Welp. That was kinda fun. It really isn't an awful album; it's just so pedestrian. Unemployable sucks and Gone didn't need the band, but for the most part there's a lot of okay songs. I think I liked WWS more than I remember. And Come Back for all of its obvious flaws, I still like it.

That and the fact that it rarely sounded like they were doing anything different. The biggest thing is that besides Parachutes and Inside Job they've done everything on there before, and done it better.

thought i'd stop by to scrape up all the melted faces...

Parachutes took some getting used to but it's one of my favorite songs on the album now. It's a beautiful off kilter melody, some nice lyrics (the parachutes metaphor works), and there is a compelling subtle tension in the song--like it wants to be beautiful but there's something slightly wrong. I like the stuff Mike is doing to color the song in (he's doing a lot of good stuff on these songs that's sometimes hard to notice--I'm glad I'm wearing the headphones). I like the transition from the 'parachutes have opened now' into the second part of the song.

I'm not sure that i like what they did with Eddie's voice in this one. I like the wail that kind of opens up out of nowhere at the end of the song 'war...'

Again the production kinda robs this one of some of its impact. I'm not sure what I want it to sound like, but not like this.

Don't like being negative so I can't bring myself to do this one.

That's being critical, not "negative". I say go for it.

It's one my personal bugbears that "negativity" is often treated as unhelpful or unwelcome while "positive" or complimentary opinions are seen as preferable for some reason. It just seems ludicrous to me, neither should be inherently better than the other.

I agree, and I think you'd like this piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/magaz ... itics.html

One case against critics was made, plaintively and memorably, by Dave Eggers, in a 2000 interview in The Harvard Advocate. Here’s a bit of what he said:

Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic, and I wish I could take it all back, because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a [expletive] of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, this is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

I’m a terrific admirer of Eggers’s (who several years ago, I should note, contributed the introduction to a short book of mine), and part of me loves this speech. It’s rousing. It’s like something from the end of a version of “Rudy,” set in an indie bookstore. I can imagine it on a T-shirt.

At risk of ambushing him for something he said more than a decade ago, however, most of me deplores it. Eggers is arguing in uplifting tones for mass intellectual suicide. When a work of art makes you feel or think things, he suggests, keep those things to yourself. He is proposing a zombie nation, where wit and disputation go to die. A place no thinking person above the age of 7 would want to spend an afternoon. Everyone would, on the up side, get a gelato.

A place no thinking person above the age of 7 would want to spend an afternoon.

I will always feel that S/T is vastly underrated by PJ fans. I love the songs, but like most hate the production. Still, I like S/T better than Backspacer, Binaural, Riot Act, and some times I prefer it to No Code and Vs. I think I come back to this (and Vitalogy) more then any other PJ albums.