If the album ended after the 10th track it would be stronger… the last 5 fall somewhere between odd and average, but the first 10 straight are pretty strong and a few such as Love Boat Captain, I Am Mine, You Are and Green Disease are fantastic. The album is still somewhat in the vein of Binaural with a few detours and an experimental feel at times, but the overall quality of the songs is stronger to me.
I guess I was never quite sure what I was expecting. Reading up on the album now it seems that 9/11 coupled with the accidental death of 9 fans at the Roskilde Festival during their performance since Binaural did indeed have a big impact on the topics and lyrics - but I frankly didn’t notice. I wondered what Pearl Jam would have to say and how their music might be impacted. This was a time when 9/11 was still fresh - only a year earlier - and it seemed that everything was different. Riot Act (2002) - Sometimes I lump this and Binaural together but this is clearly the better of the two.
I got it on the album ranked #3 on this list.ħ.
PEARL JAM EVEN FLOW RIFF KISS CODE
It’s an amazing half an album… The thing is the first 4 albums kind of progressively decrease in quality so by No Code I was still firmly on board but itching for a true return to form. But that’s okay and Pry, To, Bugs, Aye Davanita and Hey Foxyblah blah blah aren’t really songs anyway. Beyond that I like Satan’s Bed, Whipping and….not a whole lot else. As for the rest of Vitalogy, there are 4 total classics here which supports any claim for this album - for me they aren’t enough to rank it higher than here at 8, but Nothingman, and especially Better Man, Corduroy and Immortality are classics of the band and the genre itself. Eddie seemed to be singing on Kurt’s behalf even though the song wasn’t written with Kurt in mind nor were the bands close and while that moment was big at the time, the song is not my favorite - it served its purpose in the moment. Vitalogy (1994) - Vitalogy is not my favorite Pearl Jam album and it’s tough for me to rank because the highs are so high and the lows relatively low… I remember the first time I heard Not For You - who doesn’t? That performance on SNL on April 16th, 1994 with Eddie poignantly moving his jacket to the side to reveal a “K” on the shirt underneath for Kurt Cobain who had just ended his life 11 days earlier. But In My Tree, Off He Goes, Habit, Red Mosquito and the one minute blast of Lukin are all really good.Ĩ. Smile sounds like a deliberate Neil Young tribute and it’s just okay, and my other complaint on this album is it closes with a few throwaways in my book - I’m just not a big fan of Mankind, the spoken word I’m Open, and Around The Bend. The first single was Who You Are which is an unlikely single with almost a nursery rhyme quality to it but I do love it. The opener Sometimes is the first opener that signals this outing is going to be a bit different - sometimes you just take the road where it leads, but Hail, Hail reminds us that yes this is still a rock band and we’ll jam some.
Present Tense is the real classic here - how can a quiet intimate song be so heavy and powerful? The song interestingly enough was given a new life and context as the closing song on the ESPN documentary about Michael Jordan and the Bulls. The difference is the good songs are better and even some of the odd ones are cool. No Code (1996) - Binaural wasn’t the first weird Pearl Jam album - No Code was. But here I’m sticking to the 11 proper LPs. And yes I’m aware that many of the best Pearl Jam songs aren’t on albums such as Crazy Mary, State Of Love And Trust, Yellow Ledbetter, I Got Shit and that there’s a great Pearl Jam album that isn’t even a Pearl Jam album when they were the backing band for Neil Young.
PEARL JAM EVEN FLOW RIFF KISS FULL
So let’s get to the ranking shall we? The criteria is simply full length studio Pearl Jam LPs - no collections or live releases ( Lost Dogs is not included even though it’s great and would probably fall somewhere in the middle). I’ve seen them live twice - the first time on Maat the Cleveland State Convocation Center - pretty sure that was the first time I saw a singer do a legit stage dive which Eddie did… Green River and Mother Love Bone notwithstanding, Pearl Jam is the band that nailed it out of the gate and endured from that time with the core band intact to this day. Meanwhile I thought it would be interesting to start with Pearl Jam and their 11 albums.
So if I choose Alice In Chains as the band I like to listen to more it’s literally by a hair. Of the “Big 4” Seattle grunge bands I’m not even sure Pearl Jam is my favorite per se (that title probably goes to Alice In Chains) and yet they are the ones I’m most comfortable having represent me and my generation as OUR rock band if that makes sense.
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