All the talk about the new album and what people want from Pearl Jam made me wonder how much how you got to know Pearl Jam influenced your opinion and your taste regarding Pearl Jams music. For many reviewers Pearl Jams definite best period is always 1991-1994 and here we have many fans of the middle period as well.
I got to know Pearl Jam in a pretty uncommon way. My first contact was downloading random Pearl Jam songs from Kazaa in 2002/2003 when I was 13 when someone on a forum talked about how great they are. Coming from germany, I actually never heard of them before. I didn't even know their biggest hits as they're very rarely played on the radio here. Pretty much no one else around me listened to them or knew about them which is probably pretty different to the U.S. My journey into Pearl Jam fandom was almost completely uninfluenced. After downloading some songs (I think it was Porch and Better Man) I just started to buy Pearl Jam records whenever I saw one in a record store. I had no idea which ones were the good/popular ones.
Due to this, Lost Dogs was just as influential in my Pearl Jam journey as Ten was and I never held a notion about how Pearl Jam SHOULD sound. I got to know Riot Act around the same time as I got to know Vs. Twenty years later I know all of the history and which albums are held in which regard, but I think about Pearl Jam completely differently than how they are talked about when reading reviews for example. To me, No Code or Riot Act are not experimental middle era Pearl Jam but just Pearl Jam how I got to know them from the beginning. There were already eight albums including Lost Dogs for me to discover at the same time at pretty influential teenage years. Undone is quintessential Pearl Jam to me just as Porch is.

I think this is why I'm always a bit weirded out when there is talk about Pearl Jam returning to form or Pearl Jam focusing on what they do best. Not intellectually weirded out, as I now know Pearl Jams story, but more emotionally as that is not my Pearl Jam story.

Thing that is probably not unique: I was then an annoying teenager convinced Pearl Jam is the best band in the world and letting people know about my opinion too much

Thing that is probably not unique: I was then an annoying teenager convinced Pearl Jam is the best band in the world and letting people know about my opinion too much

All the talk about the new album and what people want from Pearl Jam made me wonder how much how you got to know Pearl Jam influenced your opinion and your taste regarding Pearl Jams music. For many reviewers Pearl Jams definite best period is always 1991-1994 and here we have many fans of the middle period as well.
I got to know Pearl Jam in a pretty uncommon way. My first contact was downloading random Pearl Jam songs from Kazaa in 2002/2003 when I was 13 when someone on a forum talked about how great they are. Coming from germany, I actually never heard of them before. I didn't even know their biggest hits as they're very rarely played on the radio here. Pretty much no one else around me listened to them or knew about them which is probably pretty different to the U.S. My journey into Pearl Jam fandom was almost completely uninfluenced. After downloading some songs (I think it was Porch and Better Man) I just started to buy Pearl Jam records whenever I saw one in a record store. I had no idea which ones were the good/popular ones.
Due to this, Lost Dogs was just as influential in my Pearl Jam journey as Ten was and I never held a notion about how Pearl Jam SHOULD sound. I got to know Riot Act around the same time as I got to know Vs. Twenty years later I know all of the history and which albums are held in which regard, but I think about Pearl Jam completely differently than how they are talked about when reading reviews for example. To me, No Code or Riot Act are not experimental middle era Pearl Jam but just Pearl Jam how I got to know them from the beginning. There were already eight albums including Lost Dogs for me to discover at the same time at pretty influential teenage years. Undone is quintessential Pearl Jam to me just as Porch is.

I think this is why I'm always a bit weirded out when there is talk about Pearl Jam returning to form or Pearl Jam focusing on what they do best. Not intellectually weirded out, as I now know Pearl Jams story, but more emotionally as that is not my Pearl Jam story.

Stip trying so hard to get someone else to rank Backspacer and lightning bolt higher than Binaural and Riot Act

I have to disappoint

PHEW!

I like ST quite a bit more that Gigaton

PHEW!

I remember all my PJ album purchases

1) Rode by bike to the record store after saving enough money from mowing the lawn. Went to specifically get Ten bc of Jeremy
2) Stumbled across VS in the used cd store. I had no idea there was a new album out, it had probably been out for at least a year. Got it for $5, which was perfect for a 13 year old.
3) Got Vitalogy from my brother for my birthday
4) Skipped school to be at the record store when it opened to get No Code
5) Yield was the same. Skipped school to be there when it opened at 10.
6) Bought Binaural at a midnight sale at Virgin Megastore while living in Orlando. I had the vinyl and cd. A Britney Spears album was released at the same time, and of the 20 people in line to buy albums, 19 were getting Britney Spears (I worked at Disney at the time and this was at the Disney Virgin Megastore)
7) Riot Act was purchased after class one day in college. I had to drive to the next town bc the store in the college town was so bad they weren't getting it for another week
8) Avocado was bought at Other Music in NYC. I felt so uncool.
9) Backspacer from Easy Street in Seattle when they opened. There was a line.
10) Lightning Bolt was the same...Rode my bike to Easy Street for a midnight release and listening party. Tim Bierman was there acting cooler than school. I got some schwag that's still on my desk covered in dust.

So from Ten to Lightning Bolt, I tend to ride bikes to get my PJ albums.