's so good about vs?

I still appreciate them for what they do best, which is straight up halfway catchy hard rock. They get into trouble when they think they're more than that. And despite me not really listening to their stuff that frequently any more, they have some great anthemic songs. Plus they were the openers of one of the best live shows I've ever seen, which was Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and Red Hot Chili Peppers in December 1991.

what's so good about vs?

A: Rearviewmirror

Great band, although it's easy and fashionable to tool on them. Best record for me is Yield, although their best songs are on Vitalogy.

Ten has some great songs, but the production ruins them for me. It sounds like Eddie's singing in a grain silo...so much reverb.

i think his best vocal performance is on ten, actually. the most emotive and focused, in any case

I still think they got better with each album. I haven't heard the one released in 2000, but last year's s/t was surprisingly, thrillingly straightforward, angry, and relevant.

Weird, I think the self-titled album is awful and they've been on an increasingly steep downward slide since Yield.

I don't get all this talk of a downward slide since No Code or Yield (depending on who you ask), I think Binaural was the nadir and they've been on a steady rise since.

hmmm... i dunno, i just find it a bit of a chore to listen to anything by these lads these days, even the stuff i really used to like

even Eddie's looking hotter these days.

Binaural was very hit and miss, but I loved the hits. The last two albums sound to me like they've hit an aesthetic dead end and more or less stopped all the akward thrashing around and experimenting that used to provide their best and worst moments in equal measure. If they'd just settled into workmanlike anthemic Vs.-type material that would be fine, but instead it's all kind of drab and flat and I really hate Vedder's mushmouth on the last album.

"World Wide Suicide" was mushmouthed? "Umemployable" wasn't workmanlike anthemic?

'mushmouth' is generally otm as far as vedder goes these days. what frustrates me is that, he's a great singer when he's not sounding deliberately careless.

Pearl Jam had good singles but none of the uptempo numbers would've passed muster as anthemic on the first 5 albums. "Unemployable" was one of the songs I listened to over and over trying to figure out what the fuss was about and I can't even remember what it sounds like now.

i listened to ten and vs., last night. ten actually held up in that "hey, remember the 90's?!" sort of way. scores a 6 out of 10.

i expected vs. to be better. but guess what, it wasn't. 4 out of 10.

they don't seem to be much more than a pretty simple rock 'n' roll band to me these days. that's all good and well, but i'm in pursuit of more interesting music.

listening to vitalogy, now. digging much more than the last two.
does spin the black circle rawk or what??!

finished vitalogy. 7 out of 10.

i just don't have it in me to listen to no code, tonight. even though i remember it being my fave pj album.

Pearl Jam Twenty, the Cameron Crowe documentary, is on PBS tonight. Or this weekend sometime. Depends on where ya live.

thanks for the heads up, i'm watching it now thanks to your post!!

Recording this, pretty anxious to see it. The soundtrack is pretty great.

had company over so i only ended up seeing about half of it, but it was pretty cool from what i saw.