Pearl Jam - C or D?

i'm kind of over judging bands based on their "impact." they impacted nothing more than record labels search for copy-cat bands.

if it were up to nirvana their "impact" would have been the bands who they wore on their t-shirts when they played out... unless i'm mistaken these bands did not include silverchair and the vines. that was a record label decision. you can't blame nirvana or pearl jam for something that was out of their control.

the Smackdown debate was quite disappointing. If we're going to play the absurd who-had-cooler-record-collections game, then Jeanne Fury had to acknowledge Eddie Vedder's interest in Talking Heads, Split Enz, Sonic Youth, and Sleater Kinney.

and "Teenage angst has paid off well/Now I'm bored and old" sounded glamorous and jaded in the best way when I was nineteen; now it's just stupid, especially when the music attached to it such a (th)dud.

that song has a great thdud

Jesus Christ, Alfred.

Better songs on that record, gentlemen.

we are, after all, self-appointed judges judging more than they have sold.

"you can't blame nirvana or pearl jam for something that was out of their control."
i don't know if it's a question of control really but i feel like despite vedder's earnest progressiveness, pearl jam's music just appealed more to republicans on a spiritual level, and to the extent that this kind of conservatism is embodied in the music itself, there's a case to hold it against them.

wtf

that's twaddle

all i'm sayin is the right wingers at my school loved pearl jam, hated nirvana, except for the one who was into madonna and newt gingrich.

pearl jam's music just appealed more to republicans on a spiritual level

what does this even mean?

to the extent that this kind of conservatism is embodied in the music itself

How do you embody conservatism in music? Even on a formalist level -- if that's what you mean by "music itself" -- the worst PJ songs (sometime at the beginning of their career, to my ears) offer a tension between Vedder's vocals and the rest of the band that's exactly the kind of dialectic I want in music.

all i'm sayin is the right wingers at my school loved pearl jam, hated nirvana, except for the one who was into madonna and newt gingrich.

It must pain you that Rush Limbaugh uses "My City Was Gone" and McCain used "Running on Empty."

Vedder did 9/11

i mean spiritual because on a literal level the lyrics are quite progressive and i really don't understand how it could appeal to pro-lifers, so it must be on some deeper level, like whatever weird chemical it is in big macs that make them addictive.

well then blame the Big Macs that conservatives eat more than San Francisco liberals.

but... pearl jam are the big macs!

nirvana is in-n-out (this sort of breaks down given in-n-out's weird christian evangelism but...)

actually the in-n-out/mcdonald's thing does hold in other ways -- nirvana has a more limited menu, corresponding to, say a narrower range and smaller discography, but is generally of higher quality -- pearl jam certainly outsells nirvana and has more market penetration -- nirvana's fries are not as tasty, but are probably better for you.

::burp::

also, pearl jam's christmas single club = happy meal! is that thing still running? i sort of regret not getting the lifetime membership thing to the ten club and to mcsweeneys, because they both ended up delivering goods long after you'd think they would have stopped.

The thing is, is that everybody liked Pearl Jam.

it didn't seem like that when i was a little PJ fan in middle school -- lots of kids not into rock at all of course but even the rock kids seemed to be quickly moving into different factions (Nirvana kids, GNR kids, Metallica kids, lots of kids who liked all of the above but thought Pearl Jam wasn't as good as the others)

Well, I didn't mean that everybody liked them as much as they bridged a ton of the subcultures in my high school from the blue-haired kids to the AP students to the lacrosse team at a saturation point that I didn't really feel like the others did.

I think that Pearl Jam has done the major label arena-packing thing about as well as any band has ever done it. The live CD scheme alone was/is enough for me to defend them for life (remember when there were 200+ Pearl Jam CDs in the racks at Tower?), but the band has been really adept at pushing politics and new business models without alienating its base. And the bassist prints unique posters for each concert, which is really cool. Plus, very different setlists every night, good covers, good taste in the old acts it aligns itself with, etc. And the songs really aren't that bad. And the guitarists are really good. And so on.

lol @ Pearl Jam or their fans being "conservative" or "Republican", these guys are about as left as any mainstream rock is right now and so are most of their fans. I mean, when they played Lolla in Chicago a few years back they wrote and performed an anti BP Oil song that night because of the (at the time) ongoing issue of BP wanting to dump more waste into Lake Michigan. That argument is just plain silly and shows someone with little understanding of the band and a wide majority of their fans. I'm sure they do have their share of right-wingers in the audience, but every time I've seen them perform and Eddie's pulled out an anti-war, anti-Bush, or liberal talking point there had been way more cheers than anything else. Its not like these guys are Kid Rock or the Dixie Chicks.

Anyway... the PJ20 soundtrack thing is really good, some fantastic performance on the first disc. I'm glad to finally have a "proper" recording of the Unplugged "Black" to replace dodgy boots I've had. I wish they'd release the whole performance now though.

I'll concede this: when I saw them in 2003, the audience response to Vedder's Bush remarks was at best tepid, and downright hostile an hour earlier during Sleater Kinney's performance (one neanderthal in front of me: "Where the fuck did they get these dykes?"). But this show took place at the height of Bush's popularity.

Yeah I guess there are a couple of those bootlegs from circa 2000 and later that featured some tepid responses to Vedder rants now that I think about it. But, still, I don't think its fair to say the band draws in a higher concentration of conservatives than any other popular touring band.

If anything I'd say they do, or did, attract a certain "bro", frat boy element, not necessarily conservative but at the very least ignorant or politically apathetic. They just want to make out with their girl to "Better Man" & hi-five during "Evenflow".

and why not indeed.

Evenflow has probably inspired more high-fiving than volunteering at soup kitchens, it is true.

I saw Pearl Jam play one of the Vote for Change shows in Grand Rapids, MI, and when the band gave a shout-out to the Dixie Chicks, who were playing ... I want to say Cleveland? Anyway, when they thanked the Dixie Chicks a good portion of the crowd booed, though Vedder chastised them for booing. PJ fans total mix of earnest alt-fans and frat bros.

"Evenflow has probably inspired more high-fiving than volunteering at soup kitchens, it is true."

this might be one of those "is lincoln's head facing left or right on the penny" kind of questions, but without looking,
can you remember if the cover of ten is a group-high five or locked hands?

Is it just me or is Pearl Jam's live stuff a lot sloppier now than it was during the first third of the career?

oh and: facing right, hi-five, brah

Their lives shows in the last eight years have been tremendous.

What is it that people like about Pearl Jam? The rock beat? That "grungy" guitaur? Or the heartfelt lyrics? Why does PJ irritate me like my place of employment? Is it because they are bland like khakis? Where is the beef?
― Worker Drone, Wednesday, May 29, 2002 5:00 PM (9 years ago) Bookmark

well, it reminds me of Jeanne Fury's remark. She dislikes Pearl Jam in part because they're such bro in contrast to the "femme" Kurt Cobain.

*such bros

Did we ever do a S/D on their live releases? I could have sworn there was something, but didn't see it in search.

there is something effortlessly masculine about pearl jam. maybe this quality is crucial to the riddle of their fratservative appeal?

http://nogoodforme.filmstills.org/images/EddieVedderAnthonyKiedisKissing.jpg

For sure, the band is not afraid of guitar solos and drum fills. Those things are sort of by default "masculine."

also masculine: kissing a dude in a backwards baseball cap. (to be fair, grohl probably rocked the backwards cap, too, but then again foo fighters is almost on mascu-parity with pearl jam)

That's Anthony Kiedis, by the way.

When Rolling Stone ran the photo someone wrote a letter: "Please cancel my subscription."

didn't jeff ament regularly rock the backwards cap? i have the impression he sometimes wore a fur cap for some reason.

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/5073/Jeff+Ament.jpg

Ugh – he probably smells like an unwashed Pekinese.

may your first hat be a masculine hat...

I saw Pearl Jam cover Fugazi's "Suggestion" once in '93 or '94.