re: Thoughts on Pearl Jam

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seen them at jazz fest this year, they are a good live band, but their set list

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sucked for jazz fest

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I hate watching any band in a festival situation. Anything where their set list is shortened.

And why do you hate Steve Gleason....?

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It seems to have been a calculated risk on Vedder's part.

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I'd say that's a charitable way of looking at it. It seemed to me like the convergence of mega-success and an ill-timed obsession with quasi-integrity spun him out and made him kind of chase his tail for a while there. There was the withdrawal from giving the audience what they wanted, the whole DIY pretense of hiding from his mega-high profile and trying to be Mike Watt or something. It all looked a lot like dabbling and slumming from the point of view of those who had been involved in actual underground music since before he was air-guitaring to Baba O'Reilly in his bedroom.

I think it really burned his arse that Kurt Cobain didn't hold him in very high regard for a while there. I think a lot of the direction he went in was to win the approval of the Cobains and the Mark Arms and the Thurston Moores out there who viewed Pearl Jam with a little suspicion, particularly when they were packing arenas and selling multi-platinum.

The problem for me was that they just didn't do "difficult" alternative music as well as they did anthemic hard rock. And they didn't care who they alienated in order to pursue that, including the first wave of fans who discovered them and gave them the freedom to do it in the first place.

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I think it really burned his arse that Kurt Cobain didn't hold him in very high regard for a while there. I think a lot of the direction he went in was to win the approval of the Cobains and the Mark Arms and the Thurston Moores out there who viewed Pearl Jam with a little suspicion, particularly when they were packing arenas and selling multi-platinum.

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This is why the band is fascinating to me. They seem to be so polarizing.

Loved them at the end of high school and in college.

But, at least for me, their music dos not age well and I really lost all interest with Yield.

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I did enjoy a documentary I watched, really late one night, a couple of years ago... I can't recall the title..

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It was probably Pearl Jam Twenty, which is excellent.

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Future Days'.

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Always gets dusty in my car if I'm in there with the wife and son.

But before I even paid attention to the lyrics the emotion of the song would get you.

"Black" meant as much to me as any song ever has or ever will. It's cliche now, but it's still awesome.

I posted the video in a live performance discussion, but PJ covered Masters of War. The performance Vedder gave at a Bob Dylan anniversary show was what tipped me over. They were just hitting huge when he gave the performance. So much anger and emotion. It was 1992-93? What did he have to be so mad about.

Ten is awesome. By Vs, I was already burned out on them. It seems the appeal waned like most Seattle bands did unless you remained a hardcore fan. On a whim I listened to the Avocado album and it's my favorite one and about the only one I consistently listen too. I know that's not the norm though. Backspacer is good as well.

I could go the rest of my life without hearing Vs - Yield songs and be ok.

Okay here's my expanded thoughts on Pearl Jam:

They started out making a kind of music that really grabbed me and I became a fan. Looking back it was a unique amalgam of approaches to rock music that incorporated driving rhythm, inventive music and soulful melodies. It straddled the then-new alt-metal contingent across to other genres easily and gracefully (metalheads liked it and alt-rock fans liked it). The live shows were unreal: guitars blazing, Abruzzese was a badass drummer, weird, charismatic frontman, energy out the arse, etc. They seemed to have it all.

Then for some reason Eddie Vedder suddenly wanted to be a part of a completely different band. They had made music that assloads of people were completely in love with and then inexplicably Vedder very openly set out to ditch all that; to not really challenge his audience (as he would like to have us believe), but more specifically retool the band as some kind of esoteric artistically coded thing to come in line with his personal aspirations of standing alongside the objects of his fanboy admiration like Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Pavement, My Bloody Valentine, etc. To a lot of people it sounded like their reach was exceeding their grasp. You can't make music that shows you have musical chops, talent and ability and then suddenly try to pretend you don't, in order to seem more edgy. That came across as really forced, fake and self-indulgent to me.

It seemed like Vedder wanted to purge his audience of two things: non-sycophants and "basic" hard rock fans. Of course the rock dude drummer got his walking papers. That was the first sign something was headed in the wrong direction. The music went from purposefully dissonant (an inorganic, fabricated dissonance) to a point where they seemed like they were trying to dip a toe back in the original sound (Yield) and just not pulling it off very well.

For me, the song "Not For You" was a fitting statement that seemed to be aimed at me particularly. Message received, guys. Have a nice life.
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This guy know what he is talking about & nails it. TEN & VS are rock classics & after that....POOF. It seems to me that all the Seattle Grunge Bands just were not ready for this type of pressure & they all self destructed in different sort of ways along the way after all of their first 3 albums or so. I hated to see such greatness end like it did with all of them.

I think Pearl Jam was and still is a really great band and one of the best ever. I think on the surface I could see where fans may have an altered view, like some in this thread have had, of a band that changed for the sake of change. But if you study the band a little bit then all the changes would make a lot more sense.

First off Ed does have regret or whatever you wanna call it about Andy's death. I mean who wouldn't? You are basically the front man of one of the biggest bands ever because another man died. That's got to be tough. On top of the fact that Ed himself had his own issues to deal with. Like his fathers death and his real father being revealed to him.

The deaths of Kurt, Andy and Layne Staley were very hard for the band to deal with. That Seattle scene was not like the LA or NYC scene that all hated each other. Those guys in Seattle loved each other and hung out and pulled for each other's success. I think PJ had to back off with their videos and releases somewhat to keep the same from happening to themselves. It's one thing to sit here and say yeah I could deal with success. But could you? I think the side most of us don't see about the music business is very fricked up.

Eddie basically went from being a stoner drug store associate to the 2nd biggest rock star on the planet in about 6 months. Go back and listen to Ten and Vs and Vitalogy. Listen to the lyrics. Those songs are VERY personal to Ed. They have a really deep meaning to him. He goes from wondering if anybody will ever hear these songs to belting them out at a sold out Madison Square Garden. If you've seen PJ20 they tell the story about the first time he sang Release and he just went behind the stage after singing it and was just a wreck because it is so personal.

I think they have aged very well and gracefully. They have huge hits like Alive, Even Flow and Betterman. But they also have some outstanding deep cuts like Come Back, Indifference, Low Light, Light Years, Rival, Smile, Army Reserve, Thumbing My Way, etc.
And I love the newest album Lightning Bolt. It shows their growth as a band and how much they've evolved.

If you get a chance go see them live. Jazzfest was awesome. How many bands play 26 songs at a festival? PJ doesn't just play the hits. But they are very likely to play a song you don't know that you may fall in love with