Anyone else here NEVER reach for "Avocado"?

youngster

I think Avocado is WAY better than Binaural. I don't get why people love Binaural so much.

restlesssoul

cropduster82 wrote:

I think Avocado is WAY better than Binaural. I don't get why people love Binaural so much.

beacause it is a beautiful cohesive album with thought provoking songs. my fav album. and its dark.

NewDamage

restlesssoul wrote:

beacause it is a beautiful cohesive album with thought provoking songs

agreed

Gmoney

restlesssoul wrote:

beacause it is a beautiful cohesive album with thought provoking songs. my fav album. and its dark.

well said. If it weren't for yield it would be pj's greatest by far...

Back_Pedal

restlesssoul wrote:

beacause it is a beautiful cohesive album with thought provoking songs. my fav album. and its dark.

Yup...can't really disagree with this. The packaging alone is worth buying it for.

youngster

restlesssoul wrote:

beacause it is a beautiful cohesive album with thought provoking songs. my fav album. and its dark.

Don't get me wrong, I like some songs on Binaural. I just think it's their least listenable album to me at least. My fav album is VS so I guess Binaural is just so different than all the others. It's like the songs are just different than what I'm used to hearing. Light Years is probably the only song I actually love on Binaural. The rest are okay, just not great to me.

Music For Rhinos

cropduster82 wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I like some songs on Binaural. I just think it's their least listenable album to me at least. My fav album is VS so I guess Binaural is just so different than all the others. It's like the songs are just different than what I'm used to hearing. Light Years is probably the only song I actually love on Binaural. The rest are okay, just not great to me.

Nothing As It Seems, Insignificance, Of The Girl, Grievance, Parting Ways?

I would call all of those great.

digster

I've been thinking about this recently, wondering why I reach for Avocado much less than the other albums; it's got some great songs I think (albeit some weak songs also), but so does Riot Act, which I listen to often. So what is the problem with Avocado?

I think part of it has to do with the production on the album, specifically the clipping and almost "glossy" sound of the album. For such a loud, raw rock album it sounds like it has an awful amount of gloss over it. It sounds like it was made for rock radio circa 2008, and while I don't think PJ should ever sacrifice the quality of a song to make it less popular, I also don't think they should sacrifice the quality of a song to make it sound like everything else. Riot Act, Binaural, Yield on back all have very evocative, warm production; even on Vitalogy and No Code, when they engage a bit more heavily in studio experimentation, it never loses it's warm feeling. On Avocado, they just push it all into the red.

In regards to the songwriting, I think my main problem with most of the songs on the album are not that they're bad, but that it feels like the whole thing is treading water most of the time. Riot Act didn't have this problem; there were definitely weaknesses in the songwriting on that album, but most of the time you could hear the band pushing and pulling at their sound, tearing it apart, putting it back together, making something fresh. Avocado, for the most part, sounds like they sat down and said "let's make a loud rock album" I definitely gravitated towards it at first "Yeah, Pearl Jam's got an awesome rock album again!" but the songs didn't stay with me. They sounded forced; PJ didn't make the songs they made in the early 90s to fit into a sound, but they were expressing themselves through their music. Similarly the sound of Binaural and Riot Act was created as an expression of their musical muses. Avocado sounds, to my ears, a bit more calculated and spit-shined; "let's go make a rip-roaring rock album like we used to", except the thing is that they're not the band they used to be. This is why I think the finest moments of Avocado are the ones that sound most natural, that to me sound like they took what they had embarked upon on their last few albums and expanded what it could mean. For me, I'm thinking of WWS, Parachutes, and Unemployable. They're not perfect songs, but I think they're emblematic of the adventerous and crowd-pleasing direction I wish PJ had gone with the album.

It's funny, because R.E.M.'s Accelerate came out this year, and the two albums are almost parallel; they were marketed in a similar manner (Pearl Jam/R.E.M. rocks again!) and even have similar problems with production (i.e. digital clipping). But I think Accelerate's stronger, and I wonder why. I think it may be because I think the songs are stronger, but I think it's also that REM didn't simply look backwards for inspiration. They wanted to make a loud album but didn't set out to concisiously (or unconciously) reiterate their earlier work. I think that's the way that PJ can still make a great rock record this far into their careers.

youngster

Music For Rhinos wrote:

Nothing As It Seems, Insignificance, Of The Girl, Grievance, Parting Ways?

I would call all of those great.

Someone said it on here before and I agree. Ed's voice doesn't seem to have much passion on Binaural like on other albums. It almost sounds like he's phoning it in on this album. Like he's being forced to be there. He's almost mumbling the words to some songs where as he hits pitch in many others. (In Hiding, Alive, Release, Dissident, etc) That's my only bitch. Not a lot of emotion.

Gmoney

digster wrote:

I've been thinking about this recently, wondering why I reach for Avocado much less than the other albums; it's got some great songs I think (albeit some weak songs also), but so does Riot Act, which I listen to often. So what is the problem with Avocado?

I think part of it has to do with the production on the album, specifically the clipping and almost "glossy" sound of the album. For such a loud, raw rock album it sounds like it has an awful amount of gloss over it. It sounds like it was made for rock radio circa 2008, and while I don't think PJ should ever sacrifice the quality of a song to make it less popular, I also don't think they should sacrifice the quality of a song to make it sound like everything else. Riot Act, Binaural, Yield on back all have very evocative, warm production; even on Vitalogy and No Code, when they engage a bit more heavily in studio experimentation, it never loses it's warm feeling. On Avocado, they just push it all into the red.

In regards to the songwriting, I think my main problem with most of the songs on the album are not that they're bad, but that it feels like the whole thing is treading water most of the time. Riot Act didn't have this problem; there were definitely weaknesses in the songwriting on that album, but most of the time you could hear the band pushing and pulling at their sound, tearing it apart, putting it back together, making something fresh. Avocado, for the most part, sounds like they sat down and said "let's make a loud rock album" I definitely gravitated towards it at first "Yeah, Pearl Jam's got an awesome rock album again!" but the songs didn't stay with me. They sounded forced; PJ didn't make the songs they made in the early 90s to fit into a sound, but they were expressing themselves through their music. Similarly the sound of Binaural and Riot Act was created as an expression of their musical muses. Avocado sounds, to my ears, a bit more calculated and spit-shined; "let's go make a rip-roaring rock album like we used to", except the thing is that they're not the band they used to be. This is why I think the finest moments of Avocado are the ones that sound most natural, that to me sound like they took what they had embarked upon on their last few albums and expanded what it could mean. For me, I'm thinking of WWS, Parachutes, and Unemployable. They're not perfect songs, but I think they're emblematic of the adventerous and crowd-pleasing direction I wish PJ had gone with the album.

It's funny, because R.E.M.'s Accelerate came out this year, and the two albums are almost parallel; they were marketed in a similar manner (Pearl Jam/R.E.M. rocks again!) and even have similar problems with production (i.e. digital clipping). But I think Accelerate's stronger, and I wonder why. I think it may be because I think the songs are stronger, but I think it's also that REM didn't simply look backwards for inspiration. They wanted to make a loud album but didn't set out to concisiously (or unconciously) reiterate their earlier work. I think that's the way that PJ can still make a great rock record this far into their careers.

Well said. I agree 100%.