Pearl Jam: Ten: POLL (plus a presumably lonely celebration for the new, remixed release of Pearl Jam's "Ten")

My wife found this and the Singles soundtrack on cassette in a box in the basement, which we've been listening to in the car lately. I hadn't heard it in at least ten years. I still really hate the album cover.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

quite predictable/reasonable results, but 'garden' was always one of the better tracks, i found.

agreed on garden, shocked that anyone voted for jeremy

I like the part that goes "Jeremy spoken, spoken, jeremy spoken, spo-keeen, jeremy spoken, class todaaaaaaaaaay heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heeoo heooohhhhhh-oooooooh (spoken, spoken), heooohhhhhh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, heeoooooohhhheeeee, ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh"

i remember watching a performance of jeremy at the 92 (?) MTV music awards and being quite disturber when eddie vedder delivered that bit you just described. he looked and sounded like a madman.

disturbed

i think it's kinda funny that "Jeremy" is the only exception to the album's big hits dominating the poll. maybe it's more dated/embarrassing to people now? i could see that, although i think it's aged better than a lot of the other songs.

i think jeremy is a bit silly, but liked it back in the day.

i'm giving ten a spin now. it sounds so tight and purposeful. it's interesting to be reminded of that, because at some stage PJ became really simplified and sloppy, and while a lot of people really liked the change they went through - calling it a sign of maturity and inevitably citing those wretched comparisons to the who and neil young - i could never quite get a handle on it. mind you, vitalogy delivers three or four fine, fine gems. everything after didn't connect with me.

i dunno -- McCready definitely became a sloppier soloist at some point, but otherwise i don't really understand what you mean about becoming simplified and sloppy.

take a song like 'wishlist' from yield for instance. vedder is barely enunciating the words and the main riff uses about two chords. that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's clear to me that at some point we stopped hearing the more complex, elaborate arrangements that characterise a lot of the tracks on ten and certain mother love bone songs if you want to delve back even further. when i caught PJ live, the tighter, more focused numbers - with the notable exception of 'rearviewmirror' and 'corduroy' - came from ten. songs like 'who you are' and 'do the evolution' sounded extremely loose and insipid, by contrast.

yeah i dunno...complexity's never really been their bag, it's not like they were every going to out-prog Soundgarden even after Matt Cameron joined, but I think they pushed themselves as far as rhythms, arrangements, production etc. a fair amount in the Jack Irons era and on Binaural, even as they did more straightforward stuff like "Wishlist."

I don't understand, Charlie. "Wishlist" is one of those "tighter, more focused numbers" you said the band stopped writing after the Ten era.

i couldn't imagine putting this album on right now.

you have no idea hard it is to not come with a YOU'RE THE DUDE LISTENING TO A THOUSAND ALBUMS THIS YEAR lazy zing over here

haha, i see your point alfred since 'wishlist' isn't exactly sprawling. but i think it has a chugging looseness about it nonetheless as well as that lazy drawl you hear EV take on board a lot of the time :)

hmmm, yeah i guess i should give no code (irons plays on this one, right?) and binaural a bit of a reevaluation. maybe it's the all-round cleanness of ten that leads me to believe it's the one where the band was the most assured and on-song. i find later releases to be challenging and frequently inspired, but find it hard to isolate areas where the members are merging their talents to leverage the impact of the songs. always seems like eddie or one of the guitarists is holding back a tad so as to keep the listener at a slight arms-length. then there'll often be a hint of a hook that's never quite played out or developed. i like that kind of restraint in a lot of music but tend to find that pearl jam don't really give themselves much to fall back on. maybe it's due to that lack of complexity.

yeah, No Code and Yield are the Jack Irons ones...check out my batty NC tribute thread: Pearl Jam - No Code

I was trying to be silly by posting that gibberish from "Jeremy" but honestly I think it's a great song.. I might think so partially because the video is pretty intense. I wasn't sure what Vedder was doing at the VMA's when I was watching.. I think by that point I was still pumped up from Nirvana's performance.. But upon more recent viewings, Vedder clearly shapes his fingers like a gun and points it into his mouth with his eyes all bulging and looking crazy.. and at the end of the song it sounds like he's quoting lyrics from Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer."

he probably is, i've heard a couple boots where they cover "Sonic Reducer"

me too

My friend's old band used to cover Sonic Reducer but they were covering Pearl Jam covering it, they'd never heard the Dead Boys' version.

I don't think I've ever heard Pearl Jam.

25 years old today...

"Featuring members of Mother Love Bone"

http://www.twofeetthick.com/2011/07/12/summer-break-pearl-jams-july-1991-u-s-tour/

"07/13/91 – The Marquee Room: New York, NY
This date is originally listed as Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ, but Pearl Jam was instead inserted into a lineup featuring Sub Pop bands Rev. Horton Heat, Afghan Whigs, Gorilla, Beasts of Bourbon, Codeine. Could Pearl Jam have played a later set at Maxwell’s? Possible, but we’re not entirely sure. We are particularly amused that the same general period that Pearl Jam played the Marquee Room, so did Tribe After Tribe (whose frontman Robbi Robb went on to Three Fish with Jeff), The La’s (whose “Timeless Melody” was a favorite PJ cover in 2000), not to mention Firehose (fronted by Mike Watt, who Ed recorded and toured with four years later)."

I saw this show 2 weeks before the album release I guess? There were a lot of lame stains swingin’ on the flippity flop.

God, those one-word titles. So pretentious. As a result, I have no memory at all of what like five of these songs sound like

i still have my original cassette copy- i listened to it so much all the print wore off & then i lost the cover so i had to write on it with a marker

<3

hmm

memory clearly flawed, just found it & i wrote on the cover. print on cassette is worn but not gone. musta been thinking about a different album

Fun trivia, iirc Nirvana played the tiiiiiny Dobbs in Philly right around when Nevermind came out. I remember PJ coming back to play the Trocadero, but my hipster friends wouldn't go.

"Porch" rules

otm

that one is always a good time live

happy 30th