Announcing...

Goal for the summer:

Listen to a lot more R.E.M.

I Will Not Lose My Faith

Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam

J; 2006

-----

A lot of people seem really excited about this album, and for some reason I'm not totally convinced. I've been in and out of a Pearl Jam phase for almost a year now. I like Pearl Jam, and I have the strange advantage of having approached all of their previous music all at once.

So one thing that people seem to love about this album is that it returns to the days of Ten. But it really doesn't. I mean, the first five tracks or so rock a lot harder than some of their recent music but this album has almost no other similarities to their earlier stuff. It's too raw and stripped down.

Somehow I'm one of the very few that thinks that Pearl Jam's softer, more reflective, and stripped down music is the best. Vedder is seriously better at mumbling along to softer music than he is using his trademark mush-mouth screaming. This album somehow matches this, too, as the second half really slows down and broadens out.

So I like it because it's got both the harder rocking and the softer ballads. But somehow to me it doesn't seem classic enough. I don't know what I feel it's lacking - and perhaps I'll connect it more to the flow of Pearl Jam's music over time the more and more I hear it.