Pearl Jam = Crap
Just kidding, but I did sort of drop that idea in Kurt. You see, it had been a while since I really listened to any PJ discs and as far as my poor memory could recall, they had released a lot of crap since their first three discs.
Jason called me out on my statement in his comments about the Kurt post. I had actually already started thinking about what I wrote, almost as in I couldn’t believe I wrote it, but it’s there. So, that weekend I started ripping all my PJ discs so that I could give them a spin and reeducate my ignorant self.
Over the course of two days, I listened to the catalog I own (no live discs though) and I did so in order of release. I’ll just run thru some thoughts on each and tidy up at the very end.
Ten
Without a doubt their very best. I remember when I finally bought it I played it over and over. Alive, Evenflow, Jeremy and Black are all amazing songs and remain timeless. The rest of the disc is almost as good and I found myself singing along in my exaggerated Eddie Vedder voice with every one.
Ten actually dropped a month before Nirvana’s Nevermind, but didn’t pick up steam until Nirvana started getting airplay (according to the PJ bio on iTunes). I remember Alive was the first single I heard, and I liked it, but at that time I had a rule about buying discs before I heard two songs (the days long before Napster or iTunes). I called it the one-hit-wonder rule and for the most part it worked (man, was I wrong with EMF… damn you Andrew Dice Clay!).
Anyway, the movie Singles came out and PJ had two songs on that soundtrack, which I bought in August of 92 and just popped in to rip and listen to while I type this. Eddie, Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard appeared in the film as band members with Matt Dillon in the fictional Citizen Dick (great name though). I dug those PJ tunes too (the entire soundtrack is great), but it was Evenflow that put me over the top on picking up Ten in September, just over a year after its release.
To date, it remains as the only disc I have had stolen. This was my (first) senior year of college and it was taken from my apartment the night my roommates and I threw a party. I found it was missing the next day and I immediately went out and got another copy. High praise for a very poor college kid.
Vs.
You might say this is a self-titled disc because the title Vs. does not appear anywhere on the packaging. If I remember correctly, either band members had a disagreement on the title or the label did, so it became known as Vs. Something like that. I’m not going to bother researching it. Leave a comment if you know!
Anyway, this is my second favorite disc. Go is absolutely one of my favorite songs ever. Animal, Daughter, Elderly Woman and on it goes. I found myself singing along with every song on this one too.
I was a bit more on the ball with this one and bought it 3 days after release. This is when the band started getting uppity because they didn’t want to release singles or videos to support it, plus I remember being pissed about the stupid mostly cardboard case. It’s not like I’ll ever need to recycle the damn things. I demand conformity in my collection and if it’s not a plastic jewelbox, it throws everything off. Not as bad as…
Vitalogy
Now this one was a study in arrogance if you ask me. Not only is it not the same size as a regular jewelbox, it had the disc sliding into a cardboard sleeve that easily scratches the sh!t out of it, but at least it didn’t use plastic…
What? There’s music on it you say? Oh yeah, well this was their third and I also happen to consider it their third best, and up until very recently, last one of any note (I forgot about Yield being great). Not for You, Better Man, Corduroy, Spin the Black Circle and on. Everything except that last creepy ass song that I had to freakin delete after ripping it. WTF! This one stands as the last disc to which I can sing along to every song because after this one they released…
No Code
Oh my gawd, what a piece of sh!t. I’m not alone here kids. This is the disc that stains my memory the most. I remember being so excited for the new disc and when I heard it, I almost cried. Well, maybe not, but I was sooooo disappointed. I ripped it anyway, and I don’t know… it’s not as bad as I remembered. The first handful of songs is okay, which is good since these are usually the group of songs on an album from which the singles are chosen. I guess I don’t mind this one as much as I used to, but it is still their worst.
Yield
This disc made up for the failure that was No Code, except that, I forgot about it as I wrote Kurt. I was thinking mostly of No Code, Binaural and Riot Act. I can’t sing along with all these songs, but Do the Evolution, Wishlist, Given to Fly, No Way and Brain of J. are the standouts here. At least Do the Evolution elicits the memory of one of the last quality music videos (from an anti-video band no less…) I have seen, but I haven’t watched MTV for easily over ten years, except for Real World, Newlyweds and Pimp My Ride… natch!
Binaural
I wanted to lump this one in with No Code, but after listening to it a couple times, I like it more than I remembered. I guess I don’t remember being disappointed with it when it dropped, but it didn’t stick with me either. I like Light Years, Breakerfall, Evacuation, Nothing as it Seems, Insignificance, and Grievance, so… about half the album. Most of those fall into the start of the disc again, so they were meant to be the best and the rest is filler. I guess that’s the thing; you look at their first three discs and there’s no filler, but three out their last four have lots of filler. I rank this one after Yield, so fifth best, but it is my favorite PJ album cover.
Riot Act
I only remembered Bushleaguer going into it and I really enjoy that song. It’s either because of the uniqueness of it or the fact that it is anti-Dubya. I guess Love Boat Captain is good and I am Mine is okay. I really like You Are, but mostly because of the guitars and bass. I thought this disc was going to be a throwback to older PJ, but it’s mostly throwaway. It barely misses No Code for last on my list.
Lost Dogs
I’ll throw this one in the mix because it is full of gems. I suppose this is their B-sides and rarities set and for some reason I tend to enjoy these kinds of collections.
Other than Yellow Ledbetter and Last Kiss, most of these songs are unknown. Overall, it’s a good collection and I enjoyed listening to it again even though nothing is standing out to me as I look it over now. For the record, I hate, hate, hate Last Kiss. In fact, it was probably the beating of this song into the ground twenty times over by radio that made me drop that PJ crap statement. Okay… No Code and Riot Act helped a lot too, but the shame of it is I liked Last Kiss when I first heard their version of it, but that thought was destroyed by radio.
World Wide Suicide (Single)
I know, it’s not an album, but it is a reason for optimism about the self-titled release due soon (May?). The thing is, I don’t even like the A-side that much, but I really like the B-side: Unemployable. I bought the single on iTunes since you get both songs for 99 cents. I keep singing “Spin the Black Circle†when Eddie says “World Wide Suicide,†so maybe that ruins it, but it’s worth a buck. Both songs will be on Pearl Jam when it drops.
The trip down Discography Lane was beneficial for two reasons: I reacquainted myself with my Pearl Jam catalog and then with Grunge in general. After going thru PJ, I ripped Soundgarden (Chris Cornell and Audioslave too), Alice in Chains (Mad Season and Jerry Cantrell too), Smashing Pumpkins (not Zwan!) and Stone Temple Pilots. Not every album in there can be considered grunge, but that’s from where they all started. Superunknown, Jar of Flies, Gish and Purple respectively are some of my favorite albums ever. In addition to those, the comment conversation with Jason had me ripping all my Foo Fighters’ discs too. I may just write my thoughts about all those bands also.
Anyway, I am cautiously optimistic that the new album will be at least as good as Binaural, which I guess at this point, I can live with. We are never going to get another Ten, Vs. or Vitalogy and that is too bad. Another thing to consider is that my taste for new PJ may be going away. It might have something to do with the fact that I hold onto those first three discs so dearly while a younger guy like Jason believes Yield and Binaural to be their best. It is music, so taste is all relative (unless everyone hates it). Don’t even get me started on these ratings on iTunes… has anything ever been rated lower than four stars?
Mike McCready is speaking out about Crohn’s Disease, Colitis and IBD on the radio, so as long as none of that makes it into Pearl Jam, then we may be okay. Then again, I guess that might back up my post title after all…
Posts ::
This post has 5 comments (now closed):
Ed
Mon :: 24 :: Apr :: 2006 :: 12.43 pm
I remember my first introduction to Pearl Jam was when they played Saturday Night Live in 1992. It was just after Basic Instinct was released – so the host was Sharon Stone -who was supernova hot at that time. Anyway their set was incendiary.
Also of note – that SNL appearance came days after they had played UMASS in the Campus Center Ballroom. Within a year they’d be headlining 30,000 – 50,000+ seat arenas – but here they were on our campus, just mere minutes before they hit the stratosphere, playing a sweaty room of a few hundred.
Joe has a great anecdote involving a buddy of his who was responsible for booking acts to play on campus. This guy had to pick Eddie and the gang up at the airport and give them a lift to the hotel. He said the stench emanating from our grunge gods was so overpowering – he ended up napalming his VW minibus. Anyway – that’s a good intro for Joe to give us the 411 on that tale in these pages. I’m sure I lost something in translation.
This is an excellent piece on my favorite band of all time. I agree that Ten is their greatest album – and in my mind is permanently etched in my Top Ten of All Time. As for the others, I have a hard time choosing – so I label them all strong seconds – although Vs. (which was also called ‘Five Against One’ at one point) is up there.
Essentially Ten is the most consistent album – the others have a few tracks per disc that I could trash in a heartbeat (Bugs, anyone?) After Joe’s story – ya’ start to understand where Eddie found the real world experience to write “I’ve got bugs in my hair” and suddenly, he doesn’t seem quite the mad genius. : )
Ultimately, I think Pearl Jam’s greatest strength is in the song-writing. Vedder and co. know how to tell a tale and always place you in the point of view of their subject. From elderly women toiled away behind small town lunch counters to nowhere men who desperately wish they could be the souvernier you kept your house keys on, they let us role play like no one else.
I remeber reading an interview with Tim Robbins, around the time Dead Man Walking was released, where he talked about his selection of Eddie Vedder to record that film’s haunting track “The Long Road”. He was inspired by Vedder’s ability to sketch an honest character study in verse – to draft a character and impart a lived in feel to that person – to etch lines on their face and miles on their feet and let the listener walk a few steps in their shoes.
That’s evolution, baby!
JFCC
Mon :: 24 :: Apr :: 2006 :: 04.22 pm
@Ed—”This is an excellent piece on my favorite band of all time.” I didn’t realize we had that in common.
In high school I was all about the long jean shorts and the flannel shirts. I learned to play guitar, got a Fender Stratocaster, the whole nine yards. I’m psyched to see PJ live next month when they hit the Fleetcenter, or the Garden or the Yahoo Search Engine Arena or whatever the hell they’re calling it now. They can’t play Great Woods (the Tweeter Center? whatever) anymore because they went over curfew the last time they came around (I was at that concert—that was the time they decided to play every song they’ve ever played live over three concerts…they even did a little acoustic thing before the main show on the last day, the one I went to—again, very cool.).
Ten and Vs. used to be my favorite PJ albums, but you can only hear those songs so many times before you get a bit tired of them. So here’s my current order of favorites (based on how often I listen to them):
1. Binaural
2. Yield
3. Lost Dogs
4. Vs.
5. Ten
6. No Code
7. Riot Act
8. Vitalogy
I have high hopes for Pearl Jam. “Worldwide Suicide” is pretty good, though “Unemployable” isn’t that great. They’ve really avoided putting out a really catchy single (unless it’s a low-key piece like “Better Man,” “Wishlist” or “Last Kiss”). They either can’t or won’t go back to the kind of commercially viable sound they had on Ten or Vs.. They’ve come close, particularly with Yield, which outsold the previous No Code by 100K and outsold every album after.
But let’s face it, the real reason for Pearl Jam’s declining popularity isn’t their sound. It’s their unwillingness to be a part of the marketing machine—no music videos, no MTV, no video awards shows or any of that high-profile stuff that a band like U2 thrives on. I know this sounds cynical, but if Pearl Jam had heavily promoted any of their albums they way they did Ten, I think that those albums would be more highly regarded.
In many ways I haven’t moved beyond the mid-nineties in terms of music tastes, but that’s partially because there really hasn’t been much good commercial rock music since then (in my ever-so-humble opinion, of course). Pretenders like Staind, Creed, Nickelback, Godsmack, and so forth just aren’t the same. (I won’t lump in the Strokes, the Hives, Franz Ferdinand, and the White Stripes…I like some of them, but they’ve got the whole 1970s-dance rock/punk revival thing going on—it’s different.)
I recently rediscovered the Sponge single “Wax Ecstatic”…holy crap, that song rocks. What the hell happened to rock music? I blame Limp Bizkit.
Sean
Mon :: 24 :: Apr :: 2006 :: 08.29 pm
@Ed – Good call on “Five Against One.” I had forgotten about that. I think that might have been what it was. The disagreement was between that title and Vs., so they didn’t label it. I should check Wikipedia on that one.
Being old school like you, I had a hard time deciding between Vs. and Ten as my favorite. I think Vs. is in fact my favorite, but Ten is probably their best, if that makes sense. I feel that way because they set out with the goal of making it less commercial and rock radio friendly than Ten. Of course, plenty of songs still made it on the airwaves.
@JFCC – Well, all I can say is I can’t believe you put Vitalogy last! You make an excellent point about the band consciously deciding to not be marketed as the next great rock band. With Ten, they really did come out of the grunge gate as the biggest band and with Vs., they decided to take a step back.
I don’t necessarily agree with you on the video aspect of it. I mean, do people really watch videos anymore in the age of TRL and MTV not showing videos? I’ve heard of this MTV2 concept, but never seen it. Videos are all about selling a band’s image and PJ has ever been about that.
I can’t even call bands like Staind and Godsmack pretenders (I am purposely not adding those other two as I think they suck, suck, suck – not that I am spinning any Godsmack — new album tomorrow why? — or Staind these days either) because they came along in the Nu Rock slash Nu Metal wave that hit, yes, in no small part due to Limp Bizkit and MTV. They were in turn replaced by all the “The” bands who are already being replaced by the Emo bands.
Grunge, Nu whatever and the “The” guys are just different brands of rock, no? The industry seems to cycle thru genres, so I’m sure the next great rock band is out there somewhere and no doubt looking to PJ as inspiration.
:: Zero to Pearl Jam in 50 :: seanobrien.org // OB1og
Wed :: 03 :: May :: 2006 :: 09.44 pm
[…] Pearl Jam = Crap […]
:: Pearl Jammed :: seanobrien.org // OB1og
Thu :: 06 :: Jul :: 2006 :: 09.35 pm
[…] Yesterday, the OB1og got hit pretty good — for me anyway — by a bunch of Pearl Jam fanatics after someone posted links to my two PJ posts on the pearljam.com forums. Seems like those that posted back came away with the idea I hate PJ. What up with that? […]