Pearl Jam arrived during the Seattle "grunge" scene in the early 90s. When Mother Love Bone ended because of Andrew Wood’s premature death, two members of that band (Stone and Jeff) worked on the Temple Of The Dog project while also starting a new band. After auditioning and inviting Eddie Vedder in, they formed Pearl Jam and released their first album, Ten, in 1991.
Chock full of rousing anthems, Ten propelled them to superstardom. Something they grew to resent because of the unwanted fame and pressure it brought on them, especially after Kurt Cobain's death.
I loved Ten much like I loved Nevermind by Nirvana. Both blew apart my taste in music as did many of the other bands that followed in the wake of the tidal wave that Nevermind brought with it. Pearl Jam looked cool and were different to Nirvana; less punk and more rock, they had just as much to say as their contemporaries.
A few years later Pearl Jam released their second album and it maybe doesn’t get the love it should. I remember going into Newcastle and buying it from HMV on Northumberland Street. A big shiny three-storey shop, with pink neon initials over the entrance, it was like a church to me, offering so much music to worship.
I later did some work experience there and sometimes dream I had gone down the “record shop” career route a-la High Fidelity rather than the road I ended up following. Yeah, there would be less money but music right? Ah hindsight my old friend.
In October 1993, when Vs was released, it would have been cold with the first faint signs of winter in the UK, tips of frost and white breath early in the mornings. I was likely wrapped in the layers of a band t-shirt, flannel shirt and a fleece-lined corduroy coat I got from Flip Vintage. I also probably had a beanie on to keep the cold off, long greasy hair sticking to my head as a result. Ripped jeans and Dr Marten boots finished off the look. A true poster boy cliche for alternative music.
After paying with hard-earned money stacking shelves in the local supermarket, it would have been an hour bus ride home, smoking a few cigarettes on the top deck, condensation sticking to the windows, making the outside world a grey blur.
I don't recall what my expectations were on first listens. It didn't sound so much like Ten but it was loud and rocked. The artwork was also weird. A sheep with its head stuck in a fence? At the time, my little pea brain did not comprehend subliminal messaging but now I expect its representative of how they felt, trapped and fenced in by the music industry.
I received my reissue last week and have played it a few times now. Having not listened to it for a few years, my initial reaction found me transported back to the proceeding winter months in the small town I grew up in. But I listened with more wiser ears.
It starts with Go, the bass rumbles in followed by quick kick drums, setting the groove, there's a slight scratch of guitars, then a brief silence and with a count of the drum sticks, bang, we're straight in the shit. This isn't like the first album, I love it. Eddie singing about his sudden fame and hating every fucking minute of it.
On Animal the tempo is sustained, more of that scratchy groove guitar from Stone with the bass and drums just powering it through.
Daughter is a story much like Jeremy, but rather than go all anthem it's softer in tone, more considered. It’s about a child with a disability and her parents just not getting it; the line"the shades go down" so the neighbours won't see get’s me every time.
The song Glorified G is about a band member buying a gun and Eddie seemingly involved in the conversation but also taking notes, he didn’t buy one "in fact I got two". The chu-chu-chu of the guitar with a funky baseline and more snappy drumming keep this moving along nicely with some lovely lead guitar work near the end.
Dissident has that familiar Pearl Jam signature sound, it opens with a nice rhythm and lead from both Stone and Mike, and some strong vocals from Eddie. Another story, this one of a woman taking in someone on the run and then betraying him and having to live with it.
Some nice rolling drum fills from the start of W.M.A as you can faintly hear Eddie in the background, Stone adds a bit of funk, Jeff the bass and then it adds urgency as Eddie's vocals are brought out and sings about white privilege. The story apparently is that Eddie and a black friend were talking on the street when his friend got hassled by the police.
Blood is another searing view on the music industry, "spin me round, fuck me over, fucking circus". This song kicks all sorts of arse and at one point Eddie just screams "bloooooood".
Rearviewmirror is about putting things in that rear view, to get away from them and has that classic Pearl Jam sound. " Saw things so much clearer, (Once you, once you), Rearviewmirror..."
Rats, how they are better than we are. That bass has so much groove on it with some lovely lead guitar work. More Chilli Peppers than Pearl Jam.
Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town is another story, a woman working in a counter and perhaps an old partner comes in and doesn't recognise her. Acoustic guitar and Eddie opening the first verse. His voice is so strong as he embodies the spirit and soul of this woman.
Leash is rock and funk and piss and vinegar, a rousing anthem and message of defiance. What it's like to be on a leash, a tight rein, and a call for it to be dropped.
The final song is slowed down, a bit of organ, a simple bass and guitar picking. Indifference is about how much can you take and how much difference it makes.
Instead of going for the easy second album of anthems, Pearl Jam swung the other way. There is a mix of sounds from their first album but a move to more raw, heavier, sounds as they tried to shed the skin of being labelled an anthem band.
Lyrics around politics, child abuse and police racism, the song writing is sparse but clever, using less when more would be easier. The song lengths are shorter, the sound is stripped back in places but the production is still tidy, it's punkier and probably pissed off the record company right off.
Later albums would steer further away from Ten, and after Vitalogy I admit I stopped listening to them for a while. Later albums were harder to crack and my musical tastes widened as I got older.
I saw Pearl Jam play in London in 2010, where they performed a mix of songs I knew and some I didn't. It was nearly 20 years since I’d first heard Pearl Jam, a lifetime, but hearing their earlier stuff took me back to those awkward teenage years. The twenty year wide gulf was gone as me and thousands of others sang along with Eddie that night.