Backspacer - Rolling Stone Review

TallGuyCM

Some of the sentiments of Rob Sheffield's review in the newest Rolling Stone I agree with, but for the most part he sounds like a typical journalist that has next to no familiarity with the band and its back catalog aside from the radio hits and it shows. It sounds like Eddie's gone surfing? Really? I mean, come on, their "fiercest album yet?" Really? Aside from the first 3 songs and Supersonic, as a whole this might be Pearl Jam's least fierce album. It has nowhere near the "fierceness" of say Vs. or Vitalogy. And I'm glad, the album is perfect the way it is.

Here's the review, see for yourself:

Have you caught that Pearl Jam MTV Unplugged gig on VH1 Classic lately? The 1992 set has Eddie Vedder jumping around, fluttering his rock-star eyelashes, scrawling the words "PRO CHOICE" on his arm, as the boys in the band flip their hair like hippie-chick hitchhikers trying to flag down a Camaro. "Jeremy" or no "Jeremy," these were guys who wanted to have fun.

Backspacer, Pearl Jam's ninth album, backspaces to that boyish spirit, with the shortest, tightest, punkiest tunes they've ever banged out. The whole album is done and dusted in 37 minutes, a record for these guys. Unlike your average long-running rock band, Pearl Jam started off specializing in slow, ruminative, rope-a-dope ballads and didn't have any instinctive knack for playing it fast or loud. On their early records, punk nuggets like "Spin the Black Circle" were just filler, and you sat through them because you were waiting for the next awesomely slack-jawed torch song á la "Black" or "Daughter." But Backspacer comes out swinging with "Gonna See My Friend," "Got Some" and "The Fixer" — a nine-minute trio of gut-punchers that get the momentum rushing like no other Pearl Jam album openers ever.

Brendan O'Brien is producing the band for the first time since Yield, the 1998 gem that defines the parameters of the mature Pearl Jam the way Ten defines their frantic early days. Like Yield, this revs the tempo while adding classic-rock texture to the punk rush, with layers of Thin Lizzy twin-guitar raunch going on down below. The pile-driving solos that spin out of control at the end of "Got Some" could be nicked from the Stooges in "Gimme Danger" — but the Seventies-flavored cowbell-boogie charges ahead way too fast for anything to feel quaint.

Eddie Vedder's heart-on-fire vocals are the main attraction, as always. He seems relieved not to have to go on singing about George Bush, and he loosens up enough to share his guarded optimism in the new songs. There's a definite positivity to the "yeah, yeah, yeah" choruses that jump out of "The Fixer," which evoke the old openhearted vulnerability of "Wishlist." "If something's old, I wanna put a bit of shine on it," Vedder growls. "When something's gone, I wanna fight to get it back again." And the rugged acoustic ballads Vedder did on the Into the Wild soundtrack carry over into "Just Breathe," a love song that deserves to become Pearl Jam's wedding-song standard.

The songs seem to mess around with a loose theme of addiction and recovery. "Got Some" (with Vedder chanting, "Got some if you need it") could be a dealer's invitation, while "Speed of Sound" is the flip side, a late-night barroom lament from a guy who mourns that "Every time I get me some/It gets the best of me." But the downbeat songs on Backspacer don't get too grim — even the desperate drunk who narrates "Speed of Sound" ends up looking forward to a chance to start fresh tomorrow. Fans of Pearl Jam's chest-beating angst mode might look for some metaphorical resonance in "Amongst the Waves." Yet the more you listen, the more it just sounds like Vedder's spending a nice day surfing. After toughing out the Bush years, Pearl Jam aren't in the mood for brooding; at long last, surf's up.

slightofjeff

I kind of think he's totally misinterpreting Speed of Sound. But maybe I'm the one misinterpreting it.

Lyrically, I think it rekindles the spirit of Sleight of Hand ... a song about life changing so fast, at the speed of sound, before you ever knew what hit you.

I don't think the end of the song is so optimistic. I think the narrator realizes at the end that life has completely passed him by.

TallGuyCM

Yeah, and I definitely don't see the themes of addiction and recovery being presented here either. I hate it when one of the biggest music publications in the country makes me feel like I could do a better job writing an article than the so-called music journalist did.

DH62179

Right, 'Fastest, Fiercest album yet'?..I don't see that, unless by fast he means short and I definitely wouldn't call it fierce, unless I'm misinterpreting his meaning. It is pretty damn good though, getting better with each listen and I am discovering things every time through

broloco

he mentions "these were guys who wanted to have fun", which struck me as a bit odd. I dunno about you, but the word "fun" isn't what i think of when I think of PJ. cretainly not when they first started out...

loveboatcaptian

Rolling Stone has gone to shit..

ACCBootlegGoddess

Thanks for posting that article.

What is it with music critics comparing every album to Ten????? and assuming that we fans are LOOKING for another Ten?????
I don't see Got Some as a song about drugs!! For the record I never wanted another Ten (even though that's one of my fave albums). I wanted something more along the lines of Yield and I think that's what we got.
Fuck Rolling Stone! I'm happy with this album so far. FINALLY something not that's not 90% political.

slightofjeff

ACCBootlegGoddess wrote:

Thanks for posting that article.

What is it with music critics comparing every album to Ten????? and assuming that we fans are LOOKING for another Ten?????
I don't see Got Some as a song about drugs!! For the record I never wanted another Ten (even though that's one of my fave albums). I wanted something more along the lines of Yield and I think that's what we got.
Fuck Rolling Stone! I'm happy with this album so far. FINALLY something not that's not 90% political.

Yeah, Got Some's got nothing to do with drugs.

SweetAndLow

Not a word in that review about perhaps the greatest song on that album (conceptually and complexity wise)?????

To be fair, I believe Sheffield called it the 'fiercest album' since Bush became president, and that's a fair assessment, in my opinion.

That would be Thought Unknown.

SweetAndLow

oops.

rival.

he considers STBC filler??? errrrrrrr?

SweetAndLow

Yeah, I wonder if the assclown knows that STBC won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance, only Grammy they've ever won.

PJammer4life

poorly written review from any mag let alone rollling stone...writers these days.....

Fahka

PJammer4life wrote:

poorly written review from any mag let alone rollling stone...writers these days.....

seems like rolling stone manages to find the cuntiest of them all.

TallGuyCM

Glad I wasn't the only one who thought the review was shit.

SweetAndLow

So I agree with the review other than the STBC dig. Not that the band doesn't have fun playing, but this album SOUNDS like the most fun since Yield.