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”