Pearl Jam
“I felt like there are grunge bands out there, or what I define as that, doing tremendous things, and that we were ushered in with that as our laminate to get backstage, and we didn't deserve it.” – Eddie Vedder
“Pearl Jam, by default, has become the Great American Nineties Rock Band by being the only artist to actually survive the decade.” – Capn Marvel
“I feel like their music captures my inner spirit.” – Dennis Rodman
Albums Reviewed:
Pearl Jam is the last of the “Big 4” Seattle bands to be reviewed here on this site, and considering I was 9 in 1991 when “grunge” hit, it seems to me like they probably should have been reviewed sooner (ofcourse, if they hadn’t put out Lost Dogs, which I couldn’t get a free copy of until about a month ago, then they would have). Anyway, now that I’ve been able to thoroughly dissect all 4, you know what? I like Pearl Jam least. That’s not to say they aren’t any good or anything, and it’s certainly admirable that they’ve been able to last all the way into 2004, thereby putting out a much greater amount of good music than the Seattle band they’re ranked directly behind, Alice in Chains (who get the nod for #3 because Pearl Jam, in my opinion, never made anything as good as Dirt or Jar of Flies), but this consistency and the godlike voice of Eddie Vedder are really the only above-average qualities of this band. Musical skill-wise, the name of the game is “competence,” and they can’t touch Soundgarden or AIC. To compare them to Nirvana songwriting-wise is just ludicrous. So what is it about them that has made them possibly the most successful band of the decade?
Simple. It’s
Eddie, it’s always been Eddie, and it always will be Eddie. Without him, Pearl Jam are just another
decent rock band. Thankfully, the other
four members convinced him to be in their band, and the rest his history. When you consider the debate of “best
mainstream rock vocalist of the nineties,” if he’s not the clear-cut winner,
he’s at least right near the top of the list.
Thom Yorke probably comes off as whiney if you don’t like
Radiohead. Chris Cornell probably comes
off as annoying if you don’t like Soundgarden.
Layne Staley wouldn’t have accomplished much without all the vocal
overdubs and layering
See, outside of Eddie, Pearl Jam for
me is like that objectively smoking hot but nevertheless bland blond girl that
you just can’t get all that excited about (I prefer brunettes, thank you very much). There’s nothing wrong with them. Everything’s in proportion and where it
should be. But I have this nagging
feeling that I’ve seen everything good about them better in some other
place, and, again, outside of Eddie, there’s nothing I could specifically
recommend about them. They’re good at
what they do, but they’re not great at what they do. They started off as moody, bombastic ballad
kings who couldn’t rock real well on Ten, misstepped a little on the messy Vs., proved they could rock (darkly!) on the very good Vitalogy, got quieter for some reason on No Code, and then, once
its lukewarm reception forever ended their reign as commercial megastars,
finally stopped trying to prove they were uncommercial (which they’d been doing
since Vs.) on the poppy Yield. Their last two albums are just extensions of
their decision around 1998 to stop doing anything new or unique, and while Binaural is a lazy disappointment, Riot
Act does the exact same thing
better, and shows they might have staying power for another decade or so, even
if it looks like they’re gonna be one of those bands that just remakes the same
album over and over again from here on out (Hi, AC/DC!). And the difference between their best efforts
(Vitalogy and Yield) and their worst (Vs. and Binaural) is small. Blindly snatching up a random Pearl Jam album
off the shelf, no matter which one it is, will give you anything from a pretty
good listening experience to a very good listening experience (and everything
in between!). They’ve never done a great
album, but they’ve also never done an album that even approaches “bad,” although their worst individual songs are occasionally
horrific. So picking out a Pearl Jam
album is a much safer proposition than picking out, say, a King Crimson album,
where you could wind up with a brilliantly original
masterpiece, but could just as likely get a heaping pile of feces, and most
likely will get both in the course of the same record.
Finally, lineup. And this paragraph will be very short,
because, except for Eddie, a description of each member’s skills can be summed
up neatly by saying “he’s pretty average.”
The top row has, from left to right, guitarist Stone Gossard, Eddie,
bassist Jeff Ament and his hat, and other guitarist Mike McCready. In the front, separated from the band and no
doubt preparing to be fired, is drummer #3 Dave Abbruzzesse. Dave Krusen was the “original” drummer (i.e.
he drummed on Ten), but he didn’t last long and right now
they’re on drummer #5.
I’ll allude to who leaves when and who replaces them in the actual
reviews, but don’t be too surprised if current drummer Matt Cameron
spontaneously combusts during a show in the
And, onto the reviews!
Ten (1991)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Black”
So I
listened to both Ten and Vs. again before writing
the rest of this page (you know, for kicks), and I realized my opinion’s sort
of changed on the two of ‘em! The
general impression of goodness and badness of the albums as a whole didn’t
really change, but the REASONS. Those
are a bit different now. Plus I read
through my old reviews and they made me cringe.
Why the hell was I talking about Sterile Darryl? Christ, I’m never reading my Radiohead
page. That was the first one I did! I bet it sucks ass. Not that the reviews I’m writing now are any
better.
Anyway, Ten. The 8-ness remains the same, the impression
of “yes, it’s quite good, but I don’t see why it sold 8 billion copies, besides
the fact that Eddie Vedder’s vocal chords are god,” all that. But I listened back through again and I
noticed a few things absent from my original description. After hearing the speedy version of “Even
Flow” on Live on Two Legs, I realized…hey, this thing is kinda
slow! And when it does try to speed up (“Why Go,” for instance), it kinda completely
fails! And I don’t think there’s a
single memorable guitar riff on the whole thing, either. The line that opens “Alive” is a tasty
cracker, yes sir, but is it a “riff?” I
don’t know. I don’t think so.
So, anyway, the album actually doesn’t
do all that much for me for about ten minutes.
I know “Once” and “Even Flow” get played on the radio thousands of times
STILL (while I hear maybe one Soundgarden song a month, which is total bullshit. I think I hear more
from STP’s Core than from Superunknown on the local
rock stations, which is just retarted), and they’re nice and all, but that’s
really just because of Eddie. As I
completely steal a point Mark Prindle made years ago, picture a completely
average singer belting out “Even Flow.”
Would it amount to much? I say
no. But thankfully Eddie’s on the job,
and at this point in PJ’s life, he was INCREDIBLE. Just incredible. Everyone and their mother rips him off today
(Hi, Scott Stapp! How are you?), but his
imitators just sound like retards with gerbils lodged in their throats. You can’t touch the original.
The record picks up after “Once” and
“Even Flow,” though, as “Alive” is the only one of the opening trio of midtempo
classic wank rock singles I can throw my full support behind. That guitar line at the start is ace, and you gotta love the chorus. Eddie!
Then “Why Go” isn’t very good, but HEY!
No biggie, because then we have the album’s meat, the dynamic duo of
“Black” and “Jeremy.” See, as a
semi-related aside, the guitars on this record sound like crap. They’re too mushy! Mike and Stone are all off in the background
and, when the band tries to rock out in their midtempo wankish 70’s way, I can
never tell what the fuck they’re doing because it all just mushes
together. They’re SLOPPY. So Pearl Jam’s attempts to “rock” on this
record are pretty hit-or-miss (which basically means “miss”), but the moody
ballads with gorgeous codas? THAT is
where the money shot is. So you’ve got
your “doo doo doo” ending to “Black” and your “Jeremy spoke in…claaaasss
to-DAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!” line in “Jeremy, and this is where you need to
sink your teeth in. In particular, and I
think you’ll agree with me on this one, “Black” is STILL absolutely gorgeous,
with its moody piano crap whatever the hell else they toss in there for
“dramatic effect.” And “Jeremy,” led by
one of the best videos of the nineties, is almost as good. When the band stops trying to wankily and clumsily
rock around and just create some good background atmosphere for Eddie, this
album is great! And that’s why I’ve come
to appreciate “Oceans,” the short yet powerful, moody quasi-ballad that comes
right after the two big winners, so much.
It’s just about the only song from this album I still don’t hear on the
radio every day, too, so that helps. I
can’t WAIT until Jan 1st, 2010, when classic rock stations will
start hammering this record into the ground more than
Anyway, the next stretch of songs
isn’t all that remarkable. “Porch” is
definitely better than “Why Go” as an attempt to speed the tempo up and ROCK
THE FUCK OUT a little bit, and the “I just need to
SAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY” line is ofcourse phenomenal, but outside of the godlike
Eddie vocal theatrics, I could give or take this song (sound familiar?). “Garden” is another nice ballad, though not
quite as good as “Black” or “Oceans” or the real A+ ballad material here, and
“Deep” is the other song here I don’t really like much. “Release,” though, is QUITE the closer. It starts off all nice with a pretty little
intro that Creed has directly ripped off for roughly half their recorded
material (until NOW! HA!), and Eddie’s
crescendo-ing into that dramatic “RELEEEEAAAAAAASE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!” is
breathtaking. It’s like, on this album,
Eddie picked a half-decent band up from their bootstraps and DRAGGED them to international superstardom.
It’s all him.
So, although I still don’t buy the reputation this record has, I will also still hand it
its due as darn, darn good. “Alive,”
“Black,” “Jeremy,” “Oceans,” and “Release” are fucking great, and the rest is mostly pretty good, lifted up from mediocre by Eddie,
although “Why Go” and “Deep” are merely lifted up to mediocre, because
without Eddie they’d be crap. And the
secret track at the end is stupid.
Vs. (1993)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Rearviewmirror”
And let the Spinal Tap comparisons
begin! Dave Krusen drummed on the Ten record, then left in the summer of 1991, was replaced for a month by Matt Chamberlin, and then double-replaced by Dave Abbruzzese, who
appeared in the Alive video and roughly 75% percent of the promo
photos I’ve been able to find of the band because he was around for all the
press hoopla for Ten and Vs, and didn’t leave until
after Vitalogy started to let people know that Pearl Jam
had a penchant for being a little artsy-weird sometimes, and they usually
sucked at it. I can’t tell the damn
difference between Dave #1 and Dave #2, but Dave #2 has a cool soul patch, so
go him! I enjoy soul patches.
Getting back on track, this here
record album seems to me like a compromise between Pearl Jam’s penchant for
wanky 70’s midtempo rock and their desire to appear more “punk, dude” to their peers (something that was really just retarted. You are what you are. So don’t write shitty songs like “Leash” to
try to prove otherwise). So the album
turns out a very mixed bag.
No moody ballads like the best stuff from Ten (except
“Indifference,” but I’m so indifferent towards its boringness I always forget
about it, just like I did there!), but we find Pearl Jam branching off unevenly
into some new territory here. And
although the first half contains some pretty darn impressive songs, the record
doesn’t really start you off on a high note, as the opener “Go” is just a total
imitation of “Why Go” from the last album (right down to its title! Just take off one of the words!), and does a
good job of being just as mediocre as its model. What is this sped-up funk rock shit? NOT what this band is good at, I can tell you
that! (Foreshadowing)
The next batch of tunes is where you’ll find most of this album’s quality, starting with the interesting “Animal.” It’s still sort of caught in that “sloppy and annoying funk-rock” genre of some of band’s worst early material, but the “I’d rather be with an animal!” hook provides you with further evidence of the fact that Eddie can make anything good, as long as it’s at least average to begin with (if it sucks, it sucks, and you’re fucked). I don’t like “Daughter” as much as I used to, and after listening to this album a few more times, I’ve stripped it of its best song nod, but it’s still a very nice song, and a good first stab at acoustic balladry stuff. “Glorified G” is based entirely around a riff that I think is purposely off-key, and I should probably dislike it, but I don’t! I actually think it’s one of the best songs here, along with the following “Dissident,” where the band (thankfully) surrenders to their mid-70’s wank-rock proclivities with no hesitation and creates a lovely classic-rock time. These are good songs! The band is still sloppy, but it’s nice to see, especially when you add in my new favorite track, the BITCHIN’ tucked-away-on-side-2 “Rearviewmirror,” that the rockers appear to be progressing a bit from Ten.
Whoops! Nevermind. Of what’s left, “W.M.A.” has actually grown on me, and although the tribal drums get a little old after 6 minutes, the song is quite good, and “Elderly Woman Etc. (Brad refuses invent new song title because everyone always invents a new title for this song and he wants to start thinking outside the box)” is a very nice, though a bit underdeveloped, acoustic tale of some old woman or some shit, but the rest has to go. See, there are two main differences between Ten and Vs. The first is that the moody quasi-ballads that pop up all over Ten and are that album’s best feature are almost absent here, with the exception of the useless “Indifference.” The second is that, while the worst tracks on Ten (“Why Go,” “Deep”) were just mediocre, the worst tracks here are ATROCIOUS. That shitty sped-up funk rock I was talking about? Well, if you don’t like it, please stay the hell away from the second half of this album. “Blood” is dirty, sloppy, underwritten, and just plain awful, and “Rats” and “Leash” (“DROP THE LEASH!!!! DROP THE LEASH!!!!!”) aren’t much better. They all sound like they were written in two seconds. “Blood,” especially, makes material like “Go” sound godlike, and has some of the most unlistenable funk-crap cliched wah-wah guitar lines popping up all over your headphones. And this type of stuff is not absent from the other two offenders either, just toned down a little bit. These are songs that make you feel unclean, and they aren’t even about sex or anything. The funk wah-wah guitars themselves make you feel like you need a shower, and that, while definitely a noteworthy accomplishment (I mean, that’s hard to do!), is not something you want your band to make happen.
I think,
when you get down to it, the band included all those crappy-sounding songs intentionally,
to try to show that they could be fast and “punkish,” even though their idea of
“punkish” is just to play awful funk-rock really fast and yell really loud
about nothing. It’s like a lot of this
album was purposely uncommercial, as a sort of “backlash” against a) their fame
and b) bands like Nirvana criticizing their reputation. Like on “Glorified G,” they thought “let’s
make this last note of the riff sound like crap, that’ll show how uncommercial
we are!” And, if this is what
they were trying to do, the total lack of the best kinds of songs from Ten (which if you think about it, are almost (*shudder*) power ballads) makes perfect sense. But if
you’re still slaves to uber-commercial wanky classic rock, you really can’t
help it, so “Daughter” and “Dissident” and “Rearviewmirror” and even “Glorified
G” (in spite of their feeble attempt) are very good, commercial-sounding
songs. And Eddie Vedder’s vocal chords
are still god.
He’s the main reason so many people buy this band’s records anyway, and
there are worse ways you could spend your money, like on, say, Good Charlotte
albums, so I won’t begrudge.
Oh, and I think I said in my old
review that there’s an angry sheep on the cover. It’s not a sheep. It’s a llama.
I once spent a weekend at a llama farm, so I know llamas, and trust me,
that’s a llama.
Vitalogy (1994)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Better Man”
Very nice!
Back up to the realm of solidly good, and back from the depths of,
um…decently good. OK! I’d probably call this one my favorite
though, and you know why? Because while
Pearl Jam still has that fun youthful bombast of their earlier albums (which
sometimes led them off a dangerous cliff of unlistenable funk-rock, but it was
still pretty invigorating when it really got going and focused in the right
direction (“Black!” “Jeremy!” “Rearviewmirror!”)), they’re starting to
figure out of a few things. First: they
blow at writing funk-rock, so there’s no more of that. Second, they’re figuring out how to write
RIFFS for their rockers (either that or the production is finally allowing the
riffs to be audible). In any case, there
is some serious RRRROCK music on this album, probably the highest
concentration of quality butt-kicking rock and roll you’ll find on a Pearl Jam
record.
I really think it’s mainly the
shedding of crappy funk-wankery that does it, too. Without a desire to, when in doubt, reach for
their wah-wah pedal, unless maybe it just makes the guitar tone sound a little
cooler (like on “Not For You!” That song
rules!), as I said, they finally write some catchy riffs, and the rockers
finally come into their own as very high-quality material. Let’s say the opening two tracks, “Last Exit”
and “Spin the Black Circle,” were on Vs.
or Ten. What did all the “kick-ass, speedy” tracks on
those albums have in common? Yup, they
SUCKED! To be fair, Ten really only had “Why Go,” and “Go” from Vs. really isn’t that bad
(don’t forget, though, the ones on the second side are that bad), but I think
it’s fair to say that these two songs, several years prior, would suck a fat
one. But they don’t! Eddie’s yelling in exactly the same way as
before (ofcourse, he wasn’t the problem), but the funk rock sloppy crappiness
has been replaced by tight riffing tastiness!
Quite good songs. “Not For You,”
which I mentioned, is damn fine too, and you’ll find a few others later on,
like the single “Corduroy” (now that is one catchy riff) and the underrated,
strange little ditty “Satan’s Bed” (“I wanna suck…SATAN’S DICK!!!!”). These are quality songs with quality riffs,
and they’re not messy or mushy or any of those adjectives I’ve been using to
describe previous Pearl Jam rockers at all. The only one I don’t like is “Whipping,” but
not because they revert to their nasty old tendencies (although it is a little sloppy).
It’s just fucking annoying, and the melody gives me a headache. “They’re whipppiiiiiing!!! They’re whippiiiiiiiiiing!!!!!” The hell?
Poor stuff.
I also like how they’ve returned to
the moodier material that more or less singlehandedly made Ten a good record. I mean, you
won’t find a “Black” or an “Oceans” on here, but the ballads and pseudo-ballads
at least are closer to that kind of material than the ballads
on Vs., which almost seemed influenced by country-rock or some shit. “Tremor Christ,” for instance, is an
interesting little tune build around quite an odd but intriguing two-chord
sequence. Is it a rocker or a
ballad? I don’t even think it
knows, but it’s good either way, and of the true ballads, both “Nothingman” and
the closing (at least when I’m listening to the album) “Immortality” get a
good amount of support from me. The real winner, however, is the one you’ve all heard 100 times, “Better
Man.” It’s a tune that sort of sneaks up
on you, but its buildup is just expertly done.
Is that an accordion in the background at the start or just a neat
keyboard? I dunno! But Eddie (surprise!) is what makes this tune. He willingly holds himself back, almost
whispering at the start, then takes it up to mid-range power when the drums
kick in, but by the end he’s in full-on
Eddie power mode, and I again realize why Pearl Jam is as popular as they are: Jeff Ament’s hats.
Actually, I find Jeff Aments hats
silly, and what I also find silly is Pearl Jam’s periodic attempts
to prove they’re not just a pretty good rock band (that they’re serious artists, bitch!), because they attempt to prove this by simply breaking up the
flow of their perfectly good albums with weird little asides that have no
purpose at all except to be stupid. On Vs. these took the form of hideous funk-rock vomit tracks, but here they
begin their tradition of “experimenting,” and I find it silly! “Pry, To” is a minute long and might not even
actually exist! “Bugs” is…about
bugs! And features an out-of-tune
accordion! “Aye, Davanita” is passable,
but has no reason to exist, and it comes right between “Better Man” and
“Immortality!” Makes perfect sense (not)! And the actual closer “Hey Foxymophandlemama, That’s Me” (or just “Stupid Mop,” I’ve
seen it listed both ways) is one of the most horrendous failed experiments I’ve
ever heard, and I’ve only listened to it all the way through once. The second time I was only
able to stomach about half of it, and now I just stop the album after
“Immortality” and pretend it doesn’t exist.
I don’t remember anything about it, either. It’s like one of those repressed
memories. It’s very traumatic to listen
to.
And, no, it doesn’t factor into my
opinion of the album. As far as I’m
concerned, it doesn’t exist.
It’s long enough, ridiculous enough, bad enough, and at the end enough that I recommend doing what I do and pretending “Immortality” is
the last track (it actually makes a helluva closer, too). It’s really the only way to save your
sanity. And since I don’t count “Worst Mop Ever” as part of it, I call this my favorite Pearl
Jam record! Very nicely written, tight,
interesting, riff-based rock and roll music with some interesting strangeness,
a few silly experiments, a handful of nice ballads, and only one track I don’t
like (“Whipping”). So, therefore, it’s
the same thing as most Pearl Jam albums, but the energy’s a little higher here
than on everything that follows, there’s a higher concentration of quality
rockers here than on everything that follows, and the songwriting’s a little
higher here than on everything that follows except Yield, so therefore it’s
my favorite record by the biggest American rock band of the nineties. But I still have the Toadies’ debut album
rated higher, because I’m dumb.
No Code (1996)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Who You Are”
Spinal Tap update! Dave Abbruzzesse out, former Chili Peppers
skinman Jack Irons in, as Pearl Jam from here on out try to
corner the market on former drummers of other famous nineties bands. And now, onto the review!
REVIEW: Blow Chode presents an interesting change in sound, but it doesn’t hold up over
the entire album, and is sometimes just too subtle for its own good. What bugs me most about this one is that they
decided to get “all quiet and shit” after Vitalogy had finally
proven they had the capability to fill an album with energetic, interesting
rockers. Like, to follow it up, for some
reason they abandon a whole lot of what made that album so good. You could make the case that they’re trying
to be taken seriously as artists here, but I don’t buy that this one is any
more self-consciously “artistic” than Vitalogy was. It’s just different, and it’s not like they
abandoned writing rockers either, they just stopped trying to make them any good. “Hail, Hail” can stand up with
anything on Vitalogy (and even this one is more subtle,
since Eddie refrains from yelling and the whole thing seems muddled at first,
and has to unravel to show its true rocking power), but the remaining handful
of hard rockers here are pretty much useless.
“Habit” is annoying in the same way “Whipping” was from Vitalogy, but not quite as badly, “Lukin” is one minute long, and “Mankind” was
probably written in 30 seconds and features NOT EDDIE VEDDER on vocals. Bad!
Bad! Who is it, anyway,
Stone? He just sounds like some
dude! You know how many people sound
like that? A whole fuckload more than
the number of people that sound like Eddie, that’s how many.
Outside of “Hail, Hail,” though, the
rockers don’t really matter on this record.
They’re almost perfunctory, like the band stuck “Hail, Hail” on there to
be a link to Vitalogy and get played on the radio (not that it
did) and the others to, I dunno, keep it company or something. Whatever.
The rest of the record is a bunch of subtle slow to midtempo tunes,
driven by pretty little guitar lines instead of monstrous, ass-kicking riffs,
on top of which Eddie tries to seem all quiet and introspective and crap. And tribal-ish drums are a semi-frequent
characteristic, or at least seem that way, because the two best songs here
both feature them and come right after the other. “Who You Are” and “In My Tree” are possibly
the only points on this album where the band totally succeeds in what
they were going for, and they’re both superb.
“Who You Are” is fantastic and would’ve been a hit single if it had
more traditional instrumentation or something (like, if they did it more like
“Better Man,” you would’ve all heard this song 100 times by now), and the
following “In My Tree,” though not as melodically delicious, corrects its
predecessor’s only flaw by layering some powerful traditional drum fills
over the tribal goodness as the song develops, thereby giving it a good amount
of drive and pseudo-rocking capability.
But when you’re looking to “In My Tree” to rock out, you know an album
is a little low in rock-out-factor.
The remaining tunes are just a mixed
bag, and there’s no other way to put it, but a few still stand out. The opener “Sometimes” is REALLY too damn
quiet, but it’s very pretty, and the immediate segue into “Hail, Hail” provides
you with a neat contrast. “Off He Goes”
is a nice little understated, melodic acoustic ballad that I probably enjoy
more than “Daughter,” and it gives off the friendly vibe of a bunch of guys
sitting around fire, you know, jamming.
It comes across as very intimate.
It’s nice. And “Present Tense”
doesn’t start out like much, but develops over the course of its 6 minutes
(Which are actually put to good use!
What a buildup!) into what would be a perfect album closer if
the album did in fact end after it was finished, instead of unfortunately
launching “Mankind” on us before giving us a few shots of Valium by way of the
ultra-useless-moody-narration of “I’m Open,” followed by “Around the Bend,”
which is just a complete waste of
space. And, I mean, it’s not even that bad of a
song! It’s just one of those tunes that
gives you no compelling proof that millions of other bands couldn’t have
written it. It has no reason to
exist. I like “Red Mosquito” some, too,
even though I sometimes miss it, being placed in between the half-assed
screamfests “Habit” and “Lukin.” It
throws on some nice guitar lines at the end, but it’s nothing more than “pretty
good,” and the only track I haven’t mentioned yet, “Smile,” just seems out of
place on the record. Is it a
rocker? Is it supposed to groove? What is it supposed to DO?? I hear two guitars trading off nicely distorted
little licks, and a drum line that vaguely grooves, as well as some harmonica and
piano, but it doesn’t really add up to anything. Like, it has the ingredients of a good
song, but in the end isn’t one, and is just kinda average. Can I explain it? No, I can’t.
Maybe I’d like it a few albums ago, but coming after the fresh,
invigorating rock-fest of Vitalogy, it just seems sluggish.
So, basically, for the album, nice
idea, and decent result, but could’ve been better. “Hail, Hail” kicks ass, but the rest of the
rockers are just half-assed and silly (I mean, give me and my friends a few
days and we could write “Lukin” and “Mankind,” come
on). “Who You Are” and “In My Tree” are
excellent, but they’re just not duplicated anywhere else on the album. “Sometimes” and “Off He Goes” are quietly
pretty, but “I’m Open” and “Around the Bend” are quietly boring as hell. “Present Tense” is pretty
great, but, um…whatever. The whole album
is just a total mixed bag. You’ll find
some great stuff. You’ll find some
sleep-inducing stuff. You’ll find some
passable stuff. You’ll find some dumb
stuff. You’ll just find a whole bunch of
different stuff, with the common thread being that it’s all
self-consciously more subtle and less IN-YOUR-FACE than whatever Pearl Jam had
done before. I don’t even know what to
make of it. More effort to be
artsy? Then why are so many of the songs
just toss-offs? The band’s being more
relaxed and organic? I can maybe buy
that one, but why is it so consciously quiet and uncommercial? When this band’s just having fun I highly
doubt they sound like “I’m Open” or “Sometimes.” Just getting older? That one I could buy too, but why is it such
a drastic change from Vitalogy in two years? And why did they revert (to a degree) afterwards? I dunno.
Maybe you, the readers, can help me out with this one, because I’m
stumped! It’s not bad, though.
Yield (1998)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “No Way
I’m not in the greatest mood right now. My car got rammed today. I’m not saying “I got in an accident” because
that would imply some sort of culpability on my part, which is just not the
case. Some idiot didn’t realize that a
“stop” sign means you STOP, and got me right square in the front driver’s side
door. The damage is pretty bad, and my
car will be in the shop a few weeks.
Somehow I didn’t even suffer a bruise or a scrape (Maybe I’m like Bruce
Willis in Unbreakable!), so I’m thankful for that, but, come on,
you STOP at a STOP SIGN. You don’t just keep going across and ram
whoever may be in your path. The damn
thing has “STOP” in big fucking letters.
It’s not that hard to understand.
I take some solace in the fact that a) it’s so much not my fault that
I should be getting a shitty rental replacement vehicle in a couple days
(Possibly a Kia! Don’t those cost like
$10.50? Go Kia!), and b) the front
bumper of this moron’s car is now completely separated from their vehicle (my
baby gives as good as she takes, hehe).
I also find it creepy that BOTH of us (me and the moron) were driving
1994, light blue Honda Accords, with the only difference being that mine is
4-door and theirs 2-door. Maybe this
person thought they were just seeing their car in a mirror when they looked to
the right (either that or they DIDN’T LOOK, right?), but whatever. Brad is annoyed. Brad has less than 4 weeks to find an
apartment in yuppie suburb
Brad also likes this album a lot (I
think that segway deserves a nicely tossed salad, don’t you? Not that I’m into that nasty shit…). After None Sold tanked
(comparatively) at record stores, Pearl Jam reacted by, I think, not really
giving a shit, and even relishing their newfound commercial second-tier
status. One could argue that every one
of their last three albums was made to be intentionally “different,” Vs. because it’s so sloppy and unkempt, Vitalogy because it’s
pretty rough around the edges and has that fucking ridiculous mop thing on it,
and No Code because it was quiet and subtle while their
last few albums were loud and not subtle.
On this album, I firmly believe they didn’t give one crap what kind of music they were making. They
just wanted to write good songs, and having gotten both their rough albums (Vs. and Vitalogy) and quiet ones (No Code) out of their system, they settle somewhere in the middle. Nothing new here except for very strong
songwriting.
OK, so it was probably intentionally
more commercial than No Code too, if only because they actually released
a bunch of radio singles and made their first video since, what, Ten? And “Given to Fly” and
“Wishlist” have more power-packed-pop-single goodness wrapped in their
melodical little selves than the entirety of No Code combined. I mean, they’re still sort of quiet and subtle
like the stuff on that record (well, “Wishlist” is, but “Given to Fly” fucking SOARS), but they’re being more radio-ready, and I don’t mind. I even appreciate it! Huge chunks of No Code were just hook-deficient, and that’s a problem you won’t find here. But the songs are still clever, like how
“Wishlist” starts off so simple but still adds all those pretty little guitar
notes and textures and crap on top, and how “Faithful” has this awesome chorus where 3 or 4 Eddies are doing completely different and
interesting things. I LOVE that
song. And how “No Way” manages to be
both slightly off-kilter AND possibly the most mind-numbingly catchy number in
the entire Pearl Jam catalog. It might
even be my favorite Pearl Jam song! What
a guitar tone! “I’ll stop tryin’ to make
a difference, I’m not tryin’ to make a difference, I’ll stop tryin’ make a
difference…” Like, the song gets by on
the sheer force of a) its guitar texturing and b) its incredible hook, and Eddie
can be all weird and scary instead of the all-powerful messiah that sang on Ten, and it’s OK! It even fits the
song better. The whole first half of the
album is so damn good! The
opening rocker “Brain of J” would feel right at home on Vitalogy (good to see they can still do that after No Cool Rockers Except “Hail, Hail,” which was Only Cool Because of its
Chord Sequence). And “Pilate?”
Now there is a cool song. It starts off kinda slow and No Code-ish, but it’s goofy “Like Pilate I have a dog!” (Snuh? Whatever…) chorus is cool in the same way
that “No Way” is. It’s just a good song,
you know? The songwriting on the first
half of Yield is unmatched thus far in Pearl Jam’s
catalog.
The second half is, unfortunately,
just sort of “there,” though. I’ve never
really liked the single-for-some-reason (and “Faithful” and “No Way” WEREN’T?)
“Do the Evolution” all that much. It’s
too off-center for its own good, like it’s intentionally trying to piss you
off. Eddie’s scream at the beginning
sounds like a goddamn rooster or something, and the song’s just kinda
annoying. The riff is too treble-y,
too. Where’s the BASS? “Untitled (Red Dot)” and “Push Me, Pull Me”
are just descendants of the silly-yet-passable “artsy” tracks on Vitalogy, and “MFC,” “Low Light,” “In Hiding,” and “All Those Yesterdays” are
all perfectly fine songs that have never grabbed me in anywhere near the same way the first half of this record has, but they’re still
fine. “All Those Yesterdays” is probably
the best, a good singalong closer with horns added for no reason. I’ve seen it called “Beatle-esque,” and while
I don’t know how much I buy that, I can see how the “all those
yesterdaaaaaaaays!” repeated line could be vaguely “Hey Jude”-reminiscent or
something, I guess.
So Pearl Jam finally don’t try to be
anything other than a good rock band, and they produce what might be their best
batch of songs. I’m giving the slight
nod to Vitalogy for best album because of the rocker factor
and its better beginning-to-end consistency (and because I’m not counting “Hey
Foxymophandlemama, This Track Blows Goats” as part of the album), but they’re
both of the “high 8, practically an 8.5 if this site used decimals, but it
doesn’t because they’re unamerican, traitorous French bastards” variety. You can’t really go wrong with either one as
your first Pearl Jam purchase, even though I bet you all already have Ten and Vs. anyway, so the point is moot. Whatever.
Really good album! And the secret
track at the end is stupid.
Live On Two Legs (1998)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Given To Fly”
Goddammit, so the auto body shop found a
crack in my transmission from the crash.
It’s leaking goofy fluid. It’s
50/50 whether they can actually fix my damn car, and I have a hunch that, if
they CAN fix it, it’ll cost more than the actual value of the car (which isn’t
very high because it’s 10 years old and has almost 100,000 miles on it), so
it’d be totaled and the moron’s insurance company won’t pay for all the
repairs. This is bullshit. If they can fix it and it’s not totaled, the
moron’s insurance company pays for everything, I get a free rental car for a
month, and everyone’s happy. But if they
CAN’T or it IS totaled, the company gleefully pays me the $4,000 that my car is
probably worth and skedaddles, while I turn around and buy another used Honda
for like twice that much, if not more, because it’s not like I’m gonna buy a
10-year-old car with 95,000 miles on it fresh. Do you see how unfair this is? Because this idiot can’t stop at a stop sign,
I (OK, my mother, because I still only have about $1,500 to my name, and won’t
have much more than that until I start attempting to be an adult in September)
might be out something like $5,000.
Bullshit.
And yes, you needed to hear all of that.
But, again, I need to stop bitching about
people that CAN’T READ A FUCKING STOP
SIGN and write a music
review. At least it’s on a live album
this time, so I don’t have to say anything earth-shattering. And it’s a perfectly fine live album. There’s nothing wrong with it. Good playing.
Good song selection (they play mostly hits, but not every hit, so it’s neat without being obvious). Good Neil Young cover. Absolutely nothing out of place. Everything perfectly in order. And therefore it only gets a 7. It’s just so overwhelmingly fine. Like they get all the obvious
stuff right, but forget a few of the intangibles, you know? Those extra little (indefinable, so I can’t
elaborate) somethings that turn a live album from a perfectly acceptable
rendering of a band’s hit songs into a truly great listening experience. Those things.
This album doesn’t have them.
Maybe it’s just my lukewarm feelings
towards Pearl Jam in general. Like, in
general, there’s nothing wrong with them.
I like their style. I like their
attitude. I agree with them on both
musical and social principles. They seem
like good guys. There’s nothing
preventing me from being a psycho-fanatic stalker except the fact that they’re
often so very, very competent at what they do that they rarely EVER reach
that extra-special level of musical goodness to yours truly, except for maybe
the sequence of songs from “Faithful” to “Wishlist” on Yield. I’m looking at the track
listing for this record right now, and I keep going “I like this song! I like that song! That’s a good song, too!”, but for the life
of me I can’t remember anything unique and different from the studio versions
of any of the material here, except that the boring spoken bridge of “Daughter”
goes on way too long (with Eddie reciting the stupidest lyric in the entirety
of “Rockin’ in the Free World”), and that “Do the Evolution” is actually
improved immeasurably from the Yield version (but I don’t even like the Yield version, so who gives a crap?). The only general, overarching difference is
that the drumming is a little more elaborate, due to drummer number five,
former Soundgarden stickman Matt Cameron, and his decision to finally join the
band that stole his old one’s fame. I
know I keep saying this, but the performances are all good, and if you’re a huge Pearl Jam fanatic you’ll no doubt love this
thing, but I don’t sense all that much energy here. Eddie barely says anything in between the
songs. Except for the time that they
totally tear the place up on “Do the Evolution,” the band is like a
jukebox, playing nearly all their hits, but leaving out a few (“Alive,”
“Jeremy,” “Rearviewmirror,” “Wishlist”) and inserting like “Red Mosquito” and
“MFC” and a random Neil Young cover (“Fuckin’ Up”) instead just to keep you a
little off-balance. The best songs are
still really good, so the soaring quality of “Given to
Fly” is still here, “Corduroy” is still catchy as ass, “Hail, Hail” still rocks
my socks off, “Off He Goes” and “Better Man” are still really pretty, etc., and
if I hadn’t heard another Pearl Jam album before this one, maybe I’d give it an
8, because I really do appreciate the song selection here. But, see, I’m a dick, and almost uniformly
the studio versions of the tunes are marginally better, so I just see absolutely
no reason to buy this album.
Plus, the band’s lack of energy makes their early songs (which depended
so much on the band’s energy, and Eddie’s in particular, to be good)
suffer. They’re probably better
musicians and songcrafters at this point, but how does that help the songs they
wrote when they weren’t? It
doesn’t! “Even Flow” is speeded up a
bit, but Eddie totally botches some of more anthemibombastic notes and ruins
the song for me (and he does the same thing on “Go” as well…could he be losing
his voice? Hmmm….). “Black” loses a lot of its mojo without
whatever studio tricks they did to give it so much atmosphere on Ten. Whatever. Who cares.
Pearl Jam is a good band. This is
a good album. There are good songs on
it. Everything is good. But very little is GREAT, and that is my point.
And no, I don’t have any of the live
albums from the tour when they released a live album for every goddamn show they played, which, by the way, is simultaneously the
coolest (for fans) and stupidest (for everyone else) thing ever done.
Binaural (2000)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Evacuation”
So my car’s totaled. Fuck it all.
Goddamned moron who CAN’T STOP AT A FUCKING STOP SIGN. Whatever.
THANK GOD I’m still gonna get a free rental while I
look around for another car, because I believe I was hired for my summer
stupid-job for the sole reason that I had a car, and not having one will not
make my boss happy. My family is still
out like $5,000 or something now, though.
Pile of shit, it is. That was my
car! I loved that car! It was my first car! Just like you feel an attachment to your
first pet, and your first love, you feel an attachment to your first car, and
now I’ve lost all three against my will in the last seven months. Wonderful.
And again, yes, YOU NEEDED TO HEAR ALL OF THAT.
On the bright side, at least I’m in an ornery mood to review this
album! Because it’s the band’s weakest
since Vs., and it might even be weaker. I haven’t decided yet. They’re pretty close in any case. The difference between the two is that they
try really, really hard on Vs. but fuck up royal on a
few occasions, whereas on this album they definitely don’t fuck up much, but
I’m not sure how much they try either.
This is the first record in the Pearl Jam catalog that can most aptly be
described as “just another Pearl Jam album,” and despite the fact that the band
is professional enough (and Eddie is Eddie enough, though not as Eddie as he
used to be…) to warrant a 7 (the fact that only one song, the messy and
retarted “Sleight of Hand,” sucks out loud, doesn’t hurt either), there’s not
enough here to warrant anything more than that, although the record maintains a
pretty consistent level of enjoyability throughout. Yield was sort of a regression into basic
songwriting, but within that mold they were still taking some chances and doing
some interesting things…but here,
it’s just so BLAH. The guitars are given like the same tone in
every song (as opposed to the multitudes of tonal goodness employed on Yield), not mixed very powerfully, and only crank out maybe 2 or 3 good
riffs on the whole album. Only two songs
can be classified as something other than “pretty decent guitar rock,” but
that’s only because one uses a sitar (“Of the Girl,” which is actually one of
the better songs here) and one uses a goddamn ukulele (“Soon Forget,” which
might as be called “Bluer, Redder and Greyer.”
Come on, you know Eddie’s a huge Who fan. Hasn’t anyone mentioned that this is just a
bastardized ripoff of “Blue, Red and Grey” yet?
It’s so obvious!). The record is
lazy and lacking in energy and conviction, like a studio version of the
competently professional lethargy displayed on Live on Two Legs, only
with songs that aren’t as good.
But I’m still giving it a 7!
Pearl Jam is so maddeningly professional and tasteful by this point that
they can write 15 songs in a week without any passion at all and come up with a 7, and I think that’s what they did here. They even came up with a slew of
winners! Though these are all relative winners, and can’t match the highlights of their better albums. The Matt Cameron-penned (Soundgarden
mojo! We need more Soundgarden mojo!)
“Evacuation” is my pick for best of the bunch, with that interesting riff and
off-kilter “Evacu-AAAAAAAAA-tion!” chorus, and most of the album’s creamy
center consists of good little tunes as well.
“Nothing as it Seems,” despite the most annoying snare tone in the
history of mankind, is pretty, “Thin Air” probably has the best melody on the
record, “Insignificance” has the album’s largest concentration of ass-kicking,
I’ve already mentioned “Of the Girl” (Good song!), and “Grievance” is another
good rocker, with the Brad-approved lyric “I pledge my grievance to the
flag!” These are the best of the lot
here, but much of what remains is really only barely lower. It’s all so damn consistent. Consistently COMPETENTLY DECENT! The opening couple of rockers are just
“there,” and feel like sub-standard Vitalogy-rockers without any juice. There’s a boring, underdeveloped ballad at
the end like every goddamn Pearl Jam album (“
This album is so nondescript I’m gonna talk about drummers for a
paragraph now. As mentioned previously,
Matt “Soundgarden” Cameron replaced Jack “Red Hot Chili Peppers” Irons after Yield, and while I always assumed I’d like Cameron the best because of his
excellent work in Soundgarden, now I’m not so sure. Cameron is more flashy, like he does more
things that make you go “oh, that was a nifty fill” or whatever. You notice him more. You don’t really notice what Jack’s doing on
his PJ albums, but, nevertheless, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that Mr.
Jack fits the band better. I don’t know
if it’s a consequence of the material or not, but to me the best parts of Yield COOK rhythmically better than the best parts of Binaural (and Riot Act, for that matter). I think Irons fits better with this kind of a
classic guitar rock outfit (where the drummer is more responsible for creating
a groove than being nifty), and Cameron’s more flashy, note-perfect style fits
better with Soundgarden’s metal/goofy time signatures sound. He just sounds better on Soundgarden
records than he does here. He’s adding
his fun little flashes and crap, but there’s no semblance of a groove anywhere to be found. I think it’s
because the guitar/bass people in Soundgarden (especially Kim Thayil, who
fucking RULES) can wipe the floor with their merely adequate Pearl Jam
counterparts, so Matt didn’t have as much to do and thus came off better. What do you all think? If I could start an Irons vs. Cameron debate
here for absolutely no reason, that’d be freaking awesome.
But drummers aside, this album
presents Pearl Jam just going through the motions, making a stereotypically
decent, professional, competent album that has a few relative highlights,
doesn’t fuck up very often, and is very nice to listen to, but doesn’t leave
much of an impression once you’re done with it.
Signs of artistic decline!
Distressing. And the secret track
at the end is stupid.
Riot Act (2002)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Bushleaguer”
Better!
Back to Good
Although the songs are generally better and there are a few real winners here (as opposed to the “Hey! It’s about as good as the 5th-best song on Yield…” type of “winner” found on Binaural), there is one huge factor that, more than anything, creates the difference between the two albums: guitar tone. The Binaural guitar tone was quiet and boring and didn’t have much ass-kicking quality. But the guitar tone on this album is FABULOUS! It’s all big and thick and full and delicious! Yum! It’s the kind of guitar tone that’d beat up Binaural’s at recess, take its lunch money, and send it crying home to mommy. So the fact that the Riff Factor isn’t much higher here than Binaural (Yup, I’m still longing for those Vitalogy days…) doesn’t matter, because the chord sequences sound so much better with the New Improved Guitar Tone of Love. With one humongous exception (described later), it doesn’t deviate much during the course of the album either (Yup, I’m still longing for those Yield days, too…), but, again, it doesn’t matter all that much, because of its new nifty goodness.
But the songs! The songs. I can safely say there are no shitstains (“Green Disease” is probably my least favorite, but it’s really only mediocre), and most of the record provides a delightful “slightly higher songwriting effort than Binaural, plus a better guitar tone” consistency that I appreciate. The band inserts more curveballish stuff to keep things interesting, like some odd melodies (“Love Boat Captain,” “Cropduster,” some others I’m gonna mention later so HOLD YOUR HORSES) and poo. And true winners! There are a number. The instrumentation and structure of the opener “Can’t Keep” are interesting as all hell. It’s like an intro that never ends. Just keeps slowly building and building in intensity without reaching a true peak, but in a GOOD way! It’s quite exhilarating. “I Am Mine” was the single, and it sounds the most like a Stereotypical Pearl Jam Single of anything here, but it’s still quite pretty. It feels like a Yield song! Like a slightly inferior version of “Given to Fly!” “You Are” is the guitar tone exception I was talking about, and it is flabbergastingly cool. Probably the only truly original and daring thing the band’s done on the last couple of the albums. The hell IS that guitar tone? It’s fucking SPECTACTULAR! No huge single chorus payoff or whatever, but the guitars in the song are pretty much fascinating to listen to. Just odd, but cool. Possibly the dual-mediocrity duo of Mike McCready and Stone Gossard’s finest moment as players thus far. Great tune! And Matt Cameron wrote it! More Soundgarden mojo! Yee-hah! But my favorite is, ofcourse, “Bushleaguer,” and I’m not gonna lie and claim that the lyrical content doesn’t make a difference. “He's not a leader, he's a Texas leaguer. Swinging for the fence, got lucky with a strike. Drilling for fear makes the job simple. Born on third, thinks he got a triple.” I also appreciate the line “the haves have not a clue.” Some lyrics make absolutely no sense to me (“With onion skin plausibility of life and a keyboard reaffirmation.” Um…fneh?), but who cares. How could I NOT love this song? Musically, it’s a winner, too (“You Are” is probably better in that regard, but I’d say this is #2). Very off-kilter (but again, in a good way) chorus melodies that somehow find a way into your head very quickly. This kind of off-kilter-yet-catchy stuff is what made parts of Yield so good, and I’m glad the band is starting to recapture some of that. It might have to do with the fact that Matt Cameron and his Soundgarden mojo wrote 1/3 of the album, though. YAY, SOUNDGARDEN MOJO!!!!!
The rest of the tunes range from simply average to pretty goshdarn good, sho’ nuff, and, as I’ve said before, the record is a very pleasant listen straight through, and leaves a pleasing impression on the listener for at least a few hours afterwards, and maybe more! Songs are just more individually memorable than the last album, like how “Save You” rocks hard, “Thumbing My Way” is a pretty ballad that Mark Prindle drastically underrates, “1/2 Full” actually succeeds at the groovy wah-wah country rock that Vs. failed at, and “All or None” is actually pretty melodic, at least as far as generic boring Pearl Jam album closers go. The token experiment is even kinda cool (“Arc” is just Eddie overdubbing himself a lot and sounds like a Native American chant or something). It’s sure as hell not as good as Vitalogy or Yield, but it’s probably as good as Ten, if not a little better, and (most importantly) it shows that Pearl Jam aren’t dead after the competent-and-professional-yet-lazy Binaural, though who knows what’ll happen if Matt Cameron and his powerful Soundgarden mojo get up and leave (It’s been like six years! That’s WELL past the sell date for Pearl Jam drummers). If Pearl Jam aren’t gonna be musically relevant or try to do anything different anymore, the least they can do is release good albums like this.
Lost Dogs (2003)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Down”
What The White Album would sound like it the Beatles were a decently good nineties guitar rock band with a limited bag of tricks and an incredible singer, and chose to dump all their outtakes on it instead of material like “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” Lost Dogs is (like The White Album) thirty tracks strong and (unlike The White Album) very, very impossible to listen to in one sitting if you aren’t doing anything else to keep yourself occupied, but at least it doesn’t have “Revolution #9” on it (one hopes the band doesn’t have something like “Hey Foxymophandlemama, I Was Kidding, That’s not Actually Me. That’s Dave. I’m Over Here” kicking around their vaults for release on Lost Dogs #2: Bigger and Blacker). I can’t see any real reason to have this thing if you’re not already a big Pearl Jam fan, since it doesn’t provide any startling revelations of genius that make “No Way” or “Given to Fly” sound like Limp Bizkit in comparison, but it does maintain a nice, even keel of consistent Pearl Jam goodness throughout its nearly two hours in length. The tracks are culled from everywhere in their career and scattered about non-chronologically, but since I just have a burned copy I’ve got no clue where anything comes from, and though I can guess (like, “crappy funk wah-wah guitar = probably from Vs. era,” “atmospheric, bombastic, and melodic but with rudimentary guitar playing = probably from Ten era,” “stupid cover I find distinctly mediocre that became a top 10 hit for no reason = ‘Last Kiss,’” etc.), I usually can’t tell.
Other than the aforementioned “Last Kiss” and the radio-familiar live staple “Yellow Ledbetter” (notable to me for the guitar part that sounds exactly like something from Axis: Bold as Love), unless you’re a Pearl Jam stalker-fanatic (in which case you might’ve stopped reading this page by now…but I like them! I do! They’re so competently pretty good!), you probably haven’t heard any of these songs. The band sticks most of their regular 4/4 rockers on disc 1 and leaves disc 2 for the ballads and moody stuff, but then they run out of ballads after 45 minutes and take up the last 15 with funny joke songs. And, except for the occasional song that makes you go “now why the hell wasn’t that included on an album?” (like the superbly melodic and jangly “Down” and the monstrous riff of “In the Moonlight”), the joke songs are actually the things I take most from this baby. Pearl Jam has a sense of humor! When was the last time a Pearl Jam song made you laugh in a happily amused way? Ever? NO! It doesn’t happen. You figured it was probably in there somewhere because their name means semen and all (and they used to be called “Mookie Blaylock” for the love of god, which is akin to a band today naming themselves “Speedy Claxton”), but they always keep their studio records serious, and there aren’t any moments that make you go “Hey! Those guys have a goofy sense of humor!” Until NOW. The sillily (not a word) angry tone of “Don’t Gimme No Lip” surely wouldn’t fit on one of their regular albums. “Education” directly lifts a guitar sound from Jimi Hendrix at its conclusion (no, seriously, it’s the exact same damn thing…I think it’s the pre-intro to “Purple Haze,” but I can’t pinpoint it. I KNOW I’ve heard it before, though (I know it now! It’s the intro to “Foxey Lady!” Go me for knowing things!)). “Leaving Here” is a neat idea, a song about how women are treated badly that starts off with a line straight out of Led Zeppelin’s “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just a Woman).” “Gremmie Out of Control” is a HILARIOUS surf-rock tribute/mockery that you really have to hear to believe. “Whale Song” has whale mating sounds in it (I think). “Sweet Lew” is a ridiculous song about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar that reminds me in tone more than anything of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ timeless throwaway tribute to the Showtime L.A. Lakers, “Magic Johnson.” I have no clue what to say about the funk oddity “Dirty Frank” and its Shaft-tribute ending (“BUT I’M TALKIN’ ‘BOUT DIRTY FRANK!!!”). “Bee Girl” is like a minute long and about the fat little girl in that Blind Melon video. And these guys made Vitalogy?
It’s not like this is the comedy album of the year, but, although (with a handful of exceptions) most of the songs here sound like they could have been written in half an hour and are clearly outtakes, a lot of this thing, including most of disc 1, has an element of pure fun that you won’t find on “regular” Pearl Jam releases, and I appreciate it! The songs are simple tossoffs, but they’re fun and catchy! Ofcourse, when they’re not fun, they’re just simple tossoffs, but at least there aren’t any stupid time-wasting experiments (because all of those just had to be included on the regular albums). This compilation, despite its unwieldy length, exposes Pearl Jam as a bunch of classic-rock junkie goofballs instead of the serious, philosophical dudes they make themselves out to be all the time. A handful of songs are great, and a handful of songs blow, but most of them are just, as you would expect from a career-spanning outtakes compilation from the Kings of Competence, pretty good! Did you think it’d be anything else? And the secret track at the end is stupid.
limowreck@spymac.com
writes:
It's
me again, I just finihsed reading the Pearl Jam review. Its good but I
thought I'd clear up a few things you mentioned.
- the vocals for
magic. Layne harmonzied with Jerry Cantrell(he has 2 solo cds you might be
interested in) to achieve that sound.
- You are 100% right, Superunknown kills anything Pearl Jam ever did and I
rarely
ever hear any Soundgarden on the radio. Even when I went on a vacation to
last year none of the 6 rock stations played Soundgarden. They played tons of
Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and even Audioslave but that's beside the point.
- Here's a fun fact for you, Eddie Vedder wrote "Betterman" when he
was only 14.
- Here's 2 more because I think they're hilarious, Matt Cameron drummed on a
Geddy Lee solo song and he was drummer on that horrendous post-grunge all star
collaboration "Hero" from the Spiderman 1 soundtrack.
- Matt vs Jack Irons...I won't argue that Jack probably fit in with the band
better than Matt but they desperately need Matt for creative, original ideas on
songwriting. SOUNDGARDEN MOJO TO THE RESCUE!!!!!
- You should try the Live at the Garden dvd for a better view of what
is like in a live setting.
- Matt wrote "You Are" by plugging a guitar into a drum machine and
that's why
the guitar sounds the way it does.
- You aren't the only one who thinks "Yellow Ledbetter" sounds like
something off
of Axis. It was written back in the Ten days but McCready decided to leave it
off
of Ten because it sounded too much like "Little Wing". Hendrix was
Mike's biggest
influence and it shows. Unfortunately for Mike, Hendrix is 100 times the
guitarist he is.
- "In the Moonlight" kicks ass because it was written by...wait for
it...MR.
Soundgarden Mojo himself, Matt Cameron!
- If you haven't heard it, you need to run out and buy/steal/download
one
time collaboration back in 1990 between Chris Cornell, Matt
Cameron and all of Pearl Jam (minus Eddie who wasn't in the band back then. He
does duet with Chris on one song though).
- Mad Season is another
of blues-ish songs with Layne Staley and Mike McCready.
Sorry to hear about your car troubles. I just got my first car 3 months ago and
I
don't know what I would do if it got totaled. Hopefully everything will work
out
for you in the end.
Pearl Jam (2006)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “World
Wide Suicide”
Comeback album my ass. What makes this different from any of the last 3 or 4 Pearl Jam albums? That they’re “getting back to straight-ahead rock?” Isn’t that just a euphemistic way of saying they aren’t doing anything interesting? I’ve read enough reviews of this record comparing it to Vitalogy (but BETTER!!!!) that, despite the fact that this is a perfectly fine and dandy Pearl Jam album that is probably better than Vs. and about as good as Binaural or something, I’m starting to dislike the damn thing immensely.
So yeah, this is not the “return to form” everyone’s yammering on about. Pearl Jam never lost their form, douche. Their ceiling is either Vitalogy or the first half of Yield, both of which I gave an 8, and their floor is probably Vs., which I gave a 7. They’re consistently good and “workmanlike” in their rock, and only sometimes do they fasten themselves to enough inspiration to carry that workmanlike rock from “pretty good” to “very good.” That’s it. Anyone who thinks a) Pearl Jam are the best band ever, b) Pearl Jam suck donkey balls, or c) there’s actually a big difference in quality between any two random Pearl Jam albums is fooling themselves.
And thus we arrive at this album,
self-titled because, you know, this is the real
Pearl Jam, dude. Supposedly it’s the
best thing they’ve done since their first couple because they’re not
experimenting anymore, which is a one of the most flawed statements I’ve heard
in my life. Pearl Jam have only not
“experimented” on two albums, Ten and this one. In relative terms, Vs. was weird, Vitalogy
was weird, No Code was REALLY weird, Yield was weird, and both Binaural and Riot Act were overall less weird but had a couple weird experiments
and were thus weird as well. However, in
the grand scheme of things, Pearl Jam have NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER BEEN
“WEIRD.” If I’m in a generous mood, I
could grant you that No Code was
trying to be intentionally different, but all that meant was it was
quieter. The standard Pearl Jam album is
just a bunch of rock songs that sound like Pearl Jam surrounded by a few weird
little asides, and that hasn’t changed since the early nineties. The only difference in this album compared
to, um, every Pearl Jam album is that
they decided not to make any weird little asides this time and concentrated on
writing a bunch of chunky rockers that sound like Pearl
Fine, except that these rockers, while generally good, are no more than that. They’re just good. No more, no less. They’re fine. The only one that excites me is the energetic “World Wide Suicide,” and otherwise it’s mid-tempo middle-aged man workmanlike rock like you’d expect. They break up the rhythm a little with the little acoustic jaunt “Parachutes” (my 2nd favorite song on the album, by the way) and the 30 second reprise of “Wasted” (which has no reason to exist), but other than that, once you’re through track 3 or 4 of this thing, you can probably stop. You’ve heard the album. Hell, you can probably compile a bunch of songs from Binaural and the second half of Yield and say you’ve heard the album, too. There’s no progress, no evolution (no “DO THE EVOLUTION, BABY!!!!” either), no chance-taking, nothing interesting. Like I’ve said before, all of these songs are pretty good, and if these guys really had been shitting the bed recently, I’d probably be splooging all over this and saying how they’d finally remembered how to write songs. But, really, it’s just another Pearl Jam album to add to the pile that sounds good when it’s playing but isn’t gonna be in your regular rotation six months after you get it, and I would’ve written a 3-word review saying that were it not for all the ridiculous “comeback!” press that’s been surrounding it. So no, this is not a comeback album. Pearl Jam never went anywhere, and maybe if the state of rock weren’t so poor right now (I mean, the Arctic Monkeys is the best the Brits can do for “best new Britrock band of the moment” right now? Usually they can pull a Franz Ferdinand out of their ass somewhere, or at least a Bloc Party), then maybe people wouldn’t be fellating it so much. Me, I mean, I like it, but not any more than I like Binaural.