Okay, to capsize what I'm suggesting: No Code broke a lot of new ground for the band and reinvigorated them. It was a transition record that led them to create two fabulous mood pieces known as Yield and Binaural.

So after everything they've done for S/T, from the world tour to Storytellers to tons of publicity, maybe the band needs to step back and challenge themselves again. By challenge, I mean do something they haven't done before. Maybe a concept album. Maybe a genre-defining album. Maybe a punk record. Anything that isn't like S/T.

No Code was the album that preserved their integrity and broke down a lot of preconceptions about who Pearl Jam was as a band. Is it time for another drastically different style from them? The only difference this time around is what would be preserved are their creative juices, not the band as a musical entity. Discuss.

I'm perfectly fine with:

I'm somewhat leary of the word 'challenge'. I just want them to make another great record (I loved S/T and still do but they can still do better). If that means they go in an entirely different direction I'm fine with that. If that means they stick with the S/T sound and just tweak it a bit that's great too. But the quality of the music is what matters to me, not that it is different.

I do really like the idea of a quick angry punk style record. they're running out of time before it would just be silly

I've been thinking about this for a while now. If the next album is basically Avocado Mk II, then I will officially preside over the corpse of PJ's musical creativity. I'm not saying the last record was bad - it suited its name perfectly because it was about the band going back to the straight ahead rock roots of Ten and Vs. tempered by experience. But they've already played that card.

So, I'm not asking for an album of Norwegian whale-humping death metal or anything, just something fresh and different. And less bloody politics, please. More introspection.

I never have beem disappointed with a PJ record and doubt I will be in the future but I would love to be surprised again with a No Code style album. I could definitely use a couple more Inside Job style tracks and some more along the style of Present Tense and In my Tree.

I'm totally asking for an album of Norwegian whale-humping death metal.

Depends on what "sounding like the band" means, to quote Eddie. One of the things i like the most about Pearl Jam is that they didn't necessarily had a definite sound. Is really hard to tell what's next at this point.

With Stone on vocals

Sometimes I wonder if I'm listening to the same band that everyone else is. Could there be two Pearl Jams? The band that I'm listening to certainly hasn't repeated itself. Eight different albums, in eight different styles, some better than others, but that is to be expected.

I was thinking about No Code last night because of the quite definitive departure that Eddie's solo album has been. It seems that in pop music things tend to be considered "experimental" only if they defy any sort of musical logic and/or use "experimental" electronic effects. In other genres of music that simply isn't true. The dense layering, repetition and inversion of simple motifs that is so much a part of the music on No Code has no precedent in pop music prior to 1996, except in individual Pearl Jam songs. Couple that with the unusual song structures and the lyrical style, and I think that it would be safe to say that No Code was an experimental album. That is only reinforced by the fact that the jury is still out among listeners on whether the experiment was a successful one.

The question then becomes what circumstances precipitated the construction of No Code, and do such circumstances exist today? Interestingly, I think that the creative conditions surrounding S/T were the closest to those surrounding No Code. Unlike many reviewers, and many fans it seems, I see no resemblance whatsoever between S/T and Ten aside from the fact that the two albums were created by the same band. And only passing resemblance to Vs. What album is most similar in style to S/T? No Code. S/T rocks harder, but the dense style of the arrangements is derived directly from No Code with 10 years of refinement and streamlining and a greater variety of song types.

So, now what? I think that I can safely say, for those who are not fans of S/T, that another S/T is unlikely. They will do what they have always done, and write songs based on what they are feeling in that moment. The emotions generated by S/T are in the past. The question here is whether Ed will want to bring mandolins, ukeleles, banjos, etc into Pearl Jam or whether he has done that already himself and is finished with it. I guess that the band won't know it's own direction until next Spring when they go back into the studio. All I know is that I really don't want to see an album full of songs about the miracle of life and how wonderful it is to have children in our lives. Although if that is what they have to offer, I guess that I'll take it.

pretty much agree

You don't think that the last record did, if not exactly repeat what happened before, at the very least pay homage to it/augment it?

No. S/T is a rocking version of the layered arrangement style of No Code with a great deal of streamlining and experimentation with song types that they have never tried before. If you listen to it, it doesn't even sound like the same band that produced Ten, and only vaguely like the same band that produced Vs. Yield, Binaural and Riot Act are songwriter showcase albums. They have nothing like the structure or thematic unity that S/T has.

I know that you don't like S/T. That's perfectly legitimate. A lot of people don't like it. But it's certainly not an hommage to anything that came before. And it doesn't sound like anything that came before. Creativity is a relative term. What they have done with S/T may be dull, uninspired and uninteresting, but it certainly wasn't because they were trying to repeat themselves.

Ten and Vs. aside i'd say that all the following albums have been drastically different from each other. be it for the better or worse. They've never really shied away from change. So i'm expecting the next album to be different again as well. the main thing i wish to come out of the next record is that it's better than s/t, which shouldn't be too hard to do

Thanks for your response. I'm actually one of the people who really like Avocado and I think it's a fine album. But I really don't buy your claim that they're not repeating themselves or not looking backwards on some tracks. Did Mike not say that it sounded like Vs.? In fact, Comatose would easily fit in on that record. Unemployable (though lyrically not like anything they've attempted before) is istantly recognisable as a typical Cameron song with a poppier chorus tacked on. Severed Hand is very much Porch like (bar the interesting intro), whilst Big Wave is another song that, muscially, would not seem out of place on an earlier album.

What I'm trying to say is: I acknowledge your comments about the band trying different styles on some of the album tracks (say, Parachutes, Come Back or Inside Job) but it still seems a bit of a step back to the old straightforward rockin'. Again, this is fine given the album's name - this is about Pearl Jam, and thus the record nods to their earlier exuberance and later experimentation. This sort of hybrid is what I love so much about S/T. But the next one has to be different.

I will in fact give you COMATOSE. It would almost fit on Vs.

Listen to the version of PORCH on Ten, then to SEVERED HAND. What the two have in common is that Eddie Vedder wrote them. They have his melodic idiosyncracies. Just as everything written by Chopin sounds like Chopin. But the two arrangements have very little in common. One is in a simple "classic rock" style. The other is a complex, layered arrangement in which simple motifs are used to drive the song forward in a way that the band was not capable of doing in the Ten-era. As for UNEMPLOYABLE, yes, recognizably a Cameron song, but I would submit that the "tacking on" of the chorus and the accompanying choices in style are really nothing like what Cameron has given us previously. The songs are written by known songwriters and will continue to sound like those songwriters unless they choose to do nothing but cover tunes. Which I hope they do not. There really isn't a whole lot of straightforward rockin' on S/T, and I think that's probably why many don't like it. Except of course for BIG WAVE. Now there's a classic rock tune. But not a classic rock tune in the style of anything they've previously done. What album would BIG WAVE have fit on?

Also, Mike didn't say that S/T sounded like Vs. He said that the creative process reminded him of Vs. At the time of Vs, they weren't capable of creating S/T. That would have to wait until after No Code.

I agree on the hybrid part very much. I would have thought about the next album being very different than s/t but that Ed's remark about "sounding like the band" sounds like this might as well not be the case. But they are still able to produce an album that will kick all of our asses if they use ears instead of egos in the studio. I mean if Ed can come up with ITW in a couple of months, i wonder what he can do in a couple of years.

i always had the impression that Binaural and Riot Act were overall failed attempts at experimentation. well, more flawed than No Code.
the main good point of S/T that didn't happened since No Code is that Eddie held the reins of lyrics again. one of the strenghts of S/T became its main weakness; it's its lyrical cohesion - imo, in order to have something comparable to No Code, they should give a go at a few more Jeff's music and stick with Ed's lyrics.
and yeah - introspective stuff wouldn't hurt either although i like when Ed makes 3rd person's tunes...

Very true! And that's one of my favourites on the album and it is a great live song. I think that more than arranging, mixing and producing is in question the songwriting is. Some songs on there are gona be live favourites for a long time some not.

I don't think that either Binaural or Riot Act were truly experimental. They are songwriter showcase albums. I don't know what the defining principles behind song selection were. It seemed be mood more than anything else. But I don't think that they were written with a defined purpose in mind. And that's fine because while I don't like everything on Binaural or Riot Act, there is a lot of interesting material on them.

I suppose that Binaural's production was somewhat experimental. In the end, I'm not sure that in itself constitutes experimentation.