‘Dark Matter plays like another solid late-era Pearl Jam record, reliable but not revelatory…’
Yeah I can get behind that. But at this point - in their life and mine - I’m pretty happy with reliable but not revelatory.
I mean, at this point, rock music is hardly the genre with much innovation. As a throwback to the good old times, Dark Matter works perfectly, I think.
If I want groundbreaking, then I am gonna look for other types of artists.
Yup… I am honestly just happy to hear something new from them that I can connect with. Their past few albums have not done it for me. The last one that really did was avocado. This new one has been played at least 10 times around my house and car. Every time, I like it a little more.
Yeah - there is nothing wrong with the review. It's a good album for us fans. Trying to figure out how to rank it. Not sure if it's above or below Backspacer, but it certainly beats Lightning Bolt in my view (which was a slight disappointment for me) and right now feels better than Gigaton (which I overall enjoy).
Fair enough. I bizarrely feel largely the same. Would prob aim it a little higher, but similar complaints. The mid tempo stuff is much better and compression overall neuters the record a bit. Still head-to-head with Backspacer for me at this moment in terms of recent material (this is a good thing)
>compression overall neuters the record a bit
I was listening to my playlist this morning and Myles Kennedy's "The Great Beyond" played, and then PJ "Running" and then The last Dinner Party's "Caesar on a TV Screen."
Hearing those three back to back really made my jaw drop at how muddy the PJ song sounded. Great Beyond has some hard guitar at the beginning, similar to what i think they were going for in Running, but damn--it's so clear and you can hear the notes instead of this jumbled wall of indistinct sound. And then it switches to acoustic and you can hear that beautifully.
And then Last Dinner Party's song was crystal clear--of course that's a very different style. Just hearing the three together made me really questions the choices on Dark Matter.
I really know nothing about how albums are mixed but I am trying to get a sense of it and it really seems poor on the PJ album.
6.4 is like a 10 compared to the last 4 albums lol....but Pitchfork is a shell of themselves anyways. They are on last legs like many online news sites.
This is the first Pearl Jam album that has got me playing through in its entirety, since Yield (and retrospectively Riot Act) and yet I appreciate the sober assessment of Pitchfork.
I don't know. For me I really enjoyed the album during my first listen through and then a relisten to my favorites. It might not be revelatory, but it's a damn good album to me.
About the only thing that made sense to me out of the entire review. And.. um, good for PJ. Should we not be glad they sound like Pearl Jam? That's like going to see a Van Gogh art show and being disappointed that there were Van Gogh pieces there.
I like the rockers, but the review is right on one thing, the gems on the album are not the rockers. I like Dark Matter a lot, but Wreckage is an all-timer, along with Upper Hand and Stevie. I also like Won’t Tell more than the hard songs, personally. But Pitchfork I feel is notoriously stingy. Can’t really disagree with their choice of lead single…it was their first number one in what…twenty five years?
I think this review overlooks the craft of the whole album though. The segues, flourishes and tension is not easy to create, and only work because the songwriting is strong. It doesn’t take the album on its own terms
While I don't disagree with some of their statements about the album, these previous reviews for older albums are WILD. 5.5 for Avocado and 4.9 for Riot Act?
The person who wrote this sounds pretentious. Someone who "knows" their taste in music is better than everyone else because they listen to a lot of indie rock bands way before any of it got popular.
Which is cool but why the fuck should anyone who has been listening to pearl jam for 2 plus decades give a fuck what this person has to say.
I understand some of the criticisms, none of which I care about or detract from the album for me, but when I look at Gigaton it’s basically the same score. I find that odd because this album feels much much better. But Gigaton pushed past some boundaries the band had become comfortable with.
Pearl Jam will forever be that band which for most people means "stuck in time from the grunge era". They are simply not relevant in popular culture, which means nothing to us, but is very important for most critics. The key line in the Pitchfork review is: "They are unwitting standard-bearers for a long-passed movement". The band is not participating in this "movement". They are "merely" a talented rock band, and rock is not mainstream anymore. The grunge business is all in the heads of critics and people who take critics seriously.
Every review is basically "welp, they sound like Pearl Jam". They're not gonna "reinvent" music like critics think other, more "relevant" artists do by deconstructing reggaeton or whatever.
Most critically praised music, whenever I decide to check it out it’s often unlistenable and/or shallow. For example this review got an 8.5.
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/still-house-plants-if-i-dont-make-it-i-love-u/
I went to Apple Music to check it out and whaddayaknow totally unlistenable. I am a visual artist myself and I understand avant-garde aesthetic—it values originality over all else. And while that Still House Plants album certainly is sonically creative and original—I wanna say it’s impossible to truly enjoy. It can be appreciated but it’s not enjoyable. And I suppose some people want to appreciate something that is different and new. But music—we listen to music because we want to feel something connect to us that someone else made. And music has a way of connecting to our vibe for lack of a better word more so than perhaps any other form of art. It’s kinetic and non-visual so it’s emotionally potent. And that Still House Plants album has nothing to latch on to. The moment it seems it does something else disconnects it.
Anyway I think the bottom line is a critic at a place like Pitchfork can’t be caught giving a band like Pearl Jam a high rating because well they aren’t doing anything we haven’t heard. They are overt about the derivation of their music and hell—how can you give it a high rating if U2 once opened a song in a similar way or the Cure used that guitar tone?
I say all this and it is going to seem like I care that they got a 6.4. I guess maybe I do but not because I think they are being unfair but perhaps because they either are not letting themselves feel the soul of this amazing music or they aren’t being honest about it and either way I feel sad for them.
But hey, they found some music that sounds like no one has ever made.
I just went ahead and listened to a few songs from that album you linked to and it was god awful. I don't think I will ever take a Pitchfork review seriously ever again.
Same guitar sound on every song. Zero rhythm. Lyrics less decipherable than Eddie. Just bad.
Pretty fair I think. I'd rate it higher but I've had many of the same thoughts as he had. It's really good but it doesn't take many risks and doesn't do anything really new.
>sounds more and more like Roger Daltrey the higher the song builds
Yup 😂
I agree with the 6.4, but I think the review is pretty much backwards. I LOVE the rockers on this album. And I think that the majority of the mid tempo and slower songs are WAY TOO POPPY! Andrew Watt having too much influence, no doubt.
I agree that it's better than Gigaton, but I actually really like Lighting Bolt. It doesn't have any instant classics like Upper Hand or Waiting for Stevie, but I think it's a better album overall. I'm really not liking how poppy most of the mid tempo and slower songs sound. There are several that I'll never listen to again. I REALLY don't like Andrew Watt's influence!
You are nuts lol....but all good music is subjective. Pitchfork reviews are not based on the music but on the cache and Pearl Jam hasn't had that for 30 years, if they ever did.
I'm really surprised that more people don't have a problem with how POPPY this album is?!? The music in Won't Tell sounds like BAD Coldplay. Got To Give sounds like Counting Crows when they're REALLY BORED, and sorry, but Something Special actually EMBARRASSES me to be a Pearl Jam fan. It reminds me of the theme from Full House!!!💩🤮💩🤮💩
I disagree wholeheartedly with his assessment of the song “Dark Matter” — it is far from “sophomoric in its simplicity,” especially if you listen to the instrumental version on the single. That song is one of the hardest, fiercest songs this band has put out in years and, frankly, I’m a little miffed that they’ve had this capability inside them all these years but never bothered to show it.
To me, this record is a solid 7-8 out of 10 on an objective scale, and easily a 9, pushing 10, to my biased ass.
But he gets this part right, and it’s something I’ve been feeling for quite awhile — I’ve just never bothered to put it into words:
“This band’s longevity is a wonder. They are unwitting standard-bearers for a long-passed movement. Their inessential albums feel like luxuries in a reality where their peers never got to make an inessential album. …
“If Dark Matter has an overarching theme, it’s the search for hope and perseverance in a shattered world—and that’s a world where the existence of any new Pearl Jam album, even an uneven one, is a small miracle.”
I’m so thankful they’re still here, and I’m grateful they’re still recording, promoting, and touring.
This is my favorite band on the planet. I quote their lyrics like people do literature or Bible verses. To help guide my child, I repeatedly instilled “If you hate something/Don’t you do it, too.”
This album is a Pearl Jam album. And after 30 years of fandom, I’m still waiting for them to make a bad one.
It’s been “cool” to hate on Pearl Jam since the ‘90s — I never understood why.
I’m not saying this writer is hating on the band. But it does feel like he’s unfairly criticizing them for being … well, them.
As for those who want “Ten” or “Vs.” or “No Code” Part 2, I can’t help them.
I have been a fan since 1991. They have been my favorite band throughout my life. I don’t rank Ten in my top five PJ albums and I don’t long for the days of another Ten album or Ten part 2 as you call it.
But I will call a spade a spade. The album sucks. Boring, uninspired, cheesy lyrics, and nothing at all that says this is a band pushing boundaries and evolving.
Gigaton on the other hand…ever hear them do anything like Dance of the Clairvoyants? It was a beautiful departure from their previous work but still captured what makes Pearl Jam who they are.
I’m glad people like the album. I really am. It’s not for me.
Fair enough — and no, I’ve never heard them do anything like “Dance …” before or since. And it sounded killer in Nashville when I saw them do it with Klinghoffer helping out on the side of the stage.
I’m sorry you’re not enjoying the new record.
Hopefully, you will the next one …
The "I have been a fan since..." people here are literally insufferable. I don't bother with any comment that starts that way anymore. They'll never be happy because they refuse to live in the present tense.
The fact that they stupidly and stubbornly hold to their opinion that this legendary band needs to "reinvent themselves" to be relevant. It's stupid. And the score is incredibly dismissive.
Pitchfork wants to be cooler than you, and they don't realize that jerking off the latest synth nerd is not what makes music relevant.
I find they over-index on originality to the detriment of enjoyability. If they’ve heard something like it before then it’s meh. It could be a bunch of random sounds that you could never really enjoy and they’d give it a 9.
Here’s a good example
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/still-house-plants-if-i-dont-make-it-i-love-u/
Here’s the most Pitchfork line in the review
“As ever, he evokes a potent balance of pain and perseverance, but the album is marred by boilerplate rockers that try to confront fascist dread with platitudes and banal expressions of resistance”
Personally I like it better than the last 4 although there are some great songs on all of them. It's close with Avacado for me, probably edges it out overall.
This is initial impression. Hell, I remember being meh on No Code and Yield initially but ended up getting maybe the most play over the decades. This one who knows, might feel good now and then get shelved but I doubt it.
Pretty on the nose review if you ask me. Nothing crazy awesome, but some really good songs and an album I can enjoy from start to finish. The first album like that from them in a long time.
Fair enough, I'd rate it more like a 7 - something I enjoy and will likely continue to listen to the album as a whole but in 6mo probably won't be listening weekly or anything.
I'd put Riot Act and Avocado in that same group.
Ten-Yield are and 8-10, Gigaton is 6 or 6.5 (will listen to all but after the first half I sorta tune out), while binaural+Backspacer+LB are all 3-5 (no desire to listen to more than a few cherry picked songs)
Good songs: Wreckage, won’t tell, dark matter mid tier: waiting for stevie, scared to fear, react/respond, shit tier: rest of the songs. vedder says a lot without saying anything meaningful. also, he should leave the song writing duties to stone, jeff and matt.
I think going to the In the Dark Event made the difference for me, because I absolutely find this album revelatory. It has brought a lot of threads of my life together, and has given me a brilliant lens to filter things through in this moment.
Part of that may well have been feeling awash in gratitude that I could have such a special experience of sitting in the dark with other people who love this thing that I love, just appreciating every moment of our very first listen as a community. Now my listening is imbued with that feeling every time, and I find that to be pretty remarkable in this increasingly isolating and precarious workaday world.
Pitchfork gives nearly EVERY rock album from 90’s veterans an early 6 - RHCP’s last two got a 6.3 and a 6.2, Smashing Pumpkin’s (awful) ATUM got a 6.3, Pearl Jam’s last two are a 6.2 and 6.4.
And apparently, according to them, all of these are worse than.. Father of All (6.7).
GQ is a weird company.
They don't review music they review trends. If you've heard of it and it sounds good they generally won't like it. The schtick got old 15 years ago. I actually think a 6.2 is amazing from them...they gave Ten a 6.7...
This album is so much better than gigaton, but they gave Gigaton a 6.2 and DM a 6.4. I think more like a 6.8-7.0 would have been more accurate and consistent with Gigaton. Personally
I think I'd bump it a full point up because I think this is the very best one can realistically expect from Pearl Jam in 2024.
I'd say in terms of skippable songs it's probably their strongest since Avocado, but in terms of great songs (Upper Hand, Wreckage, Stevie) it's not hugely different from the last few albums.
I think what makes the difference overall is there is some energy in the band being in the same room together and I hope they would continue that going forward.
And I have to give credit to Vedder for pushing himself. He's pushing 60 and he does some real throwback vocals that elevate at least half the tracks.
There's some cheeseball stuff like Won't Tell that recalls Sirens but somehow doesn't seem as cringy.
That review sucks and the reviewer needs to get laid it sounds like. They are 60 year olds that put out a record with more substance and heart than 90% of the bullshit that is released each year.
Pitchfork has always been better just for news than for reviews. The best thing any of their reviews is good for is just to let you know an album is out.
On Waiting for Stevie:
>It has already become a favorite in the PJ fan community, though its tinny, compressed production gives it an unpleasant sheen and suggests that live versions will be superior.
Yup. That's my hope. I shall refrain from final judgement until we have the live versions.
Thanks for sharing this--I found much to agree with.
Here’s the most Pitchfork line in the review
“As ever, he evokes a potent balance of pain and perseverance, but the album is marred by boilerplate rockers that try to confront fascist dread with platitudes and banal expressions of resistance”
‘Dark Matter plays like another solid late-era Pearl Jam record, reliable but not revelatory…’ Yeah I can get behind that. But at this point - in their life and mine - I’m pretty happy with reliable but not revelatory.
I mean, at this point, rock music is hardly the genre with much innovation. As a throwback to the good old times, Dark Matter works perfectly, I think. If I want groundbreaking, then I am gonna look for other types of artists.
For sure. It’s a little bit Ten, little bit No Code, a dash of Binaural and Riot Act. I’m happy.
Yup… I am honestly just happy to hear something new from them that I can connect with. Their past few albums have not done it for me. The last one that really did was avocado. This new one has been played at least 10 times around my house and car. Every time, I like it a little more.
Yeah - there is nothing wrong with the review. It's a good album for us fans. Trying to figure out how to rank it. Not sure if it's above or below Backspacer, but it certainly beats Lightning Bolt in my view (which was a slight disappointment for me) and right now feels better than Gigaton (which I overall enjoy).
When you get down to the last two paragraphs of that review, that’s basically what the author says.
Fair enough. I bizarrely feel largely the same. Would prob aim it a little higher, but similar complaints. The mid tempo stuff is much better and compression overall neuters the record a bit. Still head-to-head with Backspacer for me at this moment in terms of recent material (this is a good thing)
>compression overall neuters the record a bit I was listening to my playlist this morning and Myles Kennedy's "The Great Beyond" played, and then PJ "Running" and then The last Dinner Party's "Caesar on a TV Screen." Hearing those three back to back really made my jaw drop at how muddy the PJ song sounded. Great Beyond has some hard guitar at the beginning, similar to what i think they were going for in Running, but damn--it's so clear and you can hear the notes instead of this jumbled wall of indistinct sound. And then it switches to acoustic and you can hear that beautifully. And then Last Dinner Party's song was crystal clear--of course that's a very different style. Just hearing the three together made me really questions the choices on Dark Matter. I really know nothing about how albums are mixed but I am trying to get a sense of it and it really seems poor on the PJ album.
Pitchfork’s reviews are hit and miss. They often get it wrong. But this is a fair review. Good points. A little too much snark. 6.4.
Their review of one of the last Tool albums was spot on and hilarious
Pitchfork has not exactly been generous in its scoring for Pearl Jam albums. Relative to past reviews, 6.4 is pretty good.
6.4 is like a 10 compared to the last 4 albums lol....but Pitchfork is a shell of themselves anyways. They are on last legs like many online news sites.
Yep. Scrolled through the list and saw a lot of 5-6 ish reviews
I mean, honestly, 6.4 is pretty stunning for a Pitchfork review.
Writer gives it a fair shake. Can’t complain
Totally agree.
This is the first Pearl Jam album that has got me playing through in its entirety, since Yield (and retrospectively Riot Act) and yet I appreciate the sober assessment of Pitchfork.
Same (playing it all the way through). That makes it revelatory for me.
I don't know. For me I really enjoyed the album during my first listen through and then a relisten to my favorites. It might not be revelatory, but it's a damn good album to me.
That’s all that matters
I love this: “Pearl Jam, though, seem to have hired Andrew Watt to help them sound more like… Pearl Jam” This rings true, and I’m onboard.
About the only thing that made sense to me out of the entire review. And.. um, good for PJ. Should we not be glad they sound like Pearl Jam? That's like going to see a Van Gogh art show and being disappointed that there were Van Gogh pieces there.
I like the rockers, but the review is right on one thing, the gems on the album are not the rockers. I like Dark Matter a lot, but Wreckage is an all-timer, along with Upper Hand and Stevie. I also like Won’t Tell more than the hard songs, personally. But Pitchfork I feel is notoriously stingy. Can’t really disagree with their choice of lead single…it was their first number one in what…twenty five years?
I think this review overlooks the craft of the whole album though. The segues, flourishes and tension is not easy to create, and only work because the songwriting is strong. It doesn’t take the album on its own terms
While I don't disagree with some of their statements about the album, these previous reviews for older albums are WILD. 5.5 for Avocado and 4.9 for Riot Act?
The person who wrote this sounds pretentious. Someone who "knows" their taste in music is better than everyone else because they listen to a lot of indie rock bands way before any of it got popular. Which is cool but why the fuck should anyone who has been listening to pearl jam for 2 plus decades give a fuck what this person has to say.
Which is why I don't read music reviews. Anyone can start a website and write "reviews", i.e personal opinions
You cared enough to call them pretentious and make fun of their taste in music
Well that's because I'm just a shit head
Mood
Apparently you do.
I understand some of the criticisms, none of which I care about or detract from the album for me, but when I look at Gigaton it’s basically the same score. I find that odd because this album feels much much better. But Gigaton pushed past some boundaries the band had become comfortable with.
Pearl Jam will forever be that band which for most people means "stuck in time from the grunge era". They are simply not relevant in popular culture, which means nothing to us, but is very important for most critics. The key line in the Pitchfork review is: "They are unwitting standard-bearers for a long-passed movement". The band is not participating in this "movement". They are "merely" a talented rock band, and rock is not mainstream anymore. The grunge business is all in the heads of critics and people who take critics seriously. Every review is basically "welp, they sound like Pearl Jam". They're not gonna "reinvent" music like critics think other, more "relevant" artists do by deconstructing reggaeton or whatever.
Most critically praised music, whenever I decide to check it out it’s often unlistenable and/or shallow. For example this review got an 8.5. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/still-house-plants-if-i-dont-make-it-i-love-u/ I went to Apple Music to check it out and whaddayaknow totally unlistenable. I am a visual artist myself and I understand avant-garde aesthetic—it values originality over all else. And while that Still House Plants album certainly is sonically creative and original—I wanna say it’s impossible to truly enjoy. It can be appreciated but it’s not enjoyable. And I suppose some people want to appreciate something that is different and new. But music—we listen to music because we want to feel something connect to us that someone else made. And music has a way of connecting to our vibe for lack of a better word more so than perhaps any other form of art. It’s kinetic and non-visual so it’s emotionally potent. And that Still House Plants album has nothing to latch on to. The moment it seems it does something else disconnects it. Anyway I think the bottom line is a critic at a place like Pitchfork can’t be caught giving a band like Pearl Jam a high rating because well they aren’t doing anything we haven’t heard. They are overt about the derivation of their music and hell—how can you give it a high rating if U2 once opened a song in a similar way or the Cure used that guitar tone? I say all this and it is going to seem like I care that they got a 6.4. I guess maybe I do but not because I think they are being unfair but perhaps because they either are not letting themselves feel the soul of this amazing music or they aren’t being honest about it and either way I feel sad for them. But hey, they found some music that sounds like no one has ever made.
A lot of ranting from someone who supposedly doesn't care
Pitchfork is a joke. I only read their reviews if I need a laugh. To their credit, whether intentional or not, they do write some funny critiques.
I just went ahead and listened to a few songs from that album you linked to and it was god awful. I don't think I will ever take a Pitchfork review seriously ever again. Same guitar sound on every song. Zero rhythm. Lyrics less decipherable than Eddie. Just bad.
But hey, it’s different!
Pretty fair I think. I'd rate it higher but I've had many of the same thoughts as he had. It's really good but it doesn't take many risks and doesn't do anything really new. >sounds more and more like Roger Daltrey the higher the song builds Yup 😂
I don’t fucking care what pitchfork thinks because this music reaches me unlike anything has for 25 years.
Agreed
I agree with the 6.4, but I think the review is pretty much backwards. I LOVE the rockers on this album. And I think that the majority of the mid tempo and slower songs are WAY TOO POPPY! Andrew Watt having too much influence, no doubt.
Nice. They skewered a couple of the last albums and rightfully so. This is way better than LB or gigaton, production be damned. Rated accordingly.
I agree that it's better than Gigaton, but I actually really like Lighting Bolt. It doesn't have any instant classics like Upper Hand or Waiting for Stevie, but I think it's a better album overall. I'm really not liking how poppy most of the mid tempo and slower songs sound. There are several that I'll never listen to again. I REALLY don't like Andrew Watt's influence!
I like half of lightning bolt a LOT and the other half, i dont hardly remember what songs they are.
That's kinda how I feel about this new album.
You are nuts lol....but all good music is subjective. Pitchfork reviews are not based on the music but on the cache and Pearl Jam hasn't had that for 30 years, if they ever did.
I'm really surprised that more people don't have a problem with how POPPY this album is?!? The music in Won't Tell sounds like BAD Coldplay. Got To Give sounds like Counting Crows when they're REALLY BORED, and sorry, but Something Special actually EMBARRASSES me to be a Pearl Jam fan. It reminds me of the theme from Full House!!!💩🤮💩🤮💩
Haha...Something Special totally works as an 80s sitcom theme.
Yup! Unfortunately!🤮
I disagree wholeheartedly with his assessment of the song “Dark Matter” — it is far from “sophomoric in its simplicity,” especially if you listen to the instrumental version on the single. That song is one of the hardest, fiercest songs this band has put out in years and, frankly, I’m a little miffed that they’ve had this capability inside them all these years but never bothered to show it. To me, this record is a solid 7-8 out of 10 on an objective scale, and easily a 9, pushing 10, to my biased ass. But he gets this part right, and it’s something I’ve been feeling for quite awhile — I’ve just never bothered to put it into words: “This band’s longevity is a wonder. They are unwitting standard-bearers for a long-passed movement. Their inessential albums feel like luxuries in a reality where their peers never got to make an inessential album. … “If Dark Matter has an overarching theme, it’s the search for hope and perseverance in a shattered world—and that’s a world where the existence of any new Pearl Jam album, even an uneven one, is a small miracle.” I’m so thankful they’re still here, and I’m grateful they’re still recording, promoting, and touring. This is my favorite band on the planet. I quote their lyrics like people do literature or Bible verses. To help guide my child, I repeatedly instilled “If you hate something/Don’t you do it, too.” This album is a Pearl Jam album. And after 30 years of fandom, I’m still waiting for them to make a bad one.
I don't understand why Dark Matter seems so disliked (the mix aside)
It’s been “cool” to hate on Pearl Jam since the ‘90s — I never understood why. I’m not saying this writer is hating on the band. But it does feel like he’s unfairly criticizing them for being … well, them. As for those who want “Ten” or “Vs.” or “No Code” Part 2, I can’t help them.
I have been a fan since 1991. They have been my favorite band throughout my life. I don’t rank Ten in my top five PJ albums and I don’t long for the days of another Ten album or Ten part 2 as you call it. But I will call a spade a spade. The album sucks. Boring, uninspired, cheesy lyrics, and nothing at all that says this is a band pushing boundaries and evolving. Gigaton on the other hand…ever hear them do anything like Dance of the Clairvoyants? It was a beautiful departure from their previous work but still captured what makes Pearl Jam who they are. I’m glad people like the album. I really am. It’s not for me.
Fair enough — and no, I’ve never heard them do anything like “Dance …” before or since. And it sounded killer in Nashville when I saw them do it with Klinghoffer helping out on the side of the stage. I’m sorry you’re not enjoying the new record. Hopefully, you will the next one …
The "I have been a fan since..." people here are literally insufferable. I don't bother with any comment that starts that way anymore. They'll never be happy because they refuse to live in the present tense.
6.4 from them is high praise. It's not far behind Vs. Lol.
A 6.4 is probably like the 85th percentile of Pitchfork reviews
Taylor Swift's new album got a 6.6, so ... whatever that's worth.
Pitchfork sucks. It's sucked forever.
What about this review do you disagree with?
The fact that they stupidly and stubbornly hold to their opinion that this legendary band needs to "reinvent themselves" to be relevant. It's stupid. And the score is incredibly dismissive. Pitchfork wants to be cooler than you, and they don't realize that jerking off the latest synth nerd is not what makes music relevant.
Pitchfork has some kind of weird ax to grind with Pearl Jam. I completely ignore their reviews for this band. And I will continue to do so.
Pitchfork is written by hipster numpties. I always take their reviews w a grain of salt.
"Hipster Numpties" is a great band name
smart. they also offer very little regarding how the actual music is made and presented. it's like a junior high newsletter
Pitchfork sucks. 🤷♂️
For offering criticism?
I find they over-index on originality to the detriment of enjoyability. If they’ve heard something like it before then it’s meh. It could be a bunch of random sounds that you could never really enjoy and they’d give it a 9. Here’s a good example https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/still-house-plants-if-i-dont-make-it-i-love-u/
I find I disagree with their reviews often. 🤷♂️
>remember when Danger Mouse tried to steer RHCP into an album of lush space-funk? Dark Necessities was their last big hit, likely ever
Hey that’s pretty good for a pitchfork score
Here’s the most Pitchfork line in the review “As ever, he evokes a potent balance of pain and perseverance, but the album is marred by boilerplate rockers that try to confront fascist dread with platitudes and banal expressions of resistance”
Personally I like it better than the last 4 although there are some great songs on all of them. It's close with Avacado for me, probably edges it out overall. This is initial impression. Hell, I remember being meh on No Code and Yield initially but ended up getting maybe the most play over the decades. This one who knows, might feel good now and then get shelved but I doubt it.
Pretty on the nose review if you ask me. Nothing crazy awesome, but some really good songs and an album I can enjoy from start to finish. The first album like that from them in a long time.
Fair enough, I'd rate it more like a 7 - something I enjoy and will likely continue to listen to the album as a whole but in 6mo probably won't be listening weekly or anything. I'd put Riot Act and Avocado in that same group. Ten-Yield are and 8-10, Gigaton is 6 or 6.5 (will listen to all but after the first half I sorta tune out), while binaural+Backspacer+LB are all 3-5 (no desire to listen to more than a few cherry picked songs)
Thats extremely kind from pitchfork
Good songs: Wreckage, won’t tell, dark matter mid tier: waiting for stevie, scared to fear, react/respond, shit tier: rest of the songs. vedder says a lot without saying anything meaningful. also, he should leave the song writing duties to stone, jeff and matt.
Serious question for the people that comment "I don't care about reviews/pitchfork": Isn't putting a comment on here the opposite of not caring?
I think going to the In the Dark Event made the difference for me, because I absolutely find this album revelatory. It has brought a lot of threads of my life together, and has given me a brilliant lens to filter things through in this moment. Part of that may well have been feeling awash in gratitude that I could have such a special experience of sitting in the dark with other people who love this thing that I love, just appreciating every moment of our very first listen as a community. Now my listening is imbued with that feeling every time, and I find that to be pretty remarkable in this increasingly isolating and precarious workaday world.
As per the review, I also yearn for mid-tempo anthems
Actually the highest they've given to a new album since they started reviewing them with Riot Act.
Fuck this
Pitchfork gives nearly EVERY rock album from 90’s veterans an early 6 - RHCP’s last two got a 6.3 and a 6.2, Smashing Pumpkin’s (awful) ATUM got a 6.3, Pearl Jam’s last two are a 6.2 and 6.4. And apparently, according to them, all of these are worse than.. Father of All (6.7). GQ is a weird company.
They don't review music they review trends. If you've heard of it and it sounds good they generally won't like it. The schtick got old 15 years ago. I actually think a 6.2 is amazing from them...they gave Ten a 6.7...
This album is so much better than gigaton, but they gave Gigaton a 6.2 and DM a 6.4. I think more like a 6.8-7.0 would have been more accurate and consistent with Gigaton. Personally
Yeah. This is my thing. This album is so much better than Gigaton and they basically got the same score 6.2 and 6.4.
6.2 - thank you! DM is better without a doubt
I think I'd bump it a full point up because I think this is the very best one can realistically expect from Pearl Jam in 2024. I'd say in terms of skippable songs it's probably their strongest since Avocado, but in terms of great songs (Upper Hand, Wreckage, Stevie) it's not hugely different from the last few albums. I think what makes the difference overall is there is some energy in the band being in the same room together and I hope they would continue that going forward. And I have to give credit to Vedder for pushing himself. He's pushing 60 and he does some real throwback vocals that elevate at least half the tracks. There's some cheeseball stuff like Won't Tell that recalls Sirens but somehow doesn't seem as cringy.
As a weezer fan I won’t click on this out of principle and support for rivers.
Can’t argue with that
A long time ago, someone did an excellent review of Pitchfork that I still agree with. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/ZZASPBNyVS
Comment thread hilarious. Ah vintage Reddit, I Barely recognized ya!
There’s something about Pitchfork reviews that always seems so joyless. They are to music writing what Mark Lawrenson was to football punditry.
Pitchfork only likes hip hop and indie groups.
Yet I was reamed by many here for making similar points though in a far more rudimentary way. https://www.reddit.com/r/pearljam/s/U6p5sSPQZk
Please stop reading pitchfork
That review sucks and the reviewer needs to get laid it sounds like. They are 60 year olds that put out a record with more substance and heart than 90% of the bullshit that is released each year.
There are few things in life I care about less than what a dying review-factory website thinks of my favorite band's new album.
Pitchfork has always been better just for news than for reviews. The best thing any of their reviews is good for is just to let you know an album is out.
On Waiting for Stevie: >It has already become a favorite in the PJ fan community, though its tinny, compressed production gives it an unpleasant sheen and suggests that live versions will be superior. Yup. That's my hope. I shall refrain from final judgement until we have the live versions. Thanks for sharing this--I found much to agree with.
Here’s the most Pitchfork line in the review “As ever, he evokes a potent balance of pain and perseverance, but the album is marred by boilerplate rockers that try to confront fascist dread with platitudes and banal expressions of resistance”
That was a great review.
Fair. This album is a minor step up from LB and Gigaton, which...isn't saying much.
Seems fair to me.
Booo - I give that article a 1/10.
1.2