Recent Posts
This week Dr Who travels into the future to save Pearl Jam from recording another turkey. Lucky them: normally he delights in watching hippies embarrass themselves.
1. Division of Labour
Key to Pearl Jam’s return is the removal of Eddie Vedder from musical direction.
As the face and voice of Pearl Jam, Eddie is indispensable. Unfortunately, he has leveraged his position to extend his influence beyond his field of expertise. This is akin to Michael Jordan demanding to play center.
Hey, Mr Dalek, what should we do with Eddie's new songs?
2. Process
Stone, Mike and Jeff need to write material individually; preferably, they should be on different continents to each other.
Often, musicians develop a misguided belief that they can produce gold-standard results in a jam session. Not so. Even Miles and Jimi went in with some ideas.
Hint: It didn't come out of his hat
3. Structure
With a producer, they should collectively listen to their first two albums to hear how the new material should be arranged and produced.
Obviously, there needs to flexibility to allow for creativity. But that flexibility needs to be housed in some framework, otherwise you’re just pissing into the wind.
And, finally...
4. Discipline
The producer should have a hard rock pedigree and a mandate to enforce the band’s pre-determined creative vision against their own flights of fancy.
No, it’s not a good idea to include a ukulele. No, it’s not a good idea to include a spoken word piece. No, we don’t want trumpets like in that obscure 1995 Freddie Mercury tribute.
Mike: Wait, Doctor – you haven’t told us your name!
[dissolve tardis]
Jeff: What a guy…
Eddie: Hey, he's gone! Now I can go back to screwing you all for the sake of my ego!
All: Oh Eddie!
[cut to credits]
Shared on
1991: Ten: 12 million copies
The success of Ten solidified Brand: Pearl Jam and set the template/benchmark for all future Pearl Jam releases. Brand: Pearl Jam became known as a manly, confused emotional breakdown with 1970s guitar sensibility and a downtempo ambition toward the epic.
Although consumers always allow some wiggle room for future creativity, 12 million album sales essentially did ‘lock it in, Eddie’.
1993: VS: 8 million copies
Still new to the rock-monster game, Pearl Jam believed themselves to have the Midas touch. On the one hand they released a follow-up that was mostly fantastically in keeping with Brand: Pearl Jam, but also started to dabble in the expansive. Fortunately, or unfortunately, there was enough of The Brand there to paper over the dangerous effects of expansiveness.
1994: Vitalogy: 5 million copies
The success of VS unfortunately sent Pearl Jam up the garden path. They believed that the non-Brand elements of VS were actually part of the album’s success. The result was Vitalogy, a further step away from Brand: Pearl Jam and toward commercial oblivion.
Queens of the Stone Age: Era Vulgaris is probably the ultimate destination of Vitalogy’s more creative ambitions. Great if you’re QOTSA, not so great if you’re working with Brand: Pearl Jam.
1996: No Code: 1 million copies
For some unknown reason, Pearl Jam confused the mass-appeal of ‘raw emotion’ with ‘raw production’. Just a hunch, but the Triple M crowd don’t quite go for raw production. Exhibit F: Nickelback.
1998: Yield: 2 million copies
Yield is the album that could have been Pearl Jam’s triumphant return. It was possibly a high watermark for Stone and Mike’s songwriting powers, but they failed to commercially capitalise by not ‘Ten-izing’ or ‘VS-izing’ the arrangements before recording.
There are no other factors relating to their failure other than annihilation of their brand identity. Bands don't die because of ticketing problems, lawsuits or failure to release videos. The Beatles stopped touring altogether. Tool had fun with a lawsuit. ABBA couldn't even get airtime back in their day.
And yes, the tide of fashion goes out but it comes back in again. The future success of Nickelback should have been the success of Pearl Jam.
2000: Binaural: 750,000 copies
Again, Pearl Jam emerged with a great collection of musical ideas and no idea how to turn the ideas into ‘Pearl Jam Songs’. Our own Living End sold more copies than Binaural.
2002: Riot Act: 27 copies
An album of waltzes and completely lacking in balls. There are occasional guitar lines that could have been put to better use. An artistic, commercial and marketing disaster.
2006: Pearl Jam: but who’s counting anyway?
A manly, confused emotional breakdown with 1970s guitar sensibility and a downtempo ambition toward the epic? Nope. But it could have been. Instead, it sounds like a collection of out-takes from Binaural.
Coming tomorrow:
Dr Who, Rock Producer, takes remedial action to save the next Pearl Jam album from catastrophic failure.
Shared on
In the absence of anybody enlightening me to the contrary, I can only presume that these guys are the most overrated vocalists of the 20th century.
Bing Crosby
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
No blog here but you might get a kick out of this.
My friend and I had some fun putting together a couple of songs for our new joke band 'Rogers and Frankenstein
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
Shared on
Hey, Moby, can you teach me to play some of your eclectic instruments?
Once upon a time, we believed that rain came from the God of Rain. We now know that rain is just H20 changing state. In the same way, we once believed that these genres actually existed, whereas we now know they were just convenient umbrellas cooked up by some under-zealous marketing department:
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
(with thanks to Rob, whose collection of misfortunes are now funny)
So you’ve been booked to play at a local bar. You arrive through the back door, set up in a dark corner, and launch into a rousing rendition of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Sk8r Boi’. The band is sounding great: that late-afternoon warm-up has definitely paid off
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
Final Exam – Multiple Choice
1. When writing a song for an Australian Idol winner to perform, is it more important to emphasise:
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
Cash in on your good looks… NOT!
She has cheekbones to die for. Her other cheeks could open a jam jar. The boys are all downloading her pics. The video is piping hot. And, of course, the discount bin is waiting.
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
|
|
|
Add Comments
Read More
Comments (5)
Comment by Lord Waterfront Yuppie
on Michael Moore's thoughts on the $700 billion Bailout Proposal
Noise Pets
*slow the downturn in confidence
*free up credit and cash
*stabilise the market
*head off a run on weaker financial institutions
*avoid another Lehman Bros?
The Ol' Boys Club won't be the only ones to benefit from this crisis and bail-out: stand by for humorous documentary with companion book series..