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... Continue reading »

Kurt

Twelve years ago today, Kurt Cobain’s body was found. Hard to believe it has been that long.

Nevermind was the the first grunge album I purchased and I got it on January 19th 1992. Yeah, a little late to the party considering it was released September 24th 1991. I purchased 11 other CD’s in the time between and, with the exception of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, I can say the other 10 are crap compared to Nevermind. I won’t recount what those discs were now, and not out of embarassment either. I will fess up that the other disc I bought that day was the soundtrack to JFK. Little did I know both “front men” would die of gun shots to the head.

As I remember it, Nirvana was the band that really kicked off the whole grunge thing and forced it into the mainstream. Yeah, there were other bands before Nirvana — Soundgarden, Mudhoney, The Melvins, Mother Love Bone, Alice in Chains — but not with their commercial success. To be honest, all those bands probably benefited from Kurt “selling out,” except maybe Soundgarden who had released Badmotorfinger around the same time and were making their own way. Okay, and maybe Cameron Cro... Continue reading »