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Rate Riot Act

5 Stars: A top tier album
40
29%
4 Stars: A very good album
67
48%
3 Stars: Average
26
19%
2: Stars: I expect more
6
4%
1 Star: Embarrassing
1
1%
 
Total votes : 140

Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri December 28, 2012 12:08 pm

the original thread is archived here

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 3:28 am

I think I nailed down why Riot Act is my least favorite album. I dislike more than half the songs on the album, but specifically, I dislike You Are, Get Right, Green Disease, Help Help, and Bu$hleaguer. That's like a 15-20 span in that album where I'm totally bored. Given that the album is as long as it is, they coulda cut 3 of those songs (any 3) and broke up the other two, and I'd listen to the album w/o skipping songs. Instead, everytime I listen to the album, I get to that point and I think, "Ah crap, here's the part I hate again."

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 3:30 am

It took you 10 years to realize that the reason you don't like an album is because there's a large stretch of songs on it that you don't like?

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 3:34 am

B wrote:I think I nailed down why Riot Act is my least favorite album. I dislike more than half the songs on the album, but specifically, I dislike You Are, Get Right, Green Disease, Help Help, and Bu$hleaguer. That's like a 15-20 span in that album where I'm totally bored. Given that the album is as long as it is, they coulda cut 3 of those songs (any 3) and broke up the other two, and I'd listen to the album w/o skipping songs. Instead, everytime I listen to the album, I get to that point and I think, "Ah crap, here's the part I hate again."


Have you given the album a long break then tried it again? I think it went untouched by me for like 3 or 4 years(though some songs would come up on occasion) and put it in and loved it as a whole, i dont love all the songs but i do now really like it as a whole album. its still pretty low in my rankings, but i do enjoy it now, nearly as much as when it was brand new

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 3:37 am

Riot act is very underrated

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 3:39 am

I :heartbeat: You Are.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 3:41 am

turned2black wrote:I :heartbeat: You Are.


Me too, and after hearing it live once or twice, i really love help,help

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 3:52 am

Dr. Van Nostrand wrote:
B wrote:I think I nailed down why Riot Act is my least favorite album. I dislike more than half the songs on the album, but specifically, I dislike You Are, Get Right, Green Disease, Help Help, and Bu$hleaguer. That's like a 15-20 span in that album where I'm totally bored. Given that the album is as long as it is, they coulda cut 3 of those songs (any 3) and broke up the other two, and I'd listen to the album w/o skipping songs. Instead, everytime I listen to the album, I get to that point and I think, "Ah crap, here's the part I hate again."


Have you given the album a long break then tried it again? I think it went untouched by me for like 3 or 4 years(though some songs would come up on occasion) and put it in and loved it as a whole, i dont love all the songs but i do now really like it as a whole album. its still pretty low in my rankings, but i do enjoy it now, nearly as much as when it was brand new


Yeah, I've done that twice now. I realized that there were more songs on there that I liked than I had thought when I wasn't listening to it, but I still can't rank that album above any other, including Lost Dogs.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 5:37 am

cutuphalfdead wrote:It took you 10 years to realize that the reason you don't like an album is because there's a large stretch of songs on it that you don't like?


:haha:

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 3:58 pm

Riot Act is a great album, especially in winter.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 4:20 pm

I actually really like Bushleaguer. I can compartmentalize the lyrics (so I'm not thinking, "is this a joke Ed?") and just enjoy the groove and haunt of the song. Someday the sung version of this will materialize.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 4:47 pm

EJ wrote:I actually really like Bushleaguer. I can compartmentalize the lyrics (so I'm not thinking, "is this a joke Ed?") and just enjoy the groove and haunt of the song. Someday the sung version of this will materialize.


That's funny. I liked it for the lyrics. Once they became irrelevant, I lost interest in the song.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 6:14 pm

I like this album a lot, and it still falls somewhere on the bottom of my list. I think it's great, but perhaps for me the rest of Pearl Jam's work is even greater. I tend to think of the first 5 albums as very close at the top, and then the self-titled, and then Riot Act and Binaural almost together (both dark experimental type albums that show a ton of range and thought, but never quite sank in emotionally as the rest already mentioned)...and then Backspacer, which has not grown as well on me as I would wish (I enjoy this album, but think it sorta just scratches surfaces that the rest of the albums dig deeper on emotionally).

That said, I enjoy the You Ares and the Help Helps the most, and tend to think of a song like Cropduster as the songs that alienate my experience because it sort of feels like mailing in a too typical Pearl Jam song on a album with plenty of interesting gems.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 6:15 pm

Kevin Davis wrote:
cutuphalfdead wrote:It took you 10 years to realize that the reason you don't like an album is because there's a large stretch of songs on it that you don't like?


:haha:


I thought this post was getting passed over but you saved the day.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 6:27 pm

liebzz wrote:I like this album a lot, and it still falls somewhere on the bottom of my list. I think it's great, but perhaps for me the rest of Pearl Jam's work is even greater. I tend to think of the first 5 albums as very close at the top, and then the self-titled, and then Riot Act and Binaural almost together (both dark experimental type albums that show a ton of range and thought, but never quite sank in emotionally as the rest already mentioned)...and then Backspacer, which has not grown as well on me as I would wish (I enjoy this album, but think it sorta just scratches surfaces that the rest of the albums dig deeper on emotionally).

That said, I enjoy the You Ares and the Help Helps the most, and tend to think of a song like Cropduster as the songs that alienate my experience because it sort of feels like mailing in a too typical Pearl Jam song on a album with plenty of interesting gems.


cropduster was the first song on the album that i called my favorite when i first got it but it was because it was catchy as well as being a more standard PJ song, and it fell off quite a bit with in the first couple of months, to being one that i said i hated before i took a long break from the album. they break helped the whole album for me as well as cropduster, it is a great little song, now the only song i have trouble enjoying on the album is green disease, the drums for some reason are a real turn off, but i have enjoyed it the few times ive gotten it live.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 6:58 pm

Thumbing My Way is all sorts of great.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 7:02 pm

I have a whole new appreciation for this album. Whether it's bc I understand it better, or bc I disliked the two albums after it and it looks better in comparison... i don't know. But it definitely makes sense as a Binaural followup now, making the Binaural > Riot Act combo some of the most interesting songwriting/experimenting the band as ever done.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 9:08 pm

I always wonder how I'd feel about Riot Act if it came out now. It definitely felt like the wrong record at the time.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 9:20 pm

Still calling this my favorite PJ album. Love those savage drum fills in "Save You." For all its gloomy moods, this is the last PJ record that felt to me like the artistic expression of living entities and not some calculated effort to please.

Re: Riot Act: Official Album Thread

Fri January 04, 2013 9:43 pm

Riot Act is one of those albums that, like No Code, let me down in a personal way that makes it harder to appreciate (although I liked Riot Act more than No Code when they first came out).

In 2002 I was angry, furious, and sort of bewildered by what happened to my country. Pearl Jam was still a band that mattered (or could matter). They had just released an album with songs like Grievance and Insignificance. They were calling a new album Riot Act. I was fully prepared for them to be leading the artistic backlash against Bush and the war on terror. Instead we got an album that no doubt reflected their own confusion (it's not Riot Act's fault that it isn't what I wanted it to be) which was more honest, perhaps, but not what I wanted. Instead it was left to fucking green day to play that role. In a lot of ways Riot Act was the only time I went into a pearl jam record needing something from it beyond good songs, and it let me down.

Like B, I also happen to think there are a number of sub par songs on here, so it's not just that, but I'm sure all of the above is affecting my judgement at some level
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