![]() ![]() There was an obvious attempt to recapture Pearl Jam’s energetic live performances. Sure there are similarities, with Eddie Vedder’s vocals a dead giveaway for a start. But when placed in sonic comparison to its predecessor, it’s almost like two different bands recording under the same moniker. Not, I should clarify, because the record is a bad one. Thirty years on, it is hard to understand how the record was actually so massive. The album topped the charts in eight other countries around the world. The record also received three GRAMMY Award nominations.Īnd this is just the U.S perspective. Modern Rock Charts, despite only four actual commercial singles being released. Six of the album’s songs generated top forty positions in the U.S. In its first week of release alone, it racked up 950,378 units sold, making it the fastest selling album of all time, a record it held on to for five years. has to date sold a staggering seven million copies in the United States. A quick look at the numbers will tell us this. Not like these activities saw much dent in their popularity. A noble cause for sure, and one they faced alone, yet an undertaking that took them out of the game for a number of years as they tried to find these out-of-the-way venues in all major cities across the U.S. Pearl Jam would tour sports halls and stadiums that Ticketmaster had no jurisdiction over and basically try and undercut the monolithic ticker seller. Bleeding from the embers of Vs.’ slogging world tours into Vitalogy (1994) and even into No Code (1996), the band would embark on an epic lawsuit against Ticketmaster on grounds that the astronomical service charges were tantamount to extortion for the band’s fans. In fact, this would be the era in which Pearl Jam would stand up to what they perceived as injustice. exists at an intriguing point in Pearl Jam’s career the moment in which their trajectory towards self-determination was truly set upon and the mystique that would surround the band in the years to come was first put in place. Upon the release of Vs., the band were adamant that they would not play the corporate game of making music videos for MTV to broadcast non-stop, nor would they allow as much press access or interviews. Something was changing in the band’s collective mindset. Some of the conflict came from the relentless touring that went into promoting the band’s debut album Ten (1991), an endeavor that was no doubt rewarding as the band became one of the biggest acts in U.S rock music, but equally exhausting as the toil of press junkets, award ceremonies, interviews, music videos and dealing with obsessive fans were considered the downside to fame. The opening refrain from “Animal,” the album’s second song, recounts “One, two, three, four, five against one” that puts the band at odds with some notion of corporate America. Lyrically, the album is awash with references to trauma and discord. The title alone is an obvious indicator that the band was gunning for something or someone. But when they let loose on the rockers, they reminded the world of the fury and abandon that made them heroes in the first place.Happy 30th Anniversary to Pearl Jam’s second studio album Vs., originally released October 19, 1993. explores a quieter, more melodic side, as heard on the ghostly, nearly ambient "Indifference", the lyrically and sonically small-scale character study "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town", and the hooky, acoustic-strumming "Daughter", which became the album's biggest hit. Perhaps most significantly, a good chunk of Vs. "Glorified G" mates its anti-gun message with a rather R.E.M.-ish, much poppier feel. ![]() show the grunge gods could be funky when they wanted to. The syncopated grooves of "Rats" and "W.M.A". ![]() The core elements of the sound that made Pearl Jam superstars are still evident here-the big, blazing riffs on tunes like "Blood" and "Animal", and Vedder's leonine roar throughout most of the album.īut the band were branching out into new directions, too. is less polished and anthemic than Ten the songs are more idiosyncratic, and the band declined to make music videos for the singles. In the wake of their debut's record-breaking success and resultant overexposure, Pearl Jam tried to avoid making another blockbuster. And their second album, Vs., marks the moment where the band proved that both they and the movement they spearheaded had the legs to move forward and evolve. Though Kurt Cobain became the scene's icon (especially in death), Pearl Jam commanded the attention of an even wider swath of America. Decades after the fact, it's easy to forget that in grunge's heyday, Pearl Jam were even bigger than Nirvana. ![]()
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