Lets Actually Listen to the Album: Ten

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old thread archived here

listen to the album and share your thoughts

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It's time to start Lets Actually Listening to these things so we can be good and ready for March Madness.


Ten first.

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I think I'll listen to the remix version

[Norris]

It pisses me off more than it should that this is stickied.

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Once: the master slave intro was really cool, and helped make once sound a lot more mysterious and dangerous than it would have sounded on its own. The buzz saw hum to that song is still really good. It makes the song just ferocious enough to be awesome instead of totally stupid. It's a tightrope, though. I really like how Eddie shrieks out the word once. The drums coming out of the solo in the bridge are great.


Even Flow: I always forget just how good this song is until I hear it. The version on the remix may be my favorite. The deep fuzzy groove and Eddie's clarion vocals are fantastic. The background vocals in the chorus keep it off balance--the way the voices are struggling to be heard out of whatever depths they've been trapped in. Mike's fills in the second verse are great.

The way they come out of the bridge into the final chorus is one of the finest moments in the catalog.


This song is a victim of its 20 years of success. It does everything right.

[stip]

It pisses me off more than it should that this is stickied.

Only for a week.


Just think, some time around 1/13/14 Binaural gets its very own sticky

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Alive: I so totally associate this song with the version on RVM that this one really suffers by comparison. Still, some of my favorite musical moments are here. The sharp sway in the opening riff is one of pearl jam's best, this is one of Eddie's best vocal performances on an album full of them.

Man, this song benefits so much from the tightness of the RVM version. That's what catapulted this from a pearl jam song I liked to my favorite song of all time.

I love the cleaner notes kicking off the start of the final verse. A lot of great out of bridge transitions on this album.

Yup, that solo is pretty much the best thing ever. and the way the eddie comes in behind it at the very end. I don't throw perfect around that much, but it's perfect.

I wonder if BoB circa 2013 would have faded this out. I can only assume he would have.

[Norris]

It pisses me off more than it should that this is stickied.

Only for a week.


Just think, some time around 1/13/14 Binaural gets its very own sticky

Binaural doesn't need your sticky sympathy.

[LetMeSleep]

Sometimes we all need some sticky sympathy.

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Why Go: Like Once this is a song that should be so totally stupid, but somehow comes out the other side to totally awesome. One of Jeff's best bass lines--I'm glad the guitars let it drive the song. The roaring guitar coming out of the first chorus was one of the best little surprises on all the remixes. The extra echo on that chorus is really good too. The crunchy guitar that starts at 1:28 is tasty (I think stone repeats it under mike's solo starting about 2:25 or so).

Great solo. They seem so familiar but the urgency in the playing makes them feel reborn


Black: The sepia tones at the start of Black were a really smart way to come down from Why Go. There's no way this transition would work without them.

I don't know why Black is such a great song. 20+ years out I still couldn't even hum any of the music in this song. But it is.

I kinda wish the piano was louder in this one.

Like Alive, the RVM remix is superior to both the Ten and Ten remix version.

I kinda get why his voice was lampooned the way it was, but Eddie is a god on this album. He should be singing about Prometheus stealing fire from Mt. Olympus.

Oh yeah, the outro. That's why this song is so good. Not just the 'I know someday' part--the whole mental breakdown that follows. The dodododododos should be silly, but they're just so raw. There's no way this song would be anything but melodramatic schlock sung by anyone else.

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this is time you all could be LaL'ing, you know.

[McParadigm]

This is not my favorite Pearl Jam album.

This is not my third, or even fifth, favorite Pearl Jam album.

What it is is this: a representation of form.

Initially, what engaged me about Pearl Jam was that they encapsulated the most primal, emotional core of music expression. When an unhappy individual picks up their guitar and feels a brief moment of catharsis, this band is the physical and aural representation of what that is. Irony, self awareness, and self-importance were stripped away. The desire for acceptance and adherence to convention were abandoned entirely. What remained was a series of moments that were the RIGHT moment for the moment, even if when compiled they didn't totally work on a construction level.

It is emotion over logic, feel over craft, that defines this band relative to all peers...perfect for someone like myself, who behaves exactly the opposite...who cannot seem to do otherwise...in the day-to-day.

The Talking Heads, I think, captured the communicative dysfunction of pop music. The Who encapsulated the abandon and chaos. Groups like U2 embrace the passion and bombast, while Flaming Lips embody the survival of childlike hope that colors our thinking right up until we die and Belle and Sebastian betray the tenderest emotions we express while still enforcing distance. Pearl Jam has been beyond any of those mediums, because Pearl Jam refused to even think as far as that.

Craft has become an important import for the group, these days. The same thing happened to Pete Townshend, Joe Strummer, and many, many others. But few have been as harmed by it as this particular band.

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Jeremy: How does Jeff get that chunky sound out of his bass, and why did he never go back to it.

I don't remember what i thought about this song before the video, but the video really seared the story in my mind. It makes the 'Jeremy spoke in class today' chilling and poignant.

The first verse is really excellent storytelling. The second verse less so.

You can really hear all the extra guitar stuff going on in this song clearly in this remix. It's too bad it gets ruined by 30 minutes of 'spoken' overdubs. And the outro is so good, despite its repetition. Why is the spoken happening over his woah's? Who thought that was a good idea?

The final moments of the song are pretty ominous

Oceans: This is such a pretty song I didn't appreciate nearly enough Ten's first decade. In general I think the tighter sound on the remixes doesn't serve the slower songs well. I like the way his voice is calling across such an expansive space on the Ten version.

Oh man, how I miss the days when eddie could sustain these notes.

Yeah, the original Ten version is much better.


Porch: There are some things that are better than porch. But there are not many. Especially the outro. That's just about as good as rock music gets. Everything about it. After years of live versions I do sometimes wish the bridge was longer, but I also dig the way the solo seems to be trying be bridging these huge gaps the drum and bass are leaving. And once 2:03 minutes hits we're off to the races. So much defiant fuck you joy in it.



Why isn't this my favorite album?

[stip]

This is not my favorite Pearl Jam album.

This is not my third, or even fifth, favorite Pearl Jam album.

What it is is this: a representation of form.

Initially, what engaged me about Pearl Jam was that they encapsulated the most primal, emotional core of music expression. When an unhappy individual picks up their guitar and feels a brief moment of catharsis, this band is the physical and aural representation of what that is. Irony, self awareness, and self-importance were stripped away. The desire for acceptance and adherence to convention were abandoned entirely. What remained was a series of moments that were the RIGHT moment for the moment, even if when compiled they didn't totally work on a construction level.

It is emotion over logic, feel over craft, that defines this band relative to all peers...perfect for someone like myself, who behaves exactly the opposite...who cannot seem to do otherwise...in the day-to-day.

The Talking Heads, I think, captured the communicative dysfunction of pop music. The Who encapsulated the abandon and chaos. Groups like U2 embrace the passion and bombast, while Flaming Lips embody the survival of childlike hope that colors our thinking right up until we die and Belle and Sebastian betray the tenderest emotions we express while still enforcing distance. Pearl Jam has been beyond any of those mediums, because Pearl Jam refused to even think as far as that.

Craft has become an important import for the group, these days. The same thing happened to Pete Townshend, Joe Strummer, and many, many others. But few have been as harmed by it as this particular band.

How long do you think that lasted for, McP? I think by No Code, whatever it's strengths otherwise, it's gone

[McParadigm]

I think that no code represents the beginning of a new intended result, but that the later influences (yield's team dynamic and unfocused vision, binaural's struggles, riot act's failed attempts to be political rather than personal) prevented substantial changeover or behavioral response.

I don't hear a lust for money or influence from the last three records so much as I hear a pride and cognitive reemphasizing regarding craft.

[stip]

I do too. I just like the product. But I totally get the critique. I think in most of my reviews of later material I end up talking about the songs as craft--as a response to what Eddie especially can no longer produce either as a singer or in terms of primal inspiration.

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Garden: Garden may be why this isn't my favorite album, actually. I've always been kinda bored by Garden. Here the melodrama feels like melodrama, rather than the platonic form of whatever it is melodrama is a reflection of (see McP's post above). Maybe there's only room for one dirge on this album, and release is gonna be tough to beat


Deep: I think I underrate deep. It hurts that it has to follow Garden, and that Ten is one of the more draining listens in their catalog. I should retrack this one day to have it follow porch.

Man, this song is so heavy. The ohhhhhh are great, especially when mike starts soloing over them--like falling with no end in sight.

The third verse in this song is really really really dark. I wish it closed with a better lyric.

This one is maybe a bit too long.



Release: The remix version is a little too busy musically. If anything i would have liked it more stripped down. Eddie is putting on a clinic here. The way he soars during the pre chorus is just so pure. It's the pain that births angels.

The Ten version is definitely superior to this one too.

[stip]

Ten is just a great great album.

I still remember my very first listen of Ten. It's the only pearl jam album I can say that about until S/T. I kinda wish I could go back and tell myself in advance what it would all come to mean.

[McParadigm]

Primal, as a term, means substantially different things past a certain age than it does in youth. I don't think this band set themselves up in a way that they could cross over to that, and I don't blame them for trying a different approach. Basically, Tom Waits and Neil Young captured the aged version of that, and in doing so illustrated why Pearl Jam could never be that artist.

Recently, they've looked at Bruce Springsteen as an alternative guide, and I hope they stop. Bob Dylan would be a better source. He's managed to find a sound that embraces everything that made his greatest records engaging without playing to nostalgia or insulting his older audience. It's also made it easier for a "younger" crowd to involve themselves.

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somebody arrange for eddie to have dinner with dylan and we'll be all set.