Pearl Jam's new album ”Dark Matter” ! Single out!

dwjmu84 said:

BF25394 said:

dwjmu84 said:

Looks like an astronomer who works, in some way, with JWST was in attendance. She’s a die hard PJ fan, but I’m wondering if maybe she contributed art/photos given the album title. Mike is following her on X. If there is some link here, and there are JWST photos in the album artwork, I will literally reach orgasm. This will marry two of my favorite hobbies. My wife keeps photos of us as her phone background, I use photos from JWST! 

All of those photos are made available to the public by NASA, so anyone can use them. The photos from Binaural were the same deal.

Artwork for "dark matter" would be interesting because it's not visible and doesn't seem to interact with "ordinary" matter. We can only detect it indirectly and because our equations don't make sense if it's not there.

As mentioned in the other thread, Josh suggested the title Eclipse for the album, so astronomy is definitely on their minds. (Of course, "dark matter" as used in the song could just be a metaphor and not literally about the mysterious substance.)

Yes - it’s nice that NASA posts some of the best shots from JWST, many of which are in the infrared portion of the spectrum (this is how you see through gas, etc in the universe). 

Of course we can’t see dark matter (which is only theorized by the way), but it is thought to be a key component of the lambda cold dark matter theory of the universe’s expansion post big bang. 

In any event, I love the title and hope there’s some cool artwork involved. 

Yes, but "theory" in this context means the best explanation given all the available evidence. If dark matter didn't exist, galaxies would fly apart upon rotation (h/t Vera Rubin). So it's a theory in the same sense that gravity is a theory. Something is affecting visible matter and causing it to cohere, and something is pulling us down toward the center of the earth.

Sorry, I know you understand this, but I always shudder when I hear "it's only a theory" because people say this to deny evolution without understanding that evolution being a "theory" doesn't mean it's some off-the-cuff idea. It's a well-established, well-substantiated body of knowledge supported by all of the available evidence.

Spunkie said:

^New stuff sounds like best ever :rofl:

Do you dare disagree with Ed Vedder? 

The Juggler said:

Spunkie said:

^New stuff sounds like best ever :rofl:

Do you dare disagree with Ed Vedder? 

That was truly a juxtaposed statement given that his comment was taken within the context of hearing only the back alley recording.

If I recall correctly, disagreeing with Ed is how Brother made the cut.

^^ 😀 I love the enthusiasm. Glad you could sleep, it's Christmastime :rock_on:

Seriously… the waiting.

They still know how to build the anticipation, lol…

Well, I did not have Taylor Swift dropping new album info before Pearl Jam on my Bingo card. It turns out she was plotting something.

God damn, she is prolific. If these albums come out on the same day, I might not leave the house for a month.

igotid88 said:

For a chance for them to possibly get a number 1 album it will have to be released on 4/12 or before. That would be a number 1 in 4 different decades

They will be extremely hard-pressed to get a number one album on the Billboard 200 because the formula overweights streaming, and they no longer sell enough albums to overcome that, unless they get lucky in a particular week. But, yes, come out April 19 or for several weeks after that, and they will have no shot. (I don't think they particularly care about this, of course.)

To put it in context, this week's number one album is Morgan Wallen's latest (which is anything but new-- it's in its 18th nonconsecutive week at number one. He is credited with 66,000 equivalent units, of which only 1,500 are actual album sales. Gigaton sold 57,000 in its first week and had 6,000 in streaming equivalents, for a total of 63,000, which landed it at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. Expect the new album to sell fewer copies than Gigaton. (Yes, despite the fact that Gigaton came out at the beginning of the pandemic.)

Another piece of context: Green Day's new album just sold 39,000 copies in its first week. That was 39 times more sales than 21 Savage's album, but 21 Savage was No. 1 and Green Day was No. 4 because 21 Savage had a lot more streams.

There are also new albums by Ariana Grande and Justin Timberlake due out in March. Those will be probably still be racking up streams in early April, so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

BF25394 said:

dwjmu84 said:

Looks like an astronomer who works, in some way, with JWST was in attendance. She’s a die hard PJ fan, but I’m wondering if maybe she contributed art/photos given the album title. Mike is following her on X. If there is some link here, and there are JWST photos in the album artwork, I will literally reach orgasm. This will marry two of my favorite hobbies. My wife keeps photos of us as her phone background, I use photos from JWST! 

All of those photos are made available to the public by NASA, so anyone can use them. The photos from Binaural were the same deal.

Artwork for "dark matter" would be interesting because it's not visible and doesn't seem to interact with "ordinary" matter. We can only detect it indirectly and because our equations don't make sense if it's not there.

As mentioned in the other thread, Josh suggested the title Eclipse for the album, so astronomy is definitely on their minds. (Of course, "dark matter" as used in the song could just be a metaphor and not literally about the mysterious substance.)

It will be their "black album".