Ten by Pearl Jam (Ten - Pearl Jam)

Member Name: Lichfield1979

Product:	Ten - Pearl Jam
Date:	08/09/08 (201 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The first half of the record is exceptional.

Disadvantages: The second half of the record can't hope to match the first half.

Ten by Pearl Jam (1991)

In my other reviews I've kept mentioning that the guitars "sound like Pearl Jam" so it looks like I'm going to need some new similes.

Jeff Ament - bass
Stone Gossard - guitar
Mike McCready - guitar
Dave Krusen - drums
Eddie Vedder - vocals

The guitars sound like... well, they don't sound like Nirvana, so let's get that out of the way, because the whole "grunge" phenomenon is as unhelpful now as it was back then. I know guys with very lank hair who insist the only grunge albums were made by Mudhoney in the 1980s, and if you argue with them well then they'll make you listen to their CD collection, so just nod your head and smile politely, because trust me, that's easier. The guitars also don't sound like the Pixies, Sonic Youth, or Dinosaur Jr. Do you hear me? The guitars definitely don't speak with a Massachusetts accent. These guitars are from Seattle. Have you got that? They have never been to the east coast. Never. Not once. Not even on holiday when they were ten years old. And they don't sound like Pavement either, even though everybody sounds like Pavement these days, unless they sound like the Pixies. Or unless they sound like Pearl Jam.

In all seriousness, Pearl Jam were America's predominant traditional rock band in the 1990s and so their stature should properly be assessed by comparison to acts like Aerosmith, REM, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Guns N Roses, Metallica, The Grateful Dead, and yes, the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Pavement, and Nirvana. Just don't use the word grunge, okay?

One - Once

The record starts with a short introductory passage that sounds like the type of transcendental meditation Jim Jones or David Koresh might get up to in a mausoleum. Then the song starts properly with a fierce burst of grungy guitar work that sounds a bit like pearl jam. "I've got a sixteen gauge buried under my nose / Once upon a time I could control myself." Eddie sounds very angry and confused, even a bit schizophrenic, and frankly, I'm not getting in his way. The solos have psychedelic tinges although the rhythm section has great intensity and the raw sound hurtles along through the claustrophobic shadows.

Two - Even Flow

In interviews, guitarist Mike McCready fessed up he was ripping off Stevie Ray Vaughn, who was a hero of his, but Even Flow made for a successful single. The lyrics are about homelessness. I think on tracks like this you can clearly see that Pearl Jam owe as much to 1970s stadium rock as they do to 1980s alternative rebellion and it's no fluke that they convincingly captured both audiences and pushed their record sales into the stratosphere even as they refused to court MTV and became embroiled in a bitter row with Ticketmaster. In most respects Pearl Jam have always been about deeds, not image, and Cobain was wrong to criticise their popular appeal and financial success. Even Flow has more riffs and hooks than it needs and a big chorus too. Underneath the fuzzy echoing production it's surprisingly rhythmically tight. Musically, Pearl Jam never wanted to compete with other Seattle bands like Alice In Chains and Soundgarden, who weren't far off being metal bands. In terms of their overall sound they were too busy fusing U2 and Led Zeppelin and Hendrix. That's probably what Neil Young heard when he asked them to be his backing band for a hard rock album he was working on. Forget that godfather of grunge nonsense.

Three - Alive

It's easy to see why this was the lead single to the record. From the breezy opening hook it's a classic and Vedder's mystic, guttural cacophony is compelling. By the end the guitars spiral in anguished euphoria and the drums and cymbals crash in waves. Like Green Day and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam ought to be hauled in front of the International Court of Justice to face responsibility for the horde of talentless imitators they've spawned. This is the track what done it, m'lord. It's a truly fantastic exhibit, as it would have to be to win such a devoted legion of copycats. Can we let them off for good behaviour? No? What do you mean the lyrics are about incest? That's disgusting!

Four - Why Go Home

High-energy hard rock music with three minutes of swirling rhythms. Eddie gets a bit melodramatic on this one but not enough that it should put you off and the guitar solos are ridiculously over the top but it all sounds relentlessly credible.

Five - Black

If there's a big criticism to be made of the Pearl Jam sound it's probably that in their homage to their own heroes they've eliminated the blues and folk and jazz influences that informed their heroes' heroes. For all that raw verve and squawking complexity from the musicians and the impassioned vigour of a genuinely charismatic front man (at least in performance) you can't entirely deflect the accusation that there's something perplexingly sterile at the heart of things. Maybe this was what Cobain was really getting at with his misdirected insights: they want to stand so completely at the heart of the canon of rock music that they see as their rightful tradition that they've amputated something rather important that their music needs to breath. I don't really have any misgivings about this but can see why others might. A similar accusation has recently been levelled at Arcade Fire (in the pages of The New Yorker no less) that for all their faithfully attentive detail to pop heritage and older folk and spiritual traditions they effectively bypass mid-twentieth century African American music and this is to their detriment. I can see the argument even though I disagree with it. Black is a quieter ballad, and so these issues should be particularly thorny when considering whether this song needs a warmer suffusion of older musical grammars to convey emotional depth, particularly as it's one of the early songs that tends to gravitate towards traditional rock stations' play lists, and so is more likely to be heard in context with older American music than those songs packaged for the contemporary "alternative" landscapes which are perpetually ploughed and tilled by successive generations of cultural hipsters. The song is a popular if overly long and sombre meditation on lost love. Vedder sings it bitterly and does find emotional weight.

Six - Jeremy

Possibly the band's most well known song, Jeremy won the coveted MTV award for video of the year in 1993. The song is based on a newspaper article about a kid who shot himself in front of his classmates. It's an earnest song that opens with a juicy bass riff and percussion. The guitars have a lovely warm and grizzly timbre to them and there's a cello underneath the ending. The production feels brighter and cleaner than elsewhere and Vedder's voice is more expansive. This was the single that really put Pearl Jam on the map. Ten eventually peaked at number two in the US album charts but was kept off the top spot by Billy Ray Cyrus. The record did however make Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time a decade later, a feat the Achy Breaky Heart singer has been unable to match. So it's possible Pearl Jam are also to blame for Hannah Montana's plans for global domination, although I don't have a source for that, so don't quote me. The NME did once editorialise that Eddie Vedder was conspiring to take money out of the pockets of "alternative" kids, so it sounds plausible to me.

Seven - Oceans

Vedder shows he can also reach a softer, higher register on this one, howling alongside his usual throaty repertoire. The percussion drums taut textures and the guitars feel vaguely eastern. The words are inspired by surfing, and the music does capture a sense of the waves and the coast.

Eight - Porch

The vocal's unravelling cadence creates lots of energy as the band rock out, although the volume and density of the sound is kept under control. The slower guitar interlude in the middle is less persuasive than usual and the last minute never really gets back up to steam either, but at least it starts off really well. There's probably a better performance of this material to be found.

Nine - Garden

The melody of the chorus is pretty memorable but the song lulls in too pedestrian a fashion trying to figure out what to do the rest of the time and the guitar break is a total snooze. The band has no trouble filling out the last of the running time with plenty of noise but they need to take that vocal and do something more fun with it.

Ten - Deep

Eddie's growling has grown reassuring by now although perhaps we should have a whip around for some Strepsils or he'll feel rougher than ten grizzly bears in the morning. He's got a really strong voice, so whether he's coherent or not... let's not quibble. I think whereas the record benefited from the lengthy time the band took to rehearse and shape their material, it perhaps suffered from their relative lack of experience in the studio in 1991. The band themselves have said in interviews that given the choice they would remix the album to remove some of the reverb and discover a cleaner sound. This song isn't one of their strongest so serves as a good case in point. The guitars are too much of a splurge of noise and the melody hasn't got enough direction whilst rhythmically it leaves a lot to be desired too.

Eleven - Release

The last track sounds comparatively acoustic next to the rest of the tracks on the album but the instruments are plugged in and the band builds up the layers after a couple of softer verses. The tone is warm and melodic and foreshadows work on subsequent Pearl Jam albums that revealed another dimension to their trademark hard rock. Vedder delivers his searching vocal in long sustained notes. After the music fades out, the intro from the opening track returns and rumbles on again for three minutes, but this time the incendiary guitar riff that began Once doesn't interfere, and the record ends.

Summary: The guitars sound like Pearl Jam.