Pearl Jam
Description
Pearl Jam are the last men standing from the great alternative rock explosion of the 1990s. They introduced themselves with one of the biggest-selling and most iconic albums of the decade, and their follow-ups broke sales records worldwide. To date, they have sold over 30 million records worldwide, as many as iconic artists such as The Doors, Tom Petty, and Rush. Just as those artists did, Pearl Jam built an intense cult following who feel personally connected to the band; they tour constantly and are renowned for the quality of their live shows. While maintaining a huge network of fans, they have also collaborated with other rock legends and helped boost the profiles of new artists. They fight for social justice causes even when that costs them in other areas. And through it all, they keep releasing amazing music. Yet for many, they remain an artefact of that decade, the epitome of the angsty generation x stereotype. By going through their entire discography track-by-track, covering their origins in the Seattle scene, and their musical development, this book will argue that Pearl Jam are not only one of the greatest bands of their generation but one of the greatest bands of all time.
Ben L. Connor is a freelance writer who works as a teacher of psychology and sociology. He has spent over thirty years studying music and culture. He has written teaching curricula for the study of the media and popular culture and presented seminars on the impact of the internet on fandoms. In his spare time, Ben enjoys writing fiction and movie reviews, as well as collecting music books and magazines, particularly those concerning the nineties alternative rock scene. This is his first book. He lives in Canberra, Australia.
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Introduction
Why Pearl Jam?
If you're over 50 years old or under 30, chances are you are asking this question. Pearl Jam are one of the biggest-selling bands of their generation, with a devoted fan base and critical plaudits. They are one of the best live acts still active. They managed to survive the boom-and-bust of 1990s alt-rock while keeping their personal and musical integrity, and now fans and peers revere them as classic rock icons. And yet, for many, they remain artefacts of the grunge era: archetypal mopey Gen-X iconoclasts. If that's what you think, then this book is for you: to hopefully change your mind. If you're already a Pearl Jam fan, then this book is also for you! - to offer a new perspective on their music, and to shine a light on some of the hidden corners of their discography. Of course, you might disagree with my opinions on some songs, so feel free to disregard.
Their discography is so vast that I won't waste any more time on introductions. I will be going through their catalogue album by album, track by track. For every album that was re-released with bonus tracks, I will address those songs alongside the albums they're attached to. Every other non-album track, B-side and outtake, I will cover when they were released on compilations, so as to better convey the arc of Pearl Jam's career. Any leftovers will be covered at the end. I will not address every released alternate, live or demo version of each song in separate entries: with a couple of notable exceptions. Pearl Jam have not yet had a complete reissue campaign wherein every non-album track has been amended to the albums, which would enable record buyers to easily collect everything the band recorded. The order I've settled on should make clear where to find all the non-album tracks.
The story of Pearl Jam does not begin with their debut album, but with the bands the members came from, and the wider music scene around them. So, I will take some time to address the music of Green River, Mother Love Bone and Temple Of The Dog. I will give a track-by-track analysis of Temple Of The Dog's sole album, because it features the entirety of Pearl Jam's current lineup, and also because, it's just so good, it deserves the attention.
Green River and Mother Love Bone
The roots of Pearl Jam go deep, and to understand the band, it's useful to know the context of the late-1980s Seattle music scene. Pearl Jam didn't burst forth overnight, fully formed from the brain of a marketing executive (as some accused them of being). The individual members had all paid their dues in other bands, and those bands are worth hearing for any Pearl Jam fan.
The founders of Pearl Jam - bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard - got their start in the band Green River. They took that name from the song by Creedence Clearwater Revival: a band whose lack of pretension and dogged work ethic made them an acceptable influence to cite in the boomer-phobic post-punk era. The other members of Green River were vocalist/guitarist Mark Arm, guitarist Steve Turner, and drummer Alex Vincent.
Green River's first release was the Come on Down EP in 1985. After this, Turner left and was replaced by Bruce Fairweather. This lineup recorded another EP - Dry As A Bone (1987) - and the album Rehab Doll (1988) for the Seattle-based indie label Sub Pop, founded in 1986. The label heads Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman had a knack for spotting up-and-coming talents. They also released early records by iconic acts such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mark Lanegan, L7, The Afghan Whigs and Mudhoney - not to mention their spectacular undercard that included cult artists such as Tad, The Supersuckers, Love Battery, Scud Mountain Boys and Sunny Day Real Estate.
In Sub Pop promotional materials, Green River were described as 'ultra-loose GRUNGE that destroyed the morals of a generation'. Critic Everett True used that word 'grunge' to refer to the music of the Seattle scene, and it stuck, despite all involved hating it. According to Mark Yarm's book, Everybody Love Our Town, this is the origin of the term, that came to define an entire wave of rock music. 'Grunge' is an ugly word coined to describe some ugly music. Yet, like goth rock and air metal, it's a term that was once used derisively - and from which the bands so labelled, reflexively distanced themselves - but is now used fondly by fans and critics. The grunge era was short. It began with Nirvana's 1991 commercial breakthrough, and faded away after Kurt Cobain's suicide in 1994, but it was impactful. Grunge overturned traditional concepts of how rock music should sound and how rock stars should look and behave. A new marketing category - Alternative rock - emerged to incorporate all the strange and abrasive music - from funk metal to lo-fi - that was suddenly inexplicably popular. But before all that, there was Green River.
Green River's music is in the vein of The Stooges and MC5: atavistic garage rock with little nuance or sensitivity. That's a compliment by the way; there's a clarity of purpose to Green River's attack, that's admirable. Most of their songs consist of a single riff repeated relentlessly over punishingly hard 4/4 rhythms, with little room for the music to breathe. But their music isn't fast enough to be labelled punk, and there's a notable blues influence, which was supposedly verboten by post-punk purists.
The 1985 EP Come on Down is drenched in feedback and sounds primitive even by indie rock standards. The production is too thin to do justice to the playing's ferocity, and the vocals are mixed too low to really sell the songs. This EP includes the song 'Swallow My Pride', which is the closest thing Green River had to a hit. Dry As a Bone is much more forceful sonically, but the songs are still rudimentary. The best of this bunch is 'Unwind', on which the blues influence is most noticeable. Rehab Doll is their most fully-formed release. The sonic palette was expanded to include industrial-sounding percussion on 'Rehab Doll' and a rootsy acoustic intro for 'One More Stitch'. They also re-recorded 'Swallow My Pride', ditching the wah-wah guitar and including a coda lifted from Blue Oyster Cult's 'This Ain't The Summer Of Love'. The sprightly 'Together We'll Never' gets my vote for their best song, as it has a strong chorus hook.
Mark Arm's vocals are a most acquired taste. He doesn't sing, so much as cough up the words with the force of a full-body heave. In the vein of Iggy Pop circa The Stooges' Fun House, it feels like he's acting out the music's ferocity; the lyrics are of secondary importance to the aggressive feel. If you're hoping to catch a glimpse of the unique playing styles of Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, you'll probably be disappointed. Ament's bass is frequently subsumed into the sonic murk, and Gossard's riffing - while expertly executed - didn't have the space to shine. It's no wonder these two players felt stifled by this band's self-imposed limitations.
Mark Arm was staunchly anti-careerist, and he viewed Ament and Gossard as attention-seeking stealth metalheads. They even wanted him to take singing lessons! In the late-1980s era of radio-polished glam metal, wanting to be an actual rock star was the worst accusation you could level at someone in the underground scene. In Michael Azerrad's chronicle of 1980s indie rock Our Band Could Be Your Life, Arm is quoted: 'There was a tension in the band for a while, and then it just got to be too great. It was punk rock versus a major-label deal'. When Ament invited label A&R men to a show, that was the final straw for Arm. The band broke up soon after recording Rehab Doll. Arm reunited with Steve Turner to form Mudhoney, who became grunge icons in their own right. A month after Rehab Doll was released, they dropped the first great grunge anthem: 'Touch Me, I'm Sick'.
The entire Green River discography, including non-album songs and demos, is available via expanded editions of their three releases. Somewhat surprisingly, Gossard and Ament would remain on good terms with their ex-bandmates. Green River reunited on stage during a Pearl Jam concert in Las Vegas on 30 November 1993. They also played a handful of headlining shows throughout 2008/2009.
Back in 1986, Green River had two non-album songs appear on the compilation Deep Six: released by another Seattle indie label C/Z Records. This compilation is often credited with planting the seed of the idea that there was a wider Seattle scene. The compilation tracklist also included future superstars Soundgarden, iconic cult heroes Melvins, and the underrated Skin Yard (whose guitarist was Jack Endino: the producer of Dry as A Bone and future releases by Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Nirvana). Another artist on the compilation was the goofily named Malfunkshun. This band dissolved not long after Deep Six was released, and its singer Andrew Wood began jamming with Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard. Eventually, Jeff Fairweather also joined, and with the edition of Gary Gilmore on drums, they became a band called Mother Love Bone. And this was the next step on the path to Pearl Jam.
Andrew Wood was a real character. Compared to his contemporaries in the Seattle scene, he was more openly influenced by 1970s glam and stadium rock. He was a lady-killing...
