We're Not Who You Think We Are
Album: Vs.
Year: 1993
“Leash” is probably my favorite Pearl Jam song, bar one.
Stuck way near the end, long after the singles and radio songs that dominated the front half, and sandwiched between the R.E.M. tone poem “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town” and the atmospheric closer “Indifference,” the utter face-melting anthem “Leash” totally and utterly blew me away.
Album: Vs.
Year: 1993
People probably don’t remember this, but Vs. was a huge huge fucking deal when it came out. After all, once Ten had broken through in the summer of 1992, it had remained a steady high seller — the eight best-selling record of 1993 — which just whetted everyone’s appetite for the follow-up. To the point where Vs. sold more copies in its late October 1993 release week — 950,378 thank you Soundscan — than any record in history, debuting at the very top of the Billboard album charts.
I was one of those people, of course. As Ten had somewhat grown on me, and the press played up the so-called rivalry between Pearl Jam and Nirvana, I was dead curious as to how both bands would follow up their surprise successes. And in retrospect, both bands did exactly what you’d now expect them to do: Nirvana got more abrasive and punk and Pearl Jam got bigger and sleeker, Producer Brendan O’Brien clearing out the fuzz so you could hear them.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1504: Pearl Jam – “Rearviewmirror”
Album: Singles Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Year: 1992
While “Jeremy” was what tipped me over into buying Ten, this barnburner was the first Pearl Jam song I ever loved.
As part of the Singles soundtrack, which turned me on to not just Pearl Jam, but also Smashing Pumpkins (which took) and Mudhoney (which didn’t); reminded me that the Screaming Trees were pretty awesome; and premiered not one but two Paul Westerberg solo songs, “State of Love and Trust” knocked me out from pretty much the beginning.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1503: Pearl Jam – “State of Love and Trust”
Album: Ten
Year: 1991
Which isn’t to say that I loved Ten when I finally got it. Sure, there were songs like “Even Flow,” “Alive” and “Porch,” but to me, a lot of the album got buried deep in the murk that producer Rick Parashar ladled on top of them. (And, in fact, I much prefer the 2008 Brendan O’Brien remixes which blew the dust right off.)
That said, there wasn’t anything that was going to keep me from eventually loving what I now think is the album’s best track, the devastating break-up ballad, “Black.”
Album: Ten
Year: 1991
I’ve been wrong about many many things. I will continue to be wrong about many many things.
But there were very few things I was as wrong about as I was Pearl Jam when they first came out. They were basically a microcosm of a larger thing I was initially wrong about: grunge. Which I guess doesn’t make anything better.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1501: Pearl Jam – “Jeremy”
Album: Mirror Ball
Year: 1995
Recorded at Bad Animals on February 10, 1995
For some reason, Mirror Ball has kind of a bad rap, but I prefer it to the two Crazy Horse albums that sandwiched it — Sleeps With Angels and Broken Arrow, as the former is too dark conceptually and the latter is too muddy sonically.
Not to mention that none of the best songs on those records rose to the level of the best songs on Mirror Ball: “Act of Love,” “Scenery,” the titanic “I’m The Ocean,” and the utterly thrashing “Throw Your Hatred Down,” which was as typical of a great Neil Young song as “I’m The Ocean” was atypical.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1287: Neil Young – “Throw Your Hatred Down”