They might have started out making safe decisions, but they got increasingly risky post-Ten days.

Stone Temple Pilots put out some interesting records made interesting by the fact that they weren’t derivative pieces of grunge poo, but derivative of other things like Redd Kross. I mean, I even like a lot of that stuff, but c’mon.

After reading all of this, I guess I disagree with the headline about the review of Ten being “90s revisionism,” which is the word you use instead of “reevaluation” if you don’t like how something was reevaluated. Is it not fair to look back at Ten (and review the rerelease on its own merits as well) and say, hey, I don’t think it’s all that great anymore? I’m gonna be honest: I have a hard time listening to Ten, and I LOVED it in high school. The production is painfully slick to my ears, and the lyrics make me cringe. Jeremy’s overexposure and sledgehammer of a “message video” has forever tainted that song for me. And I can’t help but feel like the album was diminished (not the band’s fault, btw) by all of the ridiculously bad ripoff bands that arrived in their wake. I suspect the Nickelback/Bush/Three Doors Down factor is probably a big problem that a lot of people have with Ten. But is this not a legitimate emotional response to the album?

Having said that, I agree with all of Mike’s larger points about people being ashamed of stuff they liked when they were kids. The mall analogy was a good one. I realized I’ve been trolling around on here (I’ve been procrastinating on a paper, btw, thus all of the internet chatter) without saying that I like this piece very much, which I do.

In my publicist days, I’d often try to find the different types of writers at each publication (he’s the hip-hop guy, she’s the punk person, he’s the experimental dude) because I knew that getting the wrong person to review a record usually meant a worse score. Of course, without having everybody review it, this was impossible to prove, but I saw enough of punk person dismissing indie folk records to know to get them into somebody else’s hands there.

I think that most publications operate this way, but Pitchfork above all others gets saddled with the idea that there is some overarching conspiracy or drive to do certain things, like, for example, dismiss great works of the 90s as has been suggested here by many folks. I just think that we wouldn’t be saying the same thing here if somebody else wrote that review. If Deusner had that review published in Paste (for whom he also writes, I believe), I don’t think we have this discussion.

Everybody has this idea that Pitchfork is always “out to get something,” particularly mainstream rock, but this is a site that gave that last Modest Mouse turd a 7.8, so I don’t know. I’m sure we can all find evidence of something to back up our respective opinions. They publish a lot of reviews by a lot of writers.

Agreed. Understand the regard, don’t share the love. I’ll throw on Surfer Rosa once a year or so, but it’s not in my top 100 albums of all time or anything.

@Lucas Jensen:

We can quibble back and forth all day to no avail about matters of semantics in my word choices to describe the Velvet Underground et al, and I’ll submit that you probably know much more about indie/less mainstream rock than I, but I didn’t think I was going out on a limb in pointing out differences in sound, sensibility, audience, and attitudes between college radio faves and major rock radio acts.

While acknowledging the places that the Pixies, Big Star, and Pavement have under the overarching umbrella of pop and rock, all of these bands went against major prevailing musical trends in rock music in their respective primes for the most part, and they all had off-kilter sensibilities to their sounds. I hope we can agree on that much.

Saying that Pearl Jam’s place is in the boring mainstream rock pantheon wasn’t a statement I thought particularly controversial. Pearl Jam probably owes some of their mass appeal to the fact that they make “safe” musical choices. Look at the Melvins for a counterexample – they come from more or less the same musical scene as Pearl Jam, and they’ve made a career out of not making those “safe” musical choices, the same way Pavement et al have made similarly “unsafe” and unconventional musical choices (lo fi production, occasionally odd time signatures, unexpected vocal harmonies, what have you). For my part, I thought “arty” and “daring” were words that represented that particular type of choices. Fine – maybe those aren’t the perfect terms, but otherwise I think you’re missing my overall point.

But Pitchfork has a reputation for being holier-than-thou-gatekeepers, and while that may be a slight exaggeration, it’s based in fact. Regardless of Deusner being on the up and up–even though his “volley of snarks” included topics unrelated to the music itself and sparked Mr. Barthel’s post–the fact is PF gave Pearl Jam a 6.7 and other reissues from indie-friendly bands got 9.1 or better. And no one should be surprised. (Your assertion that the most recent Modest Mouse is “a turd” and yet it managed to get a 7.8, further fuels the negative PF perception for those of us who frequently find ourselves at odds with them.)

Great discussion, guys. And Mike, thanks for a great post.

My 2 cents; I was kind of like Spankyjoe, I didn’t really “get” Ten when it came out. I’m sure it was partly that it was overexposed, all my friends (including many that weren’t really “into” music) loved it, and I was just kind of…meh.

However, listening to it years later, I think it actually is a very solid album. Sure, I skip the Even/Alive/Jeremy/Black singles since I know I’m going to hear them on the radio in 10 minutes anyway, but other tracks are pretty damn good.

But I’ll admit, it’s hard to “rediscover” an album that never really went away, as per previously mentioned incessant airplay on every modern/classic rock station.

I think that’s a valid point to make about music criticism: whether or not it’s truly possible to review a work of art on its own merits and without considering the context of its era. After all, like you, I wouldn’t blame Eddie Vedder personally for all of the soundalike baritones that flooded the market in Pearl Jam’s wake, but good gravy, he’s the first guy I think of when someone does a Nickelback song at karaoke.

It’s funny that you mention how your esteem of the record has gotten worse with age, as I’ve actually had the opposite experience. I disliked Ten as compared to its other “Seattle” brethren because of production and overall lack of a heavy sound. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to appreciate that a little more, and I really like the redux for finally stripping all the gloss off of Ten and holding it up as a boogie rock album saddled with an over-serious frontman.

Maybe the best way to go about criticism is to embrace those personal biases and be upfront about them. Make everyone aware of where you’re coming from, as opposed to trying to maintain an Olympian sense of detachment. I don’t know if you’ve ever stumbled upon This Is Not Pitchfork, but that site takes the concept to its logical ends – Michelle, in her own words, “isn’t reviewing albums so much as reliving them.” It’s definitely thought-provoking, even if you disagree with her tastes.

(We’re way into the weeds now, but, yeah, Mike wrote a great piece. Cheers!)

I don’t believe Pitchfork necessarily meant “to do a hit piece on Ten” and I will defer to your knowledge of Deusner’s work. But I feel–and quite a few others commenting on this post, obviously–that there’s a particular sensibility over at PF that leads one to believe they would thumb their noses at this album and others like it. And to be honest, the fact that you’re sticking up for Deusner and his impartiality over that of their other writers in this regard, seems to confirm that hunch.

Regardless of how often Vedder scrawled “Pro Choice” on his arm, Pearl Jam was never going to be one of those bands.
Nor was the mainstream audience going to stick around with the politically progressive vibe associated w/many of these acts. The flannel shirt never fit them that well.

On the other hand, irony and detachment are a big deal in indie rock circles; anything that is nakedly earnest like, say, Ten is going to be frowned upon by the likes of Pitchfork.

@LeBron:
@Mick Kraut:
“Interstate Love Song” will outlive us all.

@DeVille:, @KikoJones: Whenever these debates flare up, I always find it pretty instructional to refer back to the oft-quoted old saw about “only 30 people ever saw the Velvet Underground live, but all 30 of them started their own bands.” Maybe this is my own contrarian take, but I have never, ever understood the acclaim that the Velvets get. I’ve been flamed on this site before for may failure to understand the magic allure of the Pixies (who I concede are very catchy songwriters), and I’ll probably get flamed for this admission as well. However, there are just some bands that are too precious for their own good. The Velvets are one of those bands, as are Big Star, as are Pavement. Fantastic, you have your bands that are arty and literary and daring etc., etc., etc. Regardless of how often Vedder scrawled “Pro Choice” on his arm, Pearl Jam was never going to be one of those bands.

For better or worse, for those of us that were 10 in 1991 when Ten came out and didn’t have a cool older brother to guide our tastes, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, and everything else that we could find at Sam Goody was going to be what we listened to at the time, the same way Guns ‘N ‘ Roses, Poison, and Mr. Mister were going to be big in 1990.

I’ve stretched on long enough, but the point I’d like to make is that a 6.7 is a bit low. I think as a classic rock record, Ten is remarkably solid, and the recent Brendan O’Brien re-master only serves to highlight the big riff-tastic record that was hiding underneath oceans of reverb. Especially once I heard what Mother Love Bone sounded like, I always felt that Ten suffered as compared to it’s Class of 1991 compatriots in that it wasn’t nearly as immediate a sound – Badmotorfinger and Nevermind sound like aggressive rock records from the late 60s/early 70s, and those grabbed my attention much more than Ten did at the time (I was 10, after all.) The new re-master addresses these criticisms, and does so in such a way that it respects the fact that a whole generation of folks have the orignal mastering job in their head as the definitive statement of the band. Easily worth an 8.2 +/- 1.3 points. (In my opinion, anyway).

@slowburn: Word

Jar of flies is a forgotten gem of that era…

While I like STP I recall that alot of people seemed to be down on them due to what sounding “trying to hard to be alternative”…not on CORE’s songs but in the press…the item that sticks out was claiming that they all first met at a Black Flag show and thinking that conveyed instant credibility…

That said how many bands in the last 15 years have sited Velvet Underground, Pixies and Pavement in interviews in an effort to only get the attention of critics and indie record store clerks? I am betting more than we know.

I feel STP is a perfect example of the inability of certain distinguishing music fans — some of whom just might exist in this comments section — to appreciate something simply because it achieved mainstream success. To that I’d say: Get over yourselves. Just because something’s popular doesn’t take away any of its merit. And how’s this? STP blows Pavement away.

As for Ten, along with Nevermind, it simply defined the generation I grew up in. I wasn’t a huge Pearl Jam fan, but you simply had to have this CD, and Vs. My dad — who’s more of a Simon and Garfunkel guy — knew when they released Vs. and offered to buy it for me so I’d be in the loop and understand what the musical voice of my generation was. AIC’s Jar of Flies and STP’s Purple will always mean more to me because of what they meant during my high school years, but I respect Ten, and I can put it on today and it’s no less fresh than it ever was.

I am happy for this release…hearing these songs without the choking compression, overdone reverb and overall muddiness really brings the tracks to life in a way they werent before. It shows the disservice that was done at release and explains why every one of their subsequent records sound like they do.

I was 20 when this record came out and in 2nd year of college…it wasnt an adolescent statement to me really as much as a recognition that rock had moved past Hair Metal and that strong rock songs could be written that werent about needing “nothing but a good time”. For a short perion of time the cartoon characters that were “rock stars” were replaced by real personalities…that of course faded as the “grunge” cartoon characters rose to the fore.