Pearl Jam recorded songs for a new album in 2017 and 2018, but they appeared to end up shelving most of these sessions with a big name departing, as “Can’t Deny Me” did not make the new album, and it was recently revealed that the only 2017 song that made Gigaton is “Retrograde.”
Primussucks posted on the Ten Club board, “The recent Jonathan Cohen article about Gigaton mentions Retrograde being pulled from a 2017 recording session. Cant Deny Me was released in March 2018 with a mention of it being from their forthcoming album and was recorded during a recording session the month prior with Brendan O’ Brien producing.
Typically the guys have a history of recording albums in 2-3 separate recording sessions each taking 2-3 weeks and each producing at least 5 songs. For example lightning bolt was recorded in 2 recording sessions. The first in 2011 that also produced Ole. The 2nd in the spring of 2013.
So we know they had a recording session sometime in 2017 and another in February 2018. Apparently only Retrograde from those sessions is on Gigaton and the rest of Gigaton was recorded in April and Aug/Sept of 2019 according to pearljamonline.it.
So that means there are probably an albums worth of unreleased songs from those 2017 and 2018 recording sessions that originally were probably planned for a 2018 release that would have included Cant Deny Me and Retrograde. Obviously the band must not have been satisfied with the result and started over in 2019. I hope interviewers ask the guys about this in upcoming interviews about Gigaton.” The first Pearl Jam Gigaton review just leaked.
