Caught a POLL of lightning...cursed the day he let it POLLLLL: Pearl Jam's Vitalogy

I figure this might go over better than the Experimental Jet Set poll perhaps...

(oh my bad, this has already been done...vote anyways man why not...)

Off the top of my head, tempted to go with "Immortality", such an underrated single at the time. "Corduroy" or "Tremor Christ" just behind.

Corduroy, the best thing they've ever done.

CorduroyImmortality, the best thing they've ever done.

fixed :)

i pretty much realized i was growing out of alternative rock when "Bugs" was my favorite song on this

"Satan's Bed" is my fave that got no votes last time, so that.

Sorry, but "Better Man" has one helluva chorus.

Better Man sucks...it's the worst song in Eddie's whole story-telling mode (which wz actually quite decent and somewhat unorthodox in its own way)

otm, worst PJ single ever, at least pre-Riot Act for sure

gonna listen to this later and make a decision then, but i remember being slightly disappointed after vs which is my favorite pearl jam record still

yeah pit Better Man against Nirvana's Verse Chorus Verse and PJ barely gets out alive...

Depends on your relationship with PJ. Before Vitalogy I thought they sucked with some exceptions. It's not better than the post-Vitalogy material, but it's the first time they harnessed their energy in a way I care about.

yeah pit Better Man against Nirvana's Verse Chorus Verse and PJ barely gets out alive...

Pit "You Light Up My Life" against "Better Man" and Debby Boone barely gets out alive. What's your point?

I think if you put the best songs off this album and Vs. onto one album (off the top of my head: Dissident, Daughter, Corduroy, Immortality, Not For You, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter, Nothingman, Rats, Tremor Christ, Whipping, yeah Yellow Ledbetter too, why not?) it would prolley be like the greatest roots-rock album ever.

xp whats your point Alfred? (unless your point is to make my point for me, then thx!)

My point is that you're comparing apples and oranges, unless you meant that, uh, Nirvana and PJ are both 'grunge.'

i dunno they were the two biggest bands in the land when i first REALLY got into music...also they have similar subject matter...

So funny to me now that I remember being a little o_O at "I'll never suck Satan's DICK!".

the whole album was kinda o_O to me as a 12-year-old PJ superfan, that line and the weird stuff in the liner notes about "self-pollution" and "Hey foxymophandlemama," the whole thing still has a vague bizarre aura to me. would've loved to do a 33 1/3 on this album and get the band to talk at length about that period.

"Better Man" is the kind of MOR anthem that i feel like i should turn my nose up at as a fan of the deep cuts, but really i have no problem with it, it's a really killer tune.

better man

Oh yeah, I would totally read the shit out of a 33 1/3 about this record. No Code is better, but I think this is one of the most interesting releases.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

hate this album, but i used to use bugs as my "ok now the songs i put in the jukebox are starting" marker, so that

Such an overlooked album in their catalogy. I went with "Immortality", though I easily could have gone with "Spin the Black Circle" or "Nothingman" (which I covered with a band in our only live performance).

"Not for You" also solid. Really not many bad moments on this one.

for the record I also thought Riot Act was really awesome and the album after it was a dud

bettermanisnothing
nothingmanisbetter

I don't get the connection between "Better Man" and "Verse Chorus Verse.." xpost

I'll Never Suck...Satan's POLL! Pearl Jam's Vitalogy yeah, but maybe this is a chance to back off on my love for "Aye Davanita" and pick a real song. uhmmmm.... "Last Exit."

I think if you put the best songs off this album and Vs. onto one album (off the top of my head: Dissident, Daughter, Corduroy, Immortality, Not For You, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter, Nothingman, Rats, Tremor Christ, Whipping, yeah Yellow Ledbetter too, why not?) it would prolley be like the greatest roots-rock album ever.

This is true, and could have been a possibility since these 2 records were mostly recorded in very close succession, but I like the idea of Pearl Jam striving for imperfection rather than trying to create another blockbuster like Ten. I appreciate their experimental nature and their weirdness, especially evident in Vitalogy and No Code.. I appreciate that most of their best songs are non-album tracks (well my favorites anyway, which would be State Of Love And Trust and the Sonic Reducer cover).. And I enjoy the idea that they were merely trying to maintain Mother Love Bone's relatively moderate level of success, and weren't especially interested in becoming the next huge arena-rock commodity.

xxp similar subject matter...women in unfulfilling relationships with domineering men (though I'm not positive about the last part as far as Better Man goes...maybe she's just settling???)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

corduroy wins again. darnitall if i am too slow for this poll but woulda voted tremor christ

fuuck this album is so good

It's great, but oddly sequenced. Lots of hoary rock tracks rubbing up against each other and then huge sections with weepy ballads and/or Tom Waits-y freakouts.

I have lots of time for Pry, To although I'm surprised Corduroy won this one.

This is their best album. I just decided. It majorly rules.

How did I miss this poll? ;_;

Vitalogy's great songs are beyond great, but foxymophandle, davanita, and to a certain extent Bugs kinda ruin it for me. Bugs is a fun novelty but sometimes I'm just not in the mood for that shit.

No Code, or the Avocado S/T album come closer to being my personal vote for their best, most 'complete' album.

Bugs is supposedly the sort of goofball experimental nonsense that was a lot of indie's bread and butter at the time, and I think it's very telling just how uncomfortable it sounds, how fundamental Pearl Jam's inability to grasp what is cool about this sort of stylistic gaffe...Vedder's major label inferiority complex was almost as bad as, if not worse than, Cobain's and I think that when Pearl Jam sounds best & most relaxed churning out the trad midtempo alternastadium rock that they perfected on Ten, and not so much when they are trying to 'branch out'.

This points bigtime why imo PJ is much more a 'greatest-hits' band than any of their closest alternarock contemporaries...

...sounds best & most relaxed is when they are churning out

I agree with you. Experimental music was never their strong suit...but I think, and I could be wrong, part of that was that it took a long time before they were a cohesive 'unit' as a band because they were always playing presto-changeo with their drummers. I feel like to go and comfortably pull that off you have to all be on the same page and so much of the experimental stuff in the early days just felt like stuff they all couldn't agree on and Eddie says fuck you I'm putting it on the album anyway. I dunno, just a feeling I get with some of that. There was always 'the Jeff song', or the 'Mike song' but they felt like concessions.

As a fan, since Matt became their mainstay drummer they've felt a lot tighter and more comfortable with their 'sound' on the past couple of albums, than they have in a long time.

I forgot the point I was trying to make, lol

See, I come from the opposite direction, I enjoy how uncomfortable and self-defeating Pearl Jam's attempts at weirdness or stylistic detours are, and it's a large part of why Vitalogy is my favorite PJ album and I prefer that and No Code to more straightforward albums like Vs. or safer later ones like the self-titled album. A little variety goes a long way to making their more typical material feel less predictable and workaday imo.

I haven't spent qt with a PJ album since Yield (<-good possibility this might be my fave) but I do think there is a lot of variety to be found in "the hits", a good deal more than many bands. With a signature sound that has such breadth, flexibility, and fluidity, the attempts at stylistic detours sound just that, attempts--better left on the cutting room floor til 2023 when the record co. releases an "expanded edition"...

that said, Vitalogy has some of my favorite PJ songs & I definitely think it's worth owning, if only for "Immortality"

I am def. long overdue in hearing No Code

Immortality might be my fave Vitalogy song. Though I need to ponder it some more.

Yeah, I'm of two minds because I think the most internally consistent record they ever put out is Binaural and I haven't felt any desire to listen to that since basically the month it came out. But I really think of them as an albums band, the ramshackle shaggy quality of records like Vitalogy and No Code is a big part of their charm.

Binaural is kind of fun, easily my favorite of their fairly uneventful second decade.

i feel like there could be a good thread about later Pearl Jam but i don't know how to frame it -- maybe a poll of post-Vitalogy albums?

Post-Vitalogy poll could be good!

I dunno, Binaural and Riot Act are just so, 'meh' to me. I enjoy when a few songs end up on a tour setlist, but I don't think I ever went back to either of them after the first couple of listens. Not like the Avocado, or Backspacer. Will stan for Yield, though.

my favorite post-Vitalogy is easily Riot Act

wasn't real into the avocado, like the songs were pretty dece but I liked Riot Act way better....felt the songwriting was tighter, even if Eddie didn't holler as much on it.

still haven't heard Backspacer

Backspacer's got a good punky kind of aggression to it, like their really early days. And it feels more like they're wearing their influences on their sleeve, but happily. I dunno. I really dig it, I like it when they just flat out rock.

aight here's the poll: best later Pearl Jam album (post-1995)

Avocado was the first one since No Code, that I kept on repeat, that I put in the car and kept on my ipod for at least a month...like, ate, slept and breathed it...it really flowed for me as an album, and the songs felt like they were doing more than just filling space. That middle period with Binaural and Riot Act, I felt like so many of their songs were just placeholders. THe last two albums, I just felt a palpable sense that they liked the music they were playing, that they were all collaborating on it together, and that they were proud of what they'd done.

We've polled this one twice, so I'll refrain from doing it yet again.

But revisiting the PJ catalogue, this one sticks out as an album I enjoy a lot but always heard as a bit disjointed.
It's an album of contrasts - big full-throated rock songs rub-up against contemplative ballads and a handful of experimental/cartoonish vignettes.
Unlike No Code and Yield, the genre-hopping doesn't work too well for me.
I fear there is maybe one too much of everything. Do we need Satan's Bed AND The Whipping? Do we need Last Exit AND Spin The Black? Do we need Nothingman AND Immortality? Aya Davanita AND Pry,to? Bugs AND Stupid Mop? I like all these songs, but each one has a doppleganger on the album, it's a bit odd.
Opening with Last Exit and following-up with Spin The Black Circle before moving into other territory is an exhasuting way to start an album. Meanwhile all the doleful ballads are tipped to the back of the album. The whole ride is weirdly bumpy - one of these records that feels like it could have been split into two EPs perhaps.
Also SO MANY of the songs start with a long long fade in. I wonder if that affects the way I think of it too?

I've been thinking about how I'd tweak the tracklisting so it flows a bit better and I'd go for something like:

Last Exit
Not For You
Tremor Christ
Spin The Black Circle
Bugs
Better Man
Pry, To
Whipping
Nothingman
Corduroy
Satan's Bed
Aya Davanita
Immortality
Stupid Mop

Maybe swap-out one of the rockier songs for I Got Id from Merkinball? I'd say so!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Fm6y29KJFyNHd7tpc3EWc?si=70b9dadff86b4e3a

i still hate stupid mop and i stand by it

it's their essex dogs (i like it)

a bit disjointed

All of them save the first one are a bit disjointed, iirc. I think that's what makes them such a great live act. You've got the first album, which is full of warhorses that will save any set, and even the deep cuts on the debut would make fans happy. Then each of the rest have more than their share of ringers, too (albeit with diminishing returns) and even more deep cuts to shake things up from night to night or year to year. In the end each live performance becomes its own sort of perfectly disjointed album, often killer, with some interesting filler.

somehow, i agree completely with the "one too many of everything" analysis --- might apply to a lot of overlong 90s albums --- while not actually wanting to cut any of the doubles you name! i guess that's the misery of editing, letting go of a "Whipping" even when you dig it, because one's gotta go. and then at the same time, if you don't have all three of "Bugs," "Pry, To" and "Stupid Mop," then it almost stops being Vitalogy.

great point about the sequence and especially that rough opening. hmmm. for me the keystone to yank out and restructure the album has always been "Tremor Christ" - if anything here is exhausting, it's that. i'd keep "Immortality" as the closer, think really hard about where to put "Corduroy" and "Better Man" (how different is this album if one of those is the opener?)...hmm.

I do like the sequencing but it feels a tad cautious perhaps. When they repeated the quick-rock-songs-at-the-start-the-odder-stuff-later pattern for Binaural it doesn't feel as conscious.

alternatively, Stupid Mop becomes a maxi-single deep cut, Immortality closes side one, and Better Man is the crowd-pleasing last track...

Btw, in one of those Beato videos, the one with Brendan O'Brien, I learned that Vedder had to be convinced to put "Better Man" on a record, and in fact the version on here was cobbled together by O'Brien from multiple live performances, even soundchecks, with additional studio fiddling to get it right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPOp2sAGWzk

yeah contextually Eddie was *deep* in his fame-misery & pirate radio DIY phase by this stage (cf Self Pollution radio) and super didnt want anything that sounded like it could have been a hit (back when “selling out” was a concern, ah sweet summer children we all were) … however Eddie was also in a band with 3 other band members who prior to PJ had been struggling to becoms successful & make an actual living off music for years & the idea of actively shunning success was downright craven to them so … i think O Brien was also taking one for the rest of the team as well

I mean I found Better Man annoying as hell at the time but no one in their right mind would shelve a song with an instant hook like that, so Brendan otm

man the way this record opens in fantastic, what are you all on about

Each to theirs, but it makes me think of how Hail To The Thief opens with the same song twice. I'm not the biggest fan of PJ when they're rattling and squawking (although there are plenty of exceptions). Space-out the rockers imo

Yeah I think it starts perfectly*, it's more that it spreads the less obvious stuff, non-rockers and weird quirky cuts, throughout "side two" rather than the whole thing, which - given its length, and next to No Code's sequencing - makes it feel a bit lopsided imo.

*and those fifteen seconds of jazzy fusion do act as a premonition of what's eventually to come I guess

Sit Down Stand Up would be too epic a beginning for HTTT so they prefix it with 2+2=5 which imo would be an odd opener otherwise.

Hail To The Thief opens with the same song twice

??????????????????

and "last exit" and "spin" may both be rough-edged rockers but they are very different! "spin" is basically a punk song

I wonder if Graham was aware he was basically covering "Spin the Black Circle" here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S01fdJ6LLUw