Agree - I got over my preciousness about every song being perfect a long time ago. I'd just rather have music and put aside what I don't care for so I can enjoy the songs I do. If it was the difference between an okay record this year or a great album 2-3 years from now that's one thing, but beyond that I prefer output. Plus the more you put out the less is at stake in every song. Mark Lanegan is a great example. He only has a handful of albums I love from start to finish, but he's so productive that every record has a few songs I end up loving, and it's easy enough to ignore or not be offended by what doesn't set my world on fire.

Ed seems like he and the rest of the band are in a really good place right now.

I dont need Pj or Ed to blow my mind anymore. They did that for a very long time. I live in a world where they can put out as much music as they want, i can hate, like, love any and all of it without it ruining the precious memories I have or tarnishing a darn thing.

There is so much good music out there that fills specific needs for me. Lots of good bands and artists. Its okay that PJ are old now and i much rather just have the warm blanket that they provide for me.

Cheers. Love you bye

groetjes

Honestly, I agree with all of this, which is precisely why I'm Team Trag on this one. If they never put out another record, I'd be fine with it; if they put out a crummy record every couple of years, I'd have some fun grumbling about it here but ultimately I'd probably just not listen to it. The only thing I actually want from them is (a) access to their old stuff, and (b) high quality new stuff. A piece of crap every 2-3 years with "1-2 tolerable songs" (a crazy low bar -- even the worst PJ albums have a better batting average than that) wouldn't bother me necessarily, or ruin my relationship with their old music -- I'm very much to the point where I could just disregard it and be fine with that -- but it's also not something I can imagine actively wanting at the expense of something better that might come later. This whole idea of "I just need PJ to put out something, even if it's not very good, it just needs to exist and not actively repulse me" is not something I identify with at all. I get the "warm blanket" thing, but I get that from the stuff that's already out there.

Granted, I'm not sure it's the length of time between records that really drives how strong the album ends up being, but if we're operating under the premise that it plays into it, I'd rather wait.

I'm team output here, barring a shockingly bad release. But, I don't know, even then. As long as Backspacer & LB are the worst-case scenarios, that still gets me a lot more more songs I love before they finally stop writing new stuff together than does seven-or-so-years between records.

This is assuming they don't manage to put out an album as terrible as the "forthcoming" Can't-Deny-Me-era thing seemed likely to be. Something like that might make me wish I'd taken the other position.

I like that he says they have a healthy desire to record. Its wild that we’re almost two years out from Gigaton.

I don’t believe him, though now would be normal for a band to be recording over the whole 6.5 years thing.

I am not sure where I stand on the continuum of time against quality. I think the idea of having all the time in the world to record is a bit more finite now than say 10 or 15 years ago when they were much younger.

I think of this in the context of say Led Zeppelin. They stopped recording after Bonham’s death - totally acceptable reason - but by In Through the Out Door, their recording future I think is in doubt. That album, which is still a very good album, comes across to me like they were unsure what to do next, lurching from one thought experiment to the next without fully capturing the essence of what they were drawing from…sort of Zeppelining different types of music but not fully committing themselves. And they started using synthesizers, which depending on how you feel about that in Zeppelin is another thing. I don’t see that they were likely to bang out more great records after Bonzo so perhaps that’s the right thing to do. Conversely though, they had a wildly successful reunion show in 2007 that they never followed up on and that brings with it a sadness that the magic was potentially there, but for whatever reason, Robert Plant pulled away. Was that the right decision? This is the fence I find myself on with Pearl Jam. I don’t know if they have another great record in them so should they take many years and possibly reach it - put out what they can and see if it works? I guess who the hell knows…

I think it remains possible that Pearl Jam could make an album I'd really enjoy, though I think the chances of it happening are very remote.

That's fine, I still have my copies of Vs and No Code.

I will note that my preference would be for them to pull away from what we imagine an Andrew Watt produced album would be. Pop/slick is not really what I want to hear from them. They went there with Backspacer and to a greater extent Lightning Bolt and the music ended by pedestrian by their own standards. Something more abrasive layered in those many guitars would be more preferable for me but I don’t foresee that in their future with a pop producer. Maybe I will be surprised.

So weird that with the dust settled, Riot Act will probably go down as the most metal album they ever made

I'll admit to feeling trepidation about a possible producer switch. A lot of what made Gigaton a late era high-water mark was Josh's ability to capture isolated moments of creative impulse (from wherever they came...Ed alone in his home, half the band jamming in a studio, Mike in a mood to try some overdubs, etc)....and meld those into something that felt super organic at a group level. The final result feels (to me) like he was then able to feed those moments back to the band in a way that kept their subsequent creative responses organic, as well.

Having a producer who "got" what used to make the band most effective, and who had enough investment in their work to patiently and tactfully coax them into as close a facsimile of that as possible, was such an unexpected gift at this stage of their career.

I also have to admit that I think Watt's projects tend to sound kind of soulless and flat. That 'loudness' Ed likes about him is just so...I don't know. Crowded at the surface level. Uninterested in itself, below that. Especially when he works with older artists like Ozzy and Elton, projects tend to be exercises in forgettable, dull excess. The kind of creative space that loves guest stars and doesn't recognize when a song like Haves has missed its mark, because it doesn't really think about songs as having any purpose beyond immediate entertainment.

My biggest gripe with the last few records has been the disproportionate influence of Ed over the end result.

I don't often enjoy his songwriting at this point, which is a problem when his songs now make up (at least) half of each album.

I can't see how that's not going to get even worse when he brings in the producer of his solo record to work on the band's new material.

I trust that Watt is a FAN of the band but i certainly don't trust him willing to push PJ down the DOTC route during improvs/jams in the studio......

I wish someone would just tell Ed that "pop" and "slick" are admirable aims, but he was never very good at them; I really don't want another Pearl Jam album that makes me wish it had been "Hard Candy" by Counting Crows

Ultimately the relationship between the two is probably pretty tenuous; I'm sure Gigaton didn't take 7 years of active work to make, it probably took 2-3 years of active work and 3-4 years before that of destination touring and committing to getting together later. Conversely, most of their best albums only had 2 years between them; No Code and Yield had 18 months. I think this is true of most artists. The forward momentum a band gets from regularly making albums together, at a time when it feels vital and necessary, trumps any over- or underthinking they can do, any input a producer can give, sometimes even weaknesses in the actual work itself. I think it's pretty safe to say we're beyond that space with PJ -- they don't move as a unit anymore, they move individually and reconvene when it feels right, and they all (especially Ed) bring along the creative baggage of their time apart. So honestly, after years of guessing incorrectly at it, I think the confluence of things that would make for a strong PJ record at this point is pretty random and unpredictable. There are so many variables.

That said, I think the hypothetical discussion of whether people would prefer, before PJ's coffin is nailed shut, (a) one or two more generally strong albums, a la Gigaton, or (b) five or six more albums of average to below-average quality, with a couple of songs that are decent and a handful of others that suck, a la Lightning Bolt, is interesting, and I'm kind of amazed at how many people are saying they'd prefer the latter, just so there could be more of it.

I think the problem is that Ed hears “immediate” where we hear “slick”

I agree with all this to a point. Realistically to have them bang out 2 or more strong albums a la Gigaton can’t take 14 years because the band may not realistically have that much time left. Yes, the E Street Band has managed to carry on, as have The Rolling Stones, but even if that is their lot, I never got the sense that beyond a drummer that this unit would be interested in carrying on if they had to replace any of the core four members that have played on this same team since 1990.

And no, I don’t like the dark place this thread is taking me down.