Farmer John nailed it above, I think. Lyrically, the album can be seen as a reaction to some of the stuff that got brought up in Riot Act, but musically it absolutely foreshadows what they'd be doing for the next part of their career. Stuff like Parachutes, WWS and Unemployable have a type of sheen and a willingness to go for the 'typical' pop trope that they would do more of on Backspacer (which is interesting, as I definitely like the S/T group of songs better. Maybe the tension of bridging that musical gap actually strengthens the songs).

Interesting. I think I'd go Ten - S/T, if I was gonna go this route.

backspacer really closes out the journey that starts on Ten, though.

To my ears, the depth of the songwriting and guitar arrangements on S/T mean it shares much more in common with Binaural and Riot Act that it does Backspacer and Lightning Bolt, both of which seem dramatically more streamlined and simplified.

Yup, but with some the poppyness of the latter albums.

i listened to that last podcast first, and it was interesting to hear the guy who wrote PJ 20 describe how the band treated the deluxe releases as a fan obligation

I've heard the Ten and VS episodes now. Feel like there is nothing new, mostly them talking about how they and the world reacted to the albums, how they love various songs on VS, and how to pronounce the names of Jeff and Dave A.

So far:

1. No Code episode (great listening to people talking about No Code with the respect it deserves). Disagree about Mankind though. It's a cool song.
2. Binaural/Riot Act (very cool guest, good episode)
3. S/T/Backspacer/Lightning Bolt (very interesting)
4. Ten episode (interesting interview)
5. Vitalogy episode (although the guest was so so)
6. Yield Episode (very good intro, but rambling at the end)
7. VS episode (cool guest, but the episode had little focus)

thought he said the Ten reissue was the final release they needed to do to fulfill their Sony/Epic contract?

He did - more that the rerelease, deluxe editions were projects the band thought fans wanted rather than something they were passionate about

I just finished the last one, i might listen to it again...i liked the discussion about ST, and i agree its an album with heavy matters, death, life, war...they are all the basic theme of the album.

Finished this now. Some interesting episodes. Most of it is like a good RM discussion, with some cool inside info along the way in the best episodes.

I am very late to this podcast but I just finished the Ten episode. 3 thoughts

1. Insightful point about why the distinctions between genres felt large when rock was big, given its relative lack of cultural significance right now the distance between AC/DC and Fugazi is much smaller than it seems, and that PJ occupies a way point between so many of those different bands

2. That the Jeremy video was an early part of a cultural reframing where we were expected to identify with the nerd/outcast rather than the person who might have picked on them

3. I haven't watched the Jeremy video in many years and did after listening to this. It's still really powerful

Things have changed so much. There used to be all those turf wears within the broader "rock" genre. Christ, Pearl Jam and Nirvana was considered a draw a line in the sand rivalry. I think kids today would be baffled by that.

Honestly, it baffled me when I first became a fan. I once had a friend tell me that Nirvana was Coke and Pearl Jam was Pepsi.


I still need to listen to these podcasts. I'll probably listen to them in reverse order.

I've finally caught up on this, with only the Binaural episode to go. It's pretty interesting, and the conclusion of the Yield episode involves a discussion about Brendan O'Brien's relationship with the band in the 90s that certainly offers some good context as to why he might not be as good a fit for them now. The overall discussion is probably nothing that hasn't been said here, but the notion of O'Brien's natural inclination to always make things bigger and arena-rock ready was much more interesting when paired with a band that was wary of delving too far into those kinds of songs.

I would have liked to have seen more of a range when fans came into the fold; pretty much everyone interviewed has been someone who was a pre-teen or teenager and got hooked at Ten and Vs. The show does a good job at really representing on an individual how massive PJ was around the Vs. period (and also why there was no way that could continue), but I think every interviewee so far has had a bit of a blind spot of contextualizing every single thing on every record in regards to Eddie/PJ's battle with fame. No doubt that's important, but the speakers seem to find it impossible to view the album catalog outside of that context. I think fans who came onboard at a different time might actually have a clearer perspective on what those records may be saying outside of PJ's bout with superstardom.

I realized that last post was completely reiterating things that were said a year ago, but I finally finished this. The best episode by far was Binaural/Riot Act, due entirely to the guest. She was fantastic, knowledgeable and challenged the host on several of his assertions, which made for a more interesting conversation than some of the others. It was a good podcast series, but more guests like her would have made it even better.

Totally agree.

It’s strange that the recent Springsteen series had a lot of young artists and no one who experienced the albums as they were released. The exact opposite of the PJ series. Both have pros and cons.

The lineup for the Springsteen ones are great; it would have been nice to see a few more musicians/artists on the PJ shows. I'm particularly interested in Julien Baker talking about Darkness, Pheobe Bridgers on Nebraska and Patterson Hood walking through BITUSA.