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."

I You Are.

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

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?

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.

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.