![]() ![]() They were a '90s band and not an '80s band, which fits in with the grunge revolution. And their fashion wasn't spandex and teased hair. Stone Gossard and Mike McCready never strutted around like C.C. Pearl Jam's music was guitar rock, and it didn't even eschew guitar solos. But Pearl Jam is decidedly different from Tesla and all their contemporaries. Let’s just say, I wouldn't turn off "Love Song" by Tesla if it came on right this second. As far as band makeup went, Pearl Jam wasn’t dissimilar to Tesla, who I fell in love with because of their album The Great Radio Controversy. I loved hard rock and glam in the late '80s as a pre-teen. Pearl Jam doesn’t innovate on the rock and roll archetype with two guitarists, a bassist, drummer, and lead singer as the frontman. He became known for hanging from the rafters of stages and some other crazy antics, but his vocals were always more than enough.įor how great Pearl Jam turned out to be, they do so within a very familiar template. It’s not so much a shot at the rest of the band as it is to recognize the gravity that Eddie Vedder is able to create with his lyrics and vocals. Eddie was the one who did the most to bring the listeners into the flow of the songs. Jeff Ament is a great bass player, and Pearl Jam didn’t stabilize their drummer until Matt Cameron of Soundgarden eventually joined the band many years later, but the rhythm section can only lead the band when it’s Primus. Especially on Ten, it feels like most of what Eddie is singing is the most important thing he’s ever said. The band always served the songs, and if anyone ever stuck out it was Eddie Vedder because of his urgent vocal style. Pearl Jam are incredibly talented, but not in a particularly showy way. were the culmination of Ten dominating the airwaves and the band blowing people away from stages all across the world giving those songs even more life in concert. It was trying to sing the percussive falsetto “HOO” over and over again at the end of “Jeremy.” Eddie Vedder was doing some weird kind of emo scat and it somehow worked. It was the result of singing the chorus to “Alive” as if it was your own personal anthem. Those sales were the result of millions of fans stumbling their way through the verses of “Even Flow” until they got every syllable correct. ![]() is a great record in its own right, and went on to become beloved in its own way, those sales records belong largely to Ten. They’re being paid for what they did before. This was about Ten.Īn athlete who signs a ginormous contract with a professional sports team isn’t being paid for what they’re going to do. The record-setting sales weren’t really about Vs. It sold more than 950,000 copies in its first five days, setting a record. went straight to the top of the albums chart. I had to guarantee that I’d have my copy the earliest possible moment that I could get it into my hands. I have trouble putting into words just how desperate I was for the school day to end so I could get that ride to the store to pick up my copy, which I had pre-ordered even though there would be more than enough copies. He knew what I was there for the minute I pulled the door open and stepped inside. The clerk in the store saw me walk in and immediately turned around to grab my copy off the stack. was packaged in a special cardboard eco-pack design and safely piled behind the counter for those who pre-ordered it. The Subway is still there, and I believe the record store is now a vape shop, so turnabout is fair play in the aroma seepage wars. While looking through racks of CDs, your nose was infiltrated with the smell of oil and vinegar in a way you might imagine after years and years seeping through C-grade construction materials in a hastily-built strip mall. I can remember the smell of the little record store in the strip mall in Bainbridge Ohio because it shared a wall with a Subway sandwich shop next door. ![]() in 1993, I feel electricity running through my scalp. As I’m typing this thinking about picking up my copy of Vs. In my mind, I can still remember the feeling of waiting, and at times it was actually painful. ![]() The yearning for the follow-up to Ten was intense. ![]()
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