At the fear of getting sucked into an endless back-and-forth on this, I'll make my response brief: of course the reasons people provide are subjective, everyone's appreciation or lack thereof for Pearl Jam is subjective. And saying that songs from Backspacer or Lightning Bolt would be better received were they performed or produced like the band's earlier material is both engaging in a pointless hypothetical and a different argument than you made earlier (which was the quality of the songs themselves was no better nor worse)

What i said earlier was that the songs at their core weren't better or worse.

I didn't talk about production and performances but compositions and arrangements which can vary considerably for the same song.

They're definitely worse.

Where do I begin?

You really think the songs on Backspacer or Lightning Bolt are, production aside, just as good as those on Vitalogy or No Code or even Binaural?

I think you're nuts.


When talking about a studio recording, I don't think those things are necessarily easily divisible.

To be fair, there was good precedent for thinking Brendan returning would be a good thing. I still think he produced their two best-sounding albums (No Code and Yield). No one really anticipated the road he'd lead them down (or would be complicit in helping them down).

Just lighten the fuck up.

Regardless of the process itself you can at least roughly differentiate between the skeleton of the song, the arrangement and the production. You can separate the melody, structure, lyrics, a riff, chord progressions (none of which changed drastically on the last 3 records) from the arrangement in detail. Performances and production aren't even particularly relevant here.
It's especially pertinent with Pearl Jam because they describe their process as there being a point when they do a rough version of the songs that they further work on.
It's why people have different opinions about the demo version of Speed Of Sound and the album version. And it's not because of the production, the strength of the song or the performances. It's the arrangement the band gave it that makes for the biggest difference.
Another example of what i'm talking about is Unthought Known a song that needed an arrangement that elevated the build up that is written in the song. But instead of doing that, like they did on In My Tree with the layered arrangement, it "builds" to the piano solo which sounds as if the song crashed into itself when it should have expanded sonically.
When some of them say they wished they could have written better parts for the No Code songs when promoting Lightning Bolt, what they mean is they wish No Code sounded more like the last 2 records do basically. This to me is the main limiting factor because this particular approach they are so fond of very rarely works for them.
What was probably the approach that works best for them is Binaural, another difficult record, which was the closest of each of them doing whatever they pleased with minimum cooperation.

And i've had enough of people here being assholes and insulting me for having opinions that differ from theirs, especially when it's about such trivial topics as Pearl Jam and bloody Lady Gaga.
It's ridiculous how the same discerning listeners with superior understanding of everything pertaining music that were ecstatic at the news Brendan O'Brien was again producing a record with them, started blaming for him for everything that is wrong with the band right after Backspacer was released. Before Backspacer came out it was outrageous to suggest O'Brien may not have been that influential on the 4 records he did with them in the 90's because for the geniuses here it was obvious his influence was essential. Not the only time the connoisseurs were full of shit either
No wonder so many people left the forum or barely post if every time one tries to say something you get attacked because, for some reason, it's terrible to have a differing opinion or just try to discuss something on a fucking forum.
I don't give a shit what people think of my posts but at least i've never insulted or been a jerk to anybody even when some of you were being jerks to me.

.

What was in the original version of this post? Tell the truth now

I was on my phone and meant to edit but instead created a new post.

And I'm pretty sure all of us who were excited to have him back, and credited him for their past success, were pretty reasonable and admitted we were wrong. It wasn't a random inconsistency of opinion, it was an evidence based rejection of a previous held belief.

So fuck you, mate.

Mods?

Or that's what your media relations adviser advised.