Fri December 27, 2013 2:59 pm
stip wrote:digster wrote:I feel like Vitalogy may end in the bleakest spot of any of their records. I wouldn't deny there's a fighting spirit at the beginning, but by the time Stupid Mop sputters out, it seems like there's nothing left of it. It was kind of shocking when I listened to the album straight through most recently; in isolation the songs sound more hopeful then tracing it from start to end.
I'm not sure I agree. Betterman and satan's because have some fight in them, and immortality doesn't end with the desolate sound it starts with. I may be unfairly excluding stupid mop. On the other hand, maybe it is significant that it is the only song not in eddies voice
Fri December 27, 2013 4:10 pm
McParadigm wrote:
I almost always listen to the two pieces together, to the point where when I do hear Immortality without it the ending kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Minus stupidmop, it sort of sounds like the first half to something that the band couldn't be bothered to finish.
Fri December 27, 2013 4:36 pm
hlniv wrote:You've just proven to me that I will never reach your level of sophistication and intelligence. I can't possibly understand how stupid mop is an essential extension to one of my top 5 PJ songs. The only explanation is that I am not smart enough to appreciate the intricacies of the connection.
Fri December 27, 2013 4:39 pm
Fri December 27, 2013 4:40 pm
McParadigm wrote:hlniv wrote:You've just proven to me that I will never reach your level of sophistication and intelligence. I can't possibly understand how stupid mop is an essential extension to one of my top 5 PJ songs. The only explanation is that I am not smart enough to appreciate the intricacies of the connection.
It's like trying to have a conversation with my wife when she's pregnant.
No, honey, I'm not talking about your intelligence. Yes, honey, of course I respect your opinion. I'm simply trying to explain how I feel, as well. Do you need me to hand you the remote, or are you enjoying this show?
Try not to perceive everything as a personal attack. Except for maybe this post.
Fri December 27, 2013 4:45 pm
harmless wrote:McParadigm wrote:hlniv wrote:You've just proven to me that I will never reach your level of sophistication and intelligence. I can't possibly understand how stupid mop is an essential extension to one of my top 5 PJ songs. The only explanation is that I am not smart enough to appreciate the intricacies of the connection.
It's like trying to have a conversation with my wife when she's pregnant.
No, honey, I'm not talking about your intelligence. Yes, honey, of course I respect your opinion. I'm simply trying to explain how I feel, as well. Do you need me to hand you the remote, or are you enjoying this show?
Try not to perceive everything as a personal attack. Except for maybe this post.
Fri December 27, 2013 4:55 pm
digster wrote:stip wrote:digster wrote:I feel like Vitalogy may end in the bleakest spot of any of their records. I wouldn't deny there's a fighting spirit at the beginning, but by the time Stupid Mop sputters out, it seems like there's nothing left of it. It was kind of shocking when I listened to the album straight through most recently; in isolation the songs sound more hopeful then tracing it from start to end.
I'm not sure I agree. Betterman and satan's because have some fight in them, and immortality doesn't end with the desolate sound it starts with. I may be unfairly excluding stupid mop. On the other hand, maybe it is significant that it is the only song not in eddies voice
I think it's definitely a progression, although Better Man's up-tempo sound always struck me as mocking as opposed to a call to 'keep fighting' as it were (after all, the songs ends with the character repeating over and over, "can't find a better man," absolutely a sign that she's given up). However, by the time you get past to Immortality and Stupid Mop, things are pretty relentlessly bleak. I think that's why Ave Davanita, and it's placement, is no accident. It separates those last two songs into the final 'chapter' of the record.
I have no problem with that bleakness, by the way. They've ended some of their other records in similar spots and they've been great endings as well.
Fri December 27, 2013 5:00 pm
McParadigm wrote:hlniv wrote:You've just proven to me that I will never reach your level of sophistication and intelligence. I can't possibly understand how stupid mop is an essential extension to one of my top 5 PJ songs. The only explanation is that I am not smart enough to appreciate the intricacies of the connection.
It's like trying to have a conversation with my wife when she's pregnant.
No, honey, I'm not talking about your intelligence. Yes, honey, of course I respect your opinion. I'm simply trying to explain how I feel, as well. Do you need me to hand you the remote, or are you enjoying this show?
Try not to perceive everything as a personal attack. Except for maybe this post.
Fri December 27, 2013 5:03 pm
stip wrote:digster wrote:stip wrote:digster wrote:I feel like Vitalogy may end in the bleakest spot of any of their records. I wouldn't deny there's a fighting spirit at the beginning, but by the time Stupid Mop sputters out, it seems like there's nothing left of it. It was kind of shocking when I listened to the album straight through most recently; in isolation the songs sound more hopeful then tracing it from start to end.
I'm not sure I agree. Betterman and satan's because have some fight in them, and immortality doesn't end with the desolate sound it starts with. I may be unfairly excluding stupid mop. On the other hand, maybe it is significant that it is the only song not in eddies voice
I think it's definitely a progression, although Better Man's up-tempo sound always struck me as mocking as opposed to a call to 'keep fighting' as it were (after all, the songs ends with the character repeating over and over, "can't find a better man," absolutely a sign that she's given up). However, by the time you get past to Immortality and Stupid Mop, things are pretty relentlessly bleak. I think that's why Ave Davanita, and it's placement, is no accident. It separates those last two songs into the final 'chapter' of the record.
I have no problem with that bleakness, by the way. They've ended some of their other records in similar spots and they've been great endings as well.
That's reasonable, bit I still hear Betterman as refusing to give up on the hope of something better even with no out in sight. And while immortality is a dark song it ends on that moment of indecision, and while stupid mop is hopelessly bleak with strong intimations of suicide it is still, I think, significant, that the song is not in eddies voice. Sort of a 'there but for the grace of god go I/road not taken outcome. A warning, not a prophecy. Where you end up if you stop pushing the rock.
Fri December 27, 2013 5:04 pm
Fri December 27, 2013 5:05 pm
Fri December 27, 2013 5:08 pm
Fri December 27, 2013 5:11 pm
harmless wrote:You guys are so cute.
Edit: damn it, not you guys, the other two arguing.
Fri December 27, 2013 5:33 pm
stip wrote:digster wrote:stip wrote:digster wrote:I feel like Vitalogy may end in the bleakest spot of any of their records. I wouldn't deny there's a fighting spirit at the beginning, but by the time Stupid Mop sputters out, it seems like there's nothing left of it. It was kind of shocking when I listened to the album straight through most recently; in isolation the songs sound more hopeful then tracing it from start to end.
I'm not sure I agree. Betterman and satan's because have some fight in them, and immortality doesn't end with the desolate sound it starts with. I may be unfairly excluding stupid mop. On the other hand, maybe it is significant that it is the only song not in eddies voice
I think it's definitely a progression, although Better Man's up-tempo sound always struck me as mocking as opposed to a call to 'keep fighting' as it were (after all, the songs ends with the character repeating over and over, "can't find a better man," absolutely a sign that she's given up). However, by the time you get past to Immortality and Stupid Mop, things are pretty relentlessly bleak. I think that's why Ave Davanita, and it's placement, is no accident. It separates those last two songs into the final 'chapter' of the record.
I have no problem with that bleakness, by the way. They've ended some of their other records in similar spots and they've been great endings as well.
That's reasonable, bit I still hear Betterman as refusing to give up on the hope of something better even with no out in sight. And while immortality is a dark song it ends on that moment of indecision, and while stupid mop is hopelessly bleak with strong intimations of suicide it is still, I think, significant, that the song is not in eddies voice. Sort of a 'there but for the grace of god go I/road not taken outcome. A warning, not a prophecy. Where you end up if you stop pushing the rock.
Fri December 27, 2013 5:56 pm
hlniv wrote:harmless wrote:You guys are so cute.
Edit: damn it, not you guys, the other two arguing.
I wasn't aware we wee arguing until the last post.
The rest of McP's insightful review and commentary aside, I just couldn't let those holier than thou stupid mop circle jerk responses go un commented upon.
Fri December 27, 2013 6:13 pm
McParadigm wrote:I had the flu for Christmas. So I got to drive the family up to Nowhere, South Dakota in a wind chill advisory and slippery snowstorm, and then hide in a separate little basement living room from the festivities with no book, tv, computer, windows or anything. Just an old, uncomfortable recliner and an afghan.
But I had my phone and barely a signal, so I noticed that this was up here and figured "Shit, I've got dictation software and an old post I made about this record that I could add on to." Plus I had Vitalogy on my phone, and all of the above pretty much made it the perfect mood setting for the record.
It was that or Angry Birds.
Anyway, some of this is requisitioned from an earlier post.
-
So, first of all, I think some setting of historical context is super important but probably will get skipped by a lot of people, so I'll spoiler it:
- Spoiler: show
-=-
So, the album itself.
Recorded at the peak of Pearl Jam’s popularity, Vitalogy is both the start of what some might call their “wilderness” years and the most marked evidence available of the contradictory urges that define it.
Where Nirvana had produced In Utero, an artistic statement that was inward-looking and arguably purer, Pearl Jam’s reaction to existing pressure was as concerned with the fans and the world at large as it was with the turmoil within the band. It barely seems to distinguish between the experienced and the witnessed. On Bone Machine, Tom Waits disguised an intensely personal record with his usual collection of characters and abstraction. On Vitalogy the mirror opposite happens: an incredibly large-scoped subject is explored through the eyes of the very personal.
As a result of this, the record which best represents Pearl Jam’s anti-commercial leanings is also the one that is most protective of its fan base (and contains their biggest original hit). Meanwhile, songs that surge with outward-facing and unified aggression often break apart, explode cacaphonically, or crack open to reveal barely-whispered cores. Personal confessions are punctuated by empathic storytelling, political sermonizing, hazy confusion, and half-formed jams. It indulges in thoughts of defeat, but it’s not a record about self-pity or victimization. It can’t be. Unlike many of their peers, Pearl Jam always wanted to change the world. Vitalogy is a pure, primal aural document of that basic feeling…not the active response to it, or the rationale behind it…just the feeling itself.
This is a record about the need for change.
In a way, Vitalogy is the compassion and lack of complacency displayed by U2 or Bruce Springsteen delivered in its most empathic, least calculated form…an album that draws no distinction between suffering and savior, personal and public, narrator and story.
Lyrically, the record is both more personal and more intentionally vague than its predecessors. While some of Vs’s tendencies towards clipped, primal directness carry over, the writing during this period leans towards an abstraction that will eventually translate into the tone poem-like qualities of songs like Low Light and Nothing As it Seems. Metaphors, generally clear in the past, will occasionally become so thoroughly unanchored as to suggest intentional disclarity. As with Talking Heads’ Fear of Music, songs seem as though they want very strongly to express ideas and feelings they are uncertain they want understood by others…as though the feeling is pure but the expression is destined to fail.
The idea of honesty or genuineness, not just the importance of pursuing them but especially the impossibility of the goal, is a recurring theme during the era.
Conversely, there are instances where Ed seems to take delight in the idea of secret messages or unnoticed communications...or perhaps the ability to control who receives the expression:
Now, please don’t think that I’m dismissing the melodrama of the record. Even its most playful moments maintain an undercurrent of ragged distrust, bitterness, or twitchy paranoia. Spin the Black Circle would just be a brief aside, were it not for the fact that the song’s frantic and desperate nature transforms it into something else entirely.
The song is a snapshot of a person seeking much-needed perspective, the sound of a band that just sold a million units in a week reminding itself that a single record can be important…can even be life-changing. It also serves as the simplest, most effective rejection of the band’s fame. “I’d rather you than her,” it yelps, declaring allegiance to the one record that means everything over the million CDs that make you rich.
There are certainly "message" songs sent from the center of the tornado, here, but in general the record isn’t focused enough to be about the difficult life of a successful rock star. The need to escape a bad situation? Yes. The need for redemption, after finding out that you were someone else’s “bad situation?” It's in there. The want to save the world? To leave it behind you? To find your place in it, and live a good, simple life? Yeah.
The album’s title may be happenstance, but it is exceptionally appropriate.
The exact moment when the need for change becomes most defined and present is an anxiety-filled, tense one, and very rarely does a good thing stay good on this album. The ocean swell may wash away an unwanted past at one point, but it becomes mindlessly destructive just a few songs later. The angels triumphantly outpace the devil on side A, but side B suggests that the devil may have been an inevitability (or simply present) the entire time. The sun burns away your mask, sure...then it burns the rest of you up, and then it turns out to have been a con the entire time.
Privacy is priceless, but the need for others is so great that our narrative immediately admits that he was losing his mind just from waiting for your arrival (and uses the song about privacy to send a "secret" little thank you message to another human being).
The album begins to spiral out of control in the second half, as he reminisces on the infestation of thought that his isolation forced on him and the band becomes less and less capable of putting together a complete musical idea. Torture, on this record, always follows reward…until eventually it stops mattering which one is which. Like death follows life. It’s divine...aye davanita.
You know what it’s like?
In the end, the singer reaches out to the same mother he taunted almost playfully at the very start (“look, ma, watch me crash!” / "stripped and sold, mom,"), lamenting his treatment at the hands of others but never quite asking for her forgiveness or help. Instead, he simply acknowledges the need to move on, which is what he's been railing about all along, and does so.
This is why I say this is an album about the base need for change. Nothing is working here...not the individual, not the relationships, not the governing agencies or the world at large or even the hereafter...and there’s never a point where that isn’t realized and fretted over.
But the need for change, at its purest expression, is completely reactionary and directionless. There’s no guiding light out of the dark on Vitalogy. There’s no suggestion on the part of the album for what should come next. In fact, in some ways the next step is so scary that the album takes comfort in just continuing the cycle (my spanking…that’s the only thing I want so much. Torture follows reward.).
But life…really living…requires an escape. One half of the equation in Nothingman saw that. The characters in Tremor Christ and Not for You felt it on a purely emotional level. The status quo, simply put, is a willful denial of further experience. It is a purely habitual behavior trap…and its death can mean the birth of something better. A metaphorical suicide that promises metaphorical rebirth. Some die just to live.
Do you ever think that you actually would kill yourself? Well, if I thought about it real hard…yes, I believe I would.
Fri December 27, 2013 6:14 pm
Fri December 27, 2013 6:25 pm
Fri December 27, 2013 6:31 pm
stip wrote:Okay, this is both my favorite album of all time and, I think, the most compelling rock album of all time. I do think it's that good. the way it manages to take something so viscerally personal and invite the listener in, the way it takes something so narcissistic and melodramatic and cuts right to the human core of it. The songs are all pretty much amazing (how do you get last exit, not for you, tremor christ, nothingman, betterman, corduroy, and immortality on the same album), the guitar tones are fantastic, the rhythm section is totally locked in, and Eddie manages to simultaneously have a breakdown while maintaining iron clad control over himself, releasing just the right amount of pressure each time to push the explosion further down the line. In every single one of these songs every member of the band is doing something worth listening to. That you can have the same band putting spin the black circle, immortality, corduroy, and betterman on the same record is nuts.
This is as good as it gets. All other pearl jam albums have to answer to this standard. none have measured up.
Fri December 27, 2013 6:31 pm
spike wrote:what's the consensus on betterman's conceptual purpose within this album? is it just eddie tracing his adult problems back to a troubled youth?