The Worst Review Ive seen for Backspacer
In an Australian Newspaper called Time Off:
PEARL JAM
Backspacer
(Monkeywrench/Universal)
Pearl Jam – hard-rock, radio-friendly baby-boomers of that distant memory called grunge who won’t relinquish their power over the masses, won’t go away but forever sit on our radio dials, atop of somebody’s sales chart and hidden amongst shuffled playlists.
A band that’s clearly long left its rebellious youth behind, paid its debt to the man and is happily settling into middle age is exactly the kind of band that’s going to make music this unfettered. Beyond the awful, animated surrealism of its cover art, this famous five-piece are making some of the highest quality, impeccably distilled… middle of the road rock music around today.
Opening with an initial spate of tracks inundated in medicinal references, it’s not until a song about a wily girlfriend-stealing guitar player named Johnny that Vedder starts to make any sense whatsoever. Everyone gets a moment in the sun – Mike McCready’s bloated classic-rock guitar soloing in ‘Amongst The Waves’ flies the flag at half-mast to the band’s ability to be anything original. ‘Unthought Known’ blips on the radar screen, a brief spark of something interesting, or maybe just a distant memory of Vitalogy or No Code bubbling to the surface.
Making rock that’s so at ease with life is probably good for some bands, but barroom blues-rock jams like ‘Supersonic’ easily leave you craving some meat to bite into, some blood to swell through the limp sinew… but alas. Pearl Jam are part of the fraternity, and the fraternity love this album. In the fresh-frozen age of mediocrity, this is a band describing the marvels of nature in the language of economics! The craziness of life and the wonders of love are all wrapped up in these 37 minutes of music, but there’s no heat in these flames, only colours that might as well be painted on by rich blind men.
PEARL JAM
Backspacer
(Monkeywrench/Universal)
Pearl Jam – hard-rock, radio-friendly baby-boomers of that distant memory called grunge who won’t relinquish their power over the masses, won’t go away but forever sit on our radio dials, atop of somebody’s sales chart and hidden amongst shuffled playlists.
A band that’s clearly long left its rebellious youth behind, paid its debt to the man and is happily settling into middle age is exactly the kind of band that’s going to make music this unfettered. Beyond the awful, animated surrealism of its cover art, this famous five-piece are making some of the highest quality, impeccably distilled… middle of the road rock music around today.
Opening with an initial spate of tracks inundated in medicinal references, it’s not until a song about a wily girlfriend-stealing guitar player named Johnny that Vedder starts to make any sense whatsoever. Everyone gets a moment in the sun – Mike McCready’s bloated classic-rock guitar soloing in ‘Amongst The Waves’ flies the flag at half-mast to the band’s ability to be anything original. ‘Unthought Known’ blips on the radar screen, a brief spark of something interesting, or maybe just a distant memory of Vitalogy or No Code bubbling to the surface.
Making rock that’s so at ease with life is probably good for some bands, but barroom blues-rock jams like ‘Supersonic’ easily leave you craving some meat to bite into, some blood to swell through the limp sinew… but alas. Pearl Jam are part of the fraternity, and the fraternity love this album. In the fresh-frozen age of mediocrity, this is a band describing the marvels of nature in the language of economics! The craziness of life and the wonders of love are all wrapped up in these 37 minutes of music, but there’s no heat in these flames, only colours that might as well be painted on by rich blind men.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
Not everyone has to love pearl Jam or Backspacer.
i would say the reviewer has not listened to them since vitalogy so :roll:
I wave to all my Friends... Yeah!
I'll ride the wave where it takes me...
There is nothing great or awesome about this record. I said it before in
my "realistic review of Backspacer" post, .....there are no songs that
will stand the test of time on this album. Maybe Unthought known or against
the waves, but that's it.