that sounds right to me

The intensity of the guitars is what I love about the vinyl. Much as I love the bass, I don't mind it being buried a little with how strong Jeff is playing- it shines through regardless.

I like the second one better but I may have been tricked.

You seem like a great guy and passionate Pearl Jam fan, but in the 10 years I’ve lurked on this forum your actual PJ music takes are polar opposite to mine. It’s totally fine and music is subjective, but that take is difficult for contextualize for sure. It’s like saying In Through the Out Door is a better album than a couple of Zeppelin albums I-IV.

Which means what? Everyone has different opinions. Like stip, I may well like this album more than multiple albums from their golden era. But that is how I feel right now. Ask me in 6 years and maybe I'll be heavily vibing with Vs. for some reason. Subjectivity is the product of infinite life situations.

I experienced the vocals dropping out on the Dolby atmos mix with air pod pro buds. I went into Apple Music settings and turned off Dolby atmos and the vocals are clear. I prefer the overall mix without Dolby turned on.

It took me years to really grasp that folks on this board were actually serious placing albums like No Code above Ten.

The No Code - Binaural run are the period where I like Eddie's vocal choices the least. The most Neil Young period. There is also an introspective, naval gazing quality to No Code that I wasn't nearly as into - I felt like early albums asked better questions and later albums provided better answers.

And I am so invested in Eddie as a lyricist that so many songs on Yield not being written by Eddie was a turn off for me that took years (decades?) to get over.

so the regular apple mix?

The #2 above regarding “weirdness” missing I believe has to do partly with every song(I believe but need to sit and listen to ever song front to back) being in straight 4/4 time.

We are missing cropduster, last exit, take the long way, big wave, etc type songs that all have odd timings sprinkled in.


Any musicians care to verify that every song is in 4/4 on DM?

I

Yep

I didnt realize everything applicable was defaulting to Dolby.

That makes a lot of sense. The vocal choices of that period and the Neil young sound are my favorite, so makes sense that you wouldn’t appreciate it if those core elements are a turn off.

Weirdly, or maybe this makes sense, the albums I enjoy writing about the most are probably the No Code - Riot Act run, even though it is in aggregate my least favorite period of the band. But it's interesting to try to unpack what a song is reaching for when you have to fully put yourself into the headspace of a song to make sense of it. I've always found Ten and Vitalogy the hardest to talk about. Whether that's because I am overly invested and cannot fully capture everything I am hearing/feeling, or there is so much to say it's hard to begin. Those are quite possibly my two favorite albums of all time, and the two chapters in the book I am the least satisfied with (esp Ten)

yeah I'd agree with that

there are little weird choices in the arrangement of the album: the way Running follows the most "beautiful" and ambient part of the album is both funny and weird, and then to follow that up with Something Special? I appreciate that

Here's why I have a hard time even attempting to rank the albums:

I'll use Ten and Yield as examples.

I feel that Ten has more great songs than Yield. But Yield is a better album than Ten. When I think of what makes a great album, its not just the list of songs and their respective level of quality, it's also how the overall artistic statement speaks to me.

I give Dark Matter 5 stars because it speaks to me, as a whole, in a way that 5 star albums do - on top of the fact that the songs themselves are stellar.

I think there is a certain clarity of experience that Dark Matter is striving for that leaves less space for centering those weirder choices - for better or worse. For those who find that lacking in this moment, I wonder (depending on what else is still to come in their career) if that ends up mattering less once Dark Matter is no longer the current album and transitions to a snapshot in time situated within the story of a larger catalog (a historical progression that really helped an album like Riot Act, especially Eddie's vocal choices)

I think you're probably right, and yes, I think time, as well as simply having more quality albums so late (for me, Gigaton and DM), makes it easier to accept the less weird; and I appreciate it when even in the context of the "pop albums", they try new ways to do weird

I appreciate that the weird brains that included Something Special on this album were the same weird brains that included Soon Forget on Binaural or Bugs on Vitalogy

In fairness to the band, walking the line between how weird to make an album versus how poppy to make an album, feels like a lose-lose situation.

in terms of the fanbase as a whole I'd agree