Pearl Jam

Certain Songs #1515: Pearl Jam – “The Fixer”

April 18, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Backspacer
Year: 2009

Like most bands, Pearl Jam’s output slowed up in their second decade: 2002 brought Riot Act, another album I never really connected with, and 2006 brought the much better Pearl Jam album, though it still didn’t come anywhere close to the heights they’d previously reached.

However, 2009’s Backspacer nearly did. From the cover art by the great Tom Tomorrow to the very strong lineup of songs, Backspacer was the best Pearl Jam album in over a decade, and I even got to see them on the subsequent tour.

Certain Songs #1514: Pearl Jam – “MFC (Katowice 06-16-2000)”

April 17, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: 6/16/00 – Katowice, Poland
Year: 2000

In the year 2000, Pearl Jam released Binaural, a record that I was never even remotely able to wrap my head around, and after quite a few spins, I gave up on. I’m sure some of you think it’s some kind of lost masterpiece, but to me, the best thing about Binaural was the cover.

Oh, that and the fact that they made the decision to release bootlegs from every single show they played on the tour. This was the beginning of the Pearl Jam Official Bootleg Series, making them only the second band to understand that artificial scarcity — especially of live shows — was kinda bullshit. And while there have been exceptions, nearly every single show that Pearl Jam has played this century has been available.

Certain Songs #1513: Pearl Jam – “Wishlist”

April 16, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Yield
Year: 1998

One of the most straightforward songs in Pearl Jam’s catalog, I think that the analogy for “Wishlist” is “Every Breath You Take,” which shares the same kind of musical simplicity and lyrical repetition, with the major musical difference being that Sting actually bothered to write a chorus.

The major lyrical difference, of course, was that Sting was singing a song of suspicion and paranoia that has always felt kinda stalkery, and Eddie Vedder is singing a list of, well, wishes.

Certain Songs #1512: Pearl Jam – “Given to Fly”

April 15, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Yield
Year: 1998

Now this was more like it.

After the, I’ll say, inconsistent No Code, Pearl Jam regrouped and put out what I think remains the finest album of their career, Yield.

Nearly ditching the experimentation, and balancing the ferocious rockers with incredibly strong mid-tempo songs that were chock full of loud guitars and strong melodies, they delivered their most consistent-sounding album since Ten, absent the murky sound.

Certain Songs #1511: Pearl Jam – “Off He Goes”

April 14, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: No Code
Year: 1996

The result of particularly turbulent time in Pearl Jam’s career, and the first album with former Red Hot Chili Pepper (and guy who got their demo tape to Eddie Vedder) Jack Irons, No Code was the first Pearl Jam album I actively disliked.

In theory, it was fine to continue with the experimentation that had thrown all off of the good songs on Vitalogy into sharp relief, but the problem with No Code was that, for the most part, there weren’t any good songs: the rockers were tuneless, the ballads were focusless and the experiments were pointless.

Certain Songs #1510: Pearl Jam – “I Got Id”

April 13, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Merkin Ball EP
Year: 1995

There literally isn’t anything about “I Got Id” that isn’t kind of weird. So let’s start with the weirdest part first: “I Got Id,” which I’m guessing that pretty much only hardcore Pearl Jam fans remember at this point, was their first bona fide top ten hit single.

Sure, they’d been alt-rock and mainstream rock radio chart toppers from the very start, but not so much with the pop charts: “Jeremy” only made it #79, “Daughter” to #97, and of course neither “Corduroy” or “Better Man” were even released as singles. That said, “Spin The Black Circle” did make it to #18, but I suspect that part of that was the novelty of the song being released as an actual 45 RPM single.

Certain Songs #1509: Pearl Jam – “Better Man”

April 12, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Vitalogy
Year: 1994

Written by a teenaged Eddie Vedder sitting alone in his San Diego bedroom, “Better Man” is almost a perfect encapsulation of the struggles that Pearl Jam were having with themselves over their stardom.

With a universally-accessible lyric and a melody line cribbed from the immortal “Save It For Later,” there was no doubt that “Better Man” was a great pop song. Which, apparently, was the problem: it was a bit too pop for what they wanted to do with Vs.

Certain Songs #1508: Pearl Jam – “Corduroy”

April 11, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Vitalogy
Year: 1994

My favorite Pearl Jam song, bar none.

And as much as I love songs like “Leash” and “Black” and the upcoming “MFC,” it ain’t even close: “Corduroy” speaks to me deeply on both a musical and personal level, and I think it’s not just the best song that Pearl Jam has ever done, but one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs ever recorded about the effects of fame on musicians.

This all seems quaint in an era where people will pretty much do anything to become famous, but a quarter-century ago there was a whole coterie of big rock stars who really hated being big rock stars. And so quite naturally, Time Magazine did a big story about this group of reluctant rock stars — pegged around the near simultaneous releases of In Utero and Vs. and the massive success of Siamese Dream — and stuck Eddie fucking Vedder on the cover.

And he hated it.

Certain Songs #1507: Pearl Jam – “Nothingman”

April 10, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: Vitalogy
Year: 1994

One of my favorite jokes in This is Spinal Tap comes when filmmaker Marty DeBergi points out to manager Ian Faith that while previously the Tap had been playing 10,000-15,000 seat arenas, on the Smell The Glove tour, they were playing venues 1/10 of that size. So he naturally wondered if that meant that their popularity was waning.

Faith takes a second, and then replies: “No. No, no, no, no, no. Not at all. I-I-I just think that their appeal is, uh, becoming more selective.”

Certain Songs #1506: Pearl Jam – “Porch (Atlanta 04-03-1994)”

April 9, 2019 by Jim Connelly

B-side, 1994

Almost from the start, Pearl Jam were feted as a great and intense live band. So there was some serious irony in early 1994 when the tour to support Vs was thrown into chaos as they got into a fight with Ticketmaster over the exorbitant “service” fee that the concert behemoth routinely charged each and every customer.

While I’m not going to go into too many details — Pearl Jam basically lost, at least partially because Ticketmaster had a system of kickbacks to venues in order to be their exclusive vendors — the upshot was that the tours to support Vs and Vitalogy had a shitload of logistical issues, no matter how great the music was.