I won't tell Pearl Jam what to do, but I will tell their loser community. This album is by far the most hyped album in the bands catalogue. People fantasize about it. I fucking had to read Angus wax poetic about it's last track, and this board in general has really taken it out of its context, and glorified it, in the same way the band itself was. It's not about the music on Vitalogy, it's about "Vitalogy. How many people were actually around for it's release? Very few, and those who were most likely were die-hards with no objectivity. I remember hanging around with my middle-class brethren, flipping through the liner votes, freaked as hell out by the Satans-Bed images, confused by Pry To, annoyed by Bugs, skipped Aye Davinita, and scared by FoxyMop (more than 1/3 of the album is throwaway bullshit). Betterman and Satan's Bed had annoying intros (I don't need to hear a whip crack on an album, and I wanted my single sans the eerie intro). Last Exit opens playfully and IS different than Go's warm-up. Spin the Black Circle is annoying and about vinyl records, which only our fathers had then. Not For You, I had to listen to Ed bitch me out for liking the band. Tremor Christ through Whipping was the only "consistent" stretch of songs, also which weren't blatantly reflexive, but they were SO disparate from each other. Corduroy, I still love to this day, and I'll give it it's due here, likewise Immortality, but both are surrounded by bullshit. I agree, this is the band's best album, but because it was the only one I'd venture to call "art," and it took a little (actually, a lot) sophistication and aging to reach that conclusion. But man if people around here suffer amnesia, forgetting what that album was actually like when it came out, and the way it kind of did what No Code would fully do. People here say "oh it's the best album," oh I want to make out with it, I want to listen to it with the lights off, I want to be impregnated by it, oh it's so magical, and I say oh, you're full of shit. Get your head out of your asses and the clouds, this album disappointed.

taste is subjective, shut the fuck up

Yeah, were you in 5th grade when it came out, or 4th? I bet you LOVED Betterman. "Mommy, mommy, turn up the radio" on your way home from school.

I remember never being able to put this album down once it came out---by far the most compelling listen in their catalogue, and I think the greatest record of all time. There was probably a good two year period when it came out when I listened to Vitalogy at least once a day

It is true that there are 4 non-songs on vitalogy experiments that with the excpetion of Bugs, I don't really care that much for, BUT the ten songs that did make it are just fantastic and the failed experiments are at least failed experiments as opposed to inadequate songs that would go on to pepper the next 4 records(see mankind, off he goes, lukin, around the bend, I'm open, no way, pilate, god's dice, thin air, soon forget, cropduster, bushleaguer, green disease, etc)

I also think this is the most intelligent record they have ever written lyrically and the only one that truly has a concept or theme driving it (there are inchoate ones on other ones but never fully confronted like it is here) dealing with the commodification of art and the impact that this has on those who looked to it for their salvation.

But I need to go back to work so I'm not going to say much more about this now. I leave vitalogy's honor in the hands of others

I just realized that it no longer lists our ages with our little profiles below our avatars

And wow Isaac--you seem to be having a real Corduroy_Blazer day today. Is there something you need to blog about?

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=66132

He's 23, if memory from the last board serves. And no offense Stip but you're covered in the "die-hard" category, which I said had no objectivity. You weren't Americana

Please don't merge this shit with my blog, master, please! The record needs to be set about this album, like it does about who the real corporate rock stars in Seattle were (ie Nirvana, at least 2/3 of its members).

i still love betterman. but yeah, it was awesome in 5th grade listening to the early vinyl release. anyway, i think vitalogy may have the best songs on it, but too much filler

Anyone posting on this board is likely in the die hard category (in this forum, anyway). And I think I am far from a fanboy. I am highly critical of stuff I don't like from the band (see the SOTM threads, Buggy's critique the album series, my post above, etc) and the stuff I respect I respect because I feel it is earned, not because it is Pearl Jam. By the critera you've set out it is impossible for anyone who was a fan when the record came out to have objectively enjoyed the record.

did you really call spin the black circle annoying?

I'm not merging it with your blog. It's a worthwhile thread. But you were pretty obnoxious in your first post

I have to admit that the version of Vitalogy only includes the real songs and it fucking rocks. Any album where Satan's Bed is the worst song is alright by me. There's a whole slew of songs that are just flat out great songs; Last Exit, Not For You, Corduroy, Betterman, Immortality. Then the second tier songs aren't too shabby either; Nothingman, Tremor Christ, Whipping, Satan's Bed, Spin The Black Circle. That's an impressive set of songs.

There aren't too many albums at that high a level the whole way through. Accept the facts, the albums rocks.

No one cares what you think, remember. You like DMB, which means the only people around here with less credibilty are fans of Kiss and U2

Were many people here really not fans when Vitalogy came out? I was in high school and it was a HUGE event in my life. Got the vinyl that was released a week or two before the CD and played it over and over. Made tapes of it and made people listened to it. Made them. I was obsessed with this album when it came out.

Actually, as you may have read elsewhere, it's not at all my favorite today. (Not sure it was then, either.) But I will always think highly of it and it's the album that taught me that an album can be about more than the music on it, and that a work of art need not be merely one genre.

yeah--I rarely bother with the 'experimental' tracks. I skip them on Tool's Aenima as well

shit. I'm a fan of DMB and U2. Not Kiss, though. Whew.

but i got vitalogy a week before most people

I knew and know a ton of people whose interest in PJ ended when the last note of whatever current/popular single did. I know you are a critical listener, not a farm boy, but you were already married to the band when the album came out, 'til death do you part, so your latitude for what to accept was much broader; the fact you felt so disappointed by No Code reveals how successful they were with that album's intents (and I thought you were going to work?!)

1) you were a die hard, obviously, and 2) you were able to see it for art. Most people were incapable of that, in their fledgling youth (same applies to you Stip).