History hasn't really been kind to Pearl Jam, the increasing beatification of Kurt Cobain in the 15 (sweet Jesus I'm old) years since his death has led to the band being seen as a commefical cash-in on Nirvana's fame, the Monkees to Cobain's Beatles. Cobain himself called them coperate cock-guzzling sell-outs (or words to that effect, I'll be damned if I'm trawling through Wikiquotes at this time in the morning) years ago and the accusation has stuck to them.
Completely unfairly really, as out of the two bands it was Eddie Vedder's cash-cow that really shunned fame and fortune at the height of their success- following their mega-huge debut Ten by releasing second album Vs with next to no publicity and refusing to release any singles or videos while Nirava seemed happy to follow their breakthrough with even more expensively constructed promotion and promos, and allowing the word 'rape' to be removed form the sleeve of In Utero in an effort to please Walmart- and have continued to attempt to marry the punk spirit to their enormodome success ever since, assidously attaching themselves to worthy causes and endlessly fighting in order to stop bigger business simply ripping off their fan-base. Most impressively, they have always seemed to achieve all this without fucking going on about it all the time.
Musically however, if Nirvana were The Beatles, Pearl Jam are actually somewhere closer to Hermann's Hermits. Their chugging, work-ethic rock, which seems to honour good solid workmanship over anything else, is often cited as the biggest influence on contemporary American rock, for which they all should be extremely ashamed. Their po-facedness and ability to take themselves astonishingly seriously positions them as kind of an American U2, but at least the Iriash band has festonned us with some rare moments of inspiration over the course of their career, all Pearl Jam have left us with is the strong feeling Eddie Vedder needs more fibre in his diet.
This, their third LP, may prove my previous points. Apparantly it's an admirable attempt to make a more complex and experimental album, a step away from their fame. I'll also bet it's as dull as dog's cock
00:12 Great, a 'jazz-influenced' intro...
02:20 If I wanted to be a bit mischievous I'd say that 'Last Exit' sounds like it was a big influence on Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl knows where his sympathies lie
04:15 'Spin the Black Circle', as you may well guess, is very metal. A pretty decent little rock song though, I think every major rock band should try at least one mid-career album where they employ such a stripped-down production, as the re-energising affect it can have on the music can occasionally be awesome. I'm looking at you Oasis...
08:15 Brendan Rodger's production sounds absolutely fantastic on 'Not for You' (and all three songs so far actually), the sound's so crisp it's all I can do to stop myself peeling it off the speakers. Vedder's voice on this track though is particularly grating
10:05 They seem to have stolen the font for this album from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Possibly in respect to Gene Wilder's definitive version of 'Evenflow'
11:44 Chugchugchugchugchugchugchug...
14:56'Tremor Christ' is a laugh-a-minute riot, as you'd imagine. There's actually nothing wrong with being so unrelentingly serious, but you do have to make sure the music itself exhibits a modicum of vitality (excuse the pun)
20:07 'Nothingman' is a seriosuly lumpen rock-ballad that was only momentarily exciting when I initially thought it was called 'Nottingham'. This is the kind of lighters-aloft-can-I-play-the-coffeeshop-in-the-OC-please-Mummy-barely-a-fucking-song rubbish that's about a dime a thousand amongst mainstream American rock nowadays. If Pearl Jam are even partly to blame for that they should hang their heads to the sodding ground like Ostriches.
22:12 Vitalogy was actually the second fastest selling album ever in America at the time. Any guesses as to what the first was?
26:33 'Cordurouy' is a pretty standard rock song, but it has a definite 'zip' to it that's missing from many of the other tracks. Hey, I'm tapping my foot ever so slightly, and sometimes that's enough for me, Ok?
30:18 'Bugs' is actually a lovely little surprise, an accordian-led little ditty that's the first time on the album that the band sound like they're ambling ever so slightly outside their comfort zone
34:16 Times up, any ideas what the fasting selling album ever was? Astonishingly, it was the band's previous album Vs:They were huge!
38:10 For 'Better Man' see 20:07
44:57 For 'Immortality see 20:07
53:54 'Hey Foxymophandlemama, that's Me' sounds almost like a compromise to the idea of experimentation, a seven minute plus noise collage that merely sounds like it was tacked on to the end of the record to give the impression of radicalism. It's completely unnessecary and pretty much unlistenable, and being the kind of noise anyone with with a half-decent mixing desk and twenty minutes free could make it proves absolutely nothing about the band's ability to make truly challenging music.
55:02 Twenty seconds of silence, presumably to take stock of the magnitude of what you have just heard, and that's yer lot...
Most critical receptions to this album freely use adjectives like 'challenging', 'experimental' or 'uncompromising', and yet what you really have is 90% a solid if unspectacular rock album (albeit with fantastic production and a handful of really decent tracks) and a few insignificant (apart from the pretty great 'Bugs') tracks where the band experiment with different sounds to varying degrees, yet these tracks seem so removed form the general fabric of the album (and 'Pry To' and 'aye Davanita' are little more than instrumental fillers) that they contribute nothing to its sound other than being barely diverting asides. While the album obviously sees a pretty succesful attempt to strip down their sound (which again jars with the more elaboratly produced 'experimental' cuts) there's really little evidence here of the band really moving their music forward.
C+
No comments:
Post a Comment