Agreed.

I can't stand Sleeping By Myself either and I'm not a fan of the way that Vedder's solo work seems to be bleeding through into the band more and more. One of the biggest flaws of the last two records for me is that they seem to be driven by Vedder and dominated by his songs. It's not as though they're also opening up to playing Bayleaf or When the Fire Comes, it's a one-way thing and I've never thought of Ed as being more important to the band than anyone else.

It went in the wrong thread.


A lot of the, for lack of better word, stagnation of sound and perceived lack of effort/care stems from the undeniable fact that all output comes through Ed. As the singer, he is the conduit, the brand ambassador. And the amount of time and effort that he is willing to contribute determines how much the other guys are prepared to put in. so we continue to get 5 Ed songs per album.

Having a lot of Ed-centric records would be fine by me, if it were happening because he was on some prolific songwriting kick. If it's a case of my god, you guys, I've just got songs on songs on wild new songs bursting out of me over here...then great.

When it's a very small collection of conventional and really unremarkable stuff, and one song that you've already recorded before...meh.

I will say this, though: neither Sleeping By Myself nor Future Days is the most boring bit of songwriting on Lightning Bolt. Almost the whole record sounds like a really tired late-era release by some other band that was never good enough to keep track of, and could never have made No Code.

I think it's also that Ed's musical sensibility isn't something that I can take in long doses when backed by the band, it all gets a bit monochromatic.

Yes

I think the writing process is what is hindering them and what probably is taking away their enthusiasm for recording albums.
They are a band that probably reached a point when they needed to ask themselves whether they wanted to stick together or go their separate ways and concentrate on other stuff. They seemed to have accepted that sticking together means accepting certain compromises regarding the writing process that is now not a perpetually horrible experience but not terribly exiting or inspiring either.
They've accepted an, for lack of a better description, assembly line approach to composing that makes it irrelevant who's actually credited for the songwriting as the end results are all similarly generic.
In theory having them together in a room figuring out how to develop an idea or arrange a demo makes all the sense in the world. With this particular group of people it doesn't seem to work as their artistic sensibilities are too different for them to be able to collectivity pick a direction and follow it. I think working the way they do know feels like a chore for most of them so once they complete an album they don't feel compelled to go back to a process that, while it improved their interpersonal relationships, ends up destimulating at least some of them.

I think it's hard for bands to continue doing good work when the lead singer/lyricist is struggling. That's not only PJ, by any stretch of the imagination. Lead singers in rock bands just by definition have an outsized influence on the proceedings; they kind of have to. It's hard for me to think of many bands where the relative quality of the band didn't rise or fall on how well the lead singer was doing, particularly if he or she also contributed to the music. I think it's just semi-unavoidable in that kind of situation. And it's just hard to write consistently well for that long.

I agree.

The band should play any of those songs too. Man, they would kill those two.

definitely. they could also throw in some wellwater too.

I don't see the big quality drop. I've always seen them as a "high batting average" band much in the fashion of a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

When they have dips, they aren't that low, while they're great stuff isn't exactly on the level of the Beatles.

Their albums have always been either "pretty great" (Ten, Vitalogy) , "really really good" (Yield, Backspacer thatsrightmotherfuckers, Lost Dogs), "good" (Vs, S/t, Lightning Bolt) or "pretty darn solid" (No Code, Riot Act, Binaural).

They don't reach the peaks of Beatles/Zep/Springsteen/Radiohead but they've never turded out like the Stones, Who, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Oasis.

You have 3 of the best albums in your worst category.
The Who is better than Springsteen and Radiohead.
Future Days is a very low low.

16. Betterman(live)

Turded out. That's a great description for what PJ has done. Thanks Tuolumne

Like Aerosmith.

Oh man, Sirens should've totally been on the soundtrack for a big budget disaster film.

And Eddie should cast his daughter in sexually provocative music videos.

I dunno, his confused "why am I at a microphone" face is the real star.

I think if backspacer had come out in 08 and lightning bolt in 2010, it would be easier to forgive these albums as fun throwaways. but currently these albums represent a third of the bands lifespan, more if you include self titled which is arguably the worst to sit though as a listening experience. Lightning bolt is worse than backspacer cause it kind of tried to fix the lightness of backspacer but it still sucked anyway.

Do you think Ed's feet are as fucked up as Steven Tyler's