Pearl Jam (Official Thread)

[Born to Lose]

Pearl Jam is my all-time favorite musical anything, and as cheesy as it may sound... Eddie Vedder is probably my hero. I've got all their albums, as well as hundreds of live tracks and some side projects and rarities. It's unfortunate that most people only listen to Ten and Vs and either stop there or decide they dont like Pearl Jam. While they were best known for those two records, what they did later on, after they decided they didnt have to be "grunge", was some of the best rock music ever, IMO. Their third album, Vitalogy, is a psychedelic experimentation more ballsy than any other mainstream rock band's, let alone a band coming off a record sale record. It has their usual hard rock songs, plus some psychedelic rock, and some super far-out weird shit like Bugs, Pry To and Stupidmop. Their fourth album... my favorite... No Code... was largely a neo-psychedelia record, with some weird world music folksy stuff, some firey garage rock, and some acoustic songs... plus crazy sonic experimentation like "I'm Open". Yield was a bit more standard modern rock, but certainly not dull... Given to Fly, IMO, one of the best songs ever written, and a great music video for Do the Evolution. Binaural in 2000 had some really odd Pink Floyd-esque space rock, plus some more acoustic and experimental stuff. Riot Act touched more on art rock and folk rock, with some more psychedelic and garagey stuff. The self titled album was back to good old hard rock, plus the Beatles-esque "Parachutes" and the tribute to LSD "Severed Hand". Backspacer is just a fun MC5-esque garage rock album.
They're also great live... a ton of improvising and jamming, and no one interacts with the crowd like Eddie Vedder, he just seems full of good vibes and positive energy and he's very friendly and funny.

Right now I'm listening to Black live from MSG in '98... a 7-minute version with a great solo and a lot of improv at the end. Eddie usually sings "we belong together" at the end, but this time he sang "we dont belong together" and "love can be a dangerous thing". No two versions of the same song are ever the same with this band.

 

[Cosmic Harmony]

I like Pearl Jam but I have to disagree with you on a few things, Born to Lose. Personally, I've never seen Pearl Jam as a band that "had" to do grunge. In fact, I've never even seen them as a grunge band, just a rock band that happened to come out of Seattle during the early 90's. Maybe that's just because I think of bands like Alice in Chains and the Melvins as what grunge sounds like.
The other thing is that I've always found them to be rather hit or miss live. There are some times where I have watched videos of them and they're amazing and then there are others (like the Isle of Wight festival from last year) where I just kept checking the time to see how much longer the concert was because I wanted to watch it but was getting antsy to do something else instead. That's really just the risk bands run when they jam and improvise too much.

 

[Born to Lose]

Well, IMO, "grunge" is more of a scene than a sound. That's why I consider, say, Alice in Chains a "grunge" band, but not Stone Temple Pilots.

Sometimes they are pretty sloppy live, usually when Vedder gets shitfaced on stage and forgets lyrics xD

 

[Cosmic Harmony]

Well that's the thing with it. None of the grunge bands called themselves "grunge" back when it was a sound. Once it became a commercially viable form of music it needed a name so it the term "grunge" was tacked on by higher ups and that's when it became a scene. Before that happened it was just an underground form of music that didn't have a name. It was more akin to hardcore punk if anything....but that's not marketable.

Oh pssh as if Eddie's singing style has him singing clearly in the first place. If he forgets the lyrics I think he could fake his way through it pretty easily s'long as he knows roughly how it goes.

 

[METALPRIEST]

Well that's the thing with it. None of the grunge bands called themselves "grunge" back when it was a sound. Once it became a commercially viable form of music it needed a name so it the term "grunge" was tacked on by higher ups and that's when it became a scene. Before that happened it was just an underground form of music that didn't have a name. It was more akin to hardcore punk if anything....but that's not marketable.

Oh pssh as if Eddie's singing style has him singing clearly in the first place. If he forgets the lyrics I think he could fake his way through it pretty easily s'long as he knows roughly how it goes.

Agreed!! Pop Metal bands were not called Hair Bands until MTV decided to move on to something else. I never heard Grunge Grunge Grunge when it was all in the moment. All I remember was ....cool AIC tune...cool Soundgarden tune....cool Pearl Jam tune...that was it. In fact all of these bands were focused on and interviewed in things like Hard 'N Heavy Metal video magazine back in the day.

Another form of hard rock and metal really.

 

[urbancoyote]

Pearl Jam are hands down my favourite band of all time. I do agree though that the quality of their output has dimnished over the years, but they are still capable of corking tunes. I wouldnt put albums in any kind of preferred order but Ten and Vs are undoubted classics, with Vitalogy and No Code a wee bit behind, but still full of great songs. Live, they are sensational. Have only seen them twice, but saw them last year in Manchester, and it was spine-tingling stuff. theres some kind of weird affinity that PJ fans have with each other, that I have never experienced with any other band. Its like a massive love-in

Favourite songs...Black is far and away tops. As Born To Lose stated, they never do the same version twice, be it lyrically, length of outro etc.....but they are all beautiful. Some attain perfection (see Marseille and Pistoia versions for details)....Better Man, Even Flow, Jeremy, Porch, Off he Goes, State Of Love And Trust, Yellow Ledbetter, Nothingman.....

I'll admit to not getting excited about recent releases, but if they came here on tour again, Id sell my mum for a ticket.

 

[Born to Lose]

After Vs, Pearl Jam may have started making less catchy or anthemic music, but IMO, the depth and quality incresed exponentially. Albums like Vitalogy, No Code, Yield, and the 2005 self-titled album, while not concept albums, are just a journey, front to back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm24X92Wm2s

 

[Metal Head Mike]

I'm a big Pearl Jam fan since the beginning. I enjoy all there music. I think some fans wanted another Vs style album. But they branched out into new territory on Vitalogy. Which was cool with me. Some fans wanted them to do Ten over & over again. IMO I respect them for not doing that

 

[Khor1255]

I like them quite a bit. Grunge, is third generation true metal, nothing more nothing less.

 

[TheSound]

If you guys haven't seen it already, you need to clear 2 hours from your schedule and watch the phenomenal 'Pearl Jam 20' movie by Cameron Crowe, one of the best rock band movies ever made. I have a friend who had ignored PJ for years, or at least he wasn't a fan, and after I leant him the DVD of PJ20 he went out and bought the whole back catalogue, and he's even been to 2 or 3 shows, that's how great a film it is. In fact I'd ask any open-minded rock fan to watch it whether you love the band as I do, or not...here....