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Pearl Jam's Albums: #5
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I know the leaks are out there, and have been tempted to download my own, but no, to those of you who have been wondering, I have not listened to Backspacer yet. It is a matter of tradition, purity and musical enlightenment to me to wait until I have the physical copy of the L.P. in my hands before I indulge myself in new PJ. I want the whole nine yards, from the liner notes featuring lyrics and song notes, to the photography and album art work, to the incomparable experience of placing the disc into the player for the first time, first blasting the new sounds in volumes some might describe as crazy, then digging more deeply into the album through the use of headphones. Time is short and I know my copy will be arriving soon enough that I can make it without filtering that exercise.
I am certain that today's ranking will anger a large amount of readers, but then again I believe it will be that way through the end of the countdown. As I noted during the song countdown, Pearl Jam fans are passionate, strongly opinionated people. Occasionally their passionate and strong opinions translate into a nasty spewing of condescending remarks, but these often provide interesting and humorous sources of entertainment. More than anything, however, the vast majority of comments I have read during the 60 Days of Pearl Jam have been gracious and personally gratifying. PJ fans have shared their own PJ stories with me, as witnessed during the readers' comment days from a weeks back, and we might have to set aside time for another of those soon, as the personal tales keep rolling in. So if you have a fierce position about today's ranking, please, let it fly. I (usually) love it.
5. Vitalogy, 1994 - From number six to number five, we jump from 2006 to 1994, from Pearl Jam's most recent release (until next week), their self-titled "Avocado" record, to their third studio album, the bizarre, unsettling and black grunge-era highlight Vitalogy. The word "experimental" has been used in reference to our number eight ranked-album, Riot Act, along with LPs still to come later in the countdown, but Vitalogy ranks as the first and strangest of all of Pearl Jam's journeys into the weird. The album was released a mere 13 months after Vs., the band's sophomore effort, but the music reflects changes that reach well beyond a year's time. Eddie Vedder's first full album as the band's musical director created an instant impact. The punk-influenced songs became punkier, there were fewer ballads and the album's entire tone was a definite and direct result of Vedder's own troubled and paranoid state of mind. Additionally, this period marks the only time in the band's history that a member has been fired and another hired in the midst of recording an album. The group has never struggled like it did throughout 1994 and '95, and Vitalogy is the recorded document of that struggle. And while Kurt Cobain took his own life after the band had written most of the material for the album, his suicide is still very present in the dark madness of most of the songs. Vitalogy is not only the music of Pearl Jam in 1994, but also the very sound of the band's exhausted, frightened collective mind at the height of its fame.
There is so much history surrounding this album that is difficult to know what to address first. Besides the various aforementioned factors in the band's musical and personal life, other contributing situations include Mike McCready's struggles with drug addiction and alcoholism and subsequent entrance into treatment, the band recording most of the album while on tours, all the while fighting a very public battle with Ticketmaster. Jeff Ament admitted that during the recording of Vitalogy, "communication was at an all-time low." He and Vedder seemed to struggle immensely in their interactions with drummer Dave Abbruzzese. Eddie and Jeff were most likely the two members of the band that had the most difficult time with fame, fortune, media attention, etc., while Abbruzzese was definitely the member who embraced such flair with the most enthusiasm. It is interesting to note that during Cameron Crowe's 1993 interview with the band, when asked about the first single from Vs., Abbruzzese becomes excited about "Daughter," while the rest of the group, and Vedder in particular, show visible signs of discomfort with the whole concept. The band has since stated that Dave was much more comfortable with the rock star persona than anyone else in the band, and that Jack Irons, who replaced Abbruzzese, much more reflected the down to earth nature of the other four individuals in the group. It is likely that history has distorted and misrepresented Mr. Abbruzzese, and the rest of the group has readily admitted since that they did not handle the stress of success very well. Regardless, the in-band tensions were part of what gave rise to the strained and wild sound of the record.
"Eighty percent of the songs (on Vitalogy) were written 20 minutes before they were recorded," Stone Gossard has stated, noting the jam session-oriented feel of the album. This loose vibe likely had the most influence on at least two of the four anti-song experiments on the LP, "Pry, To" and "Aye Davanita." The former is a minute-long bluesy jam featuring Vedder repeating the phrase, "P-R-I-V-A-C-Y is priceless to me" in a tired, deep speaking voice for the first half, then dropping the "is priceless to me" phrase to simply spell the word "privacy" out in a screaming howl as the music stretches to an uncomfortable level. Before you know it, the track fades out, barely there in the first place. Its position in the track order, between "Whipping" and "Corduroy," improves the song's presence, as it serves as an unsettling introduction to the latter track's sense of unease, Vedder's fear and paranoia on full display. "Aye Davanita," is a much lighter outing. One of the band's finest grooves, the song is tribal, funky and loose, the guitars playing a catchy riff over the intricate drumming, while the vocals simply repeat the song's title over and over. There is not much else to the song, but it definitely reigns as the best of the experimental tracks on Vitalogy.
"Bugs," completing the trio of songs most concerned with fame, exploitation and the invasion of privacy, is an Eddie Vedder song in a strange, mutated vein of Tom Waits. The track features Vedder playing an accordion and vocalizing the lyrics in a variety of fashions, from lazy muttering to harsh shrieks of terror. The "Bugs" in question, of course, represent all the media, fans and I am certain friends and family, that dug their way into Vedder's private life and/or doted all over his role as the lead singer of Pearl Jam. The album's final cut is "Hey Foxymophandlemama, That's Me," a sound collage with direct lineage to John Lennon's "Revolution 9," from The Beatles, the group's 1968 self-titled LP more commonly known as "The White Album." If one has heard "Revolution 9," it is clear that "Foxymop" is not a song in the traditional sense, but instead an avant-garde production outside the realm of pop music. There are no vocals or lyrics, no residing melody, and barely any structure. Instead, the band plays a meandering, heavily-feedbacked instrumental, while psychiatric patients' recordings are played over the top, the phrase, "My spanking...that's the only thing I want so much," dominating a series of eerie and unsettling remarks. The collage makes sense in the context of the band's state of mind and the entire picture of Vitalogy, but remains unnecessary and way too lengthy. An interesting listen, certainly, but not vital and definitely unpleasant.
In a career full of fascinating and bizarre career choice, the inclusion of Eddie Vedder's "Better Man" on Vitalogy is one of the most ironic. The band cut it from Vs. due to its accessibility and catchy pop/rock sound, but went ahead and placed it on Vitalogy, amidst the album's least commercial, most experimental recordings to date. Apparently producer Brendan O'Brien is highly persuasive, and the band figured that the song would fit better when juxtaposed with dark, dissonant and often insane songs. "Better Man" was of course, in typical Pearl Jam style, never released as a single, but became the biggest radio hit from the album and one of the band's most famous and recognizable songs. Its legend continues to grow with each performance, as the audience is now almost always the lead singer for the first verse and chorus. One of the few songs written well before the album's recording, "Better Man," while lyrically dark, is musically the only song on Vitalogy that deviates from the darkness of that time.
"Spin the Black Circle" is the closest thing to a song about an uplifting subject on the album, but in true 1994 technique, Vedder's lyrics, along with Stone Gossard and Mike McCready's racing guitars, find a way to create an engrossingly ominous feel. The phrase, "spin the black circle" is the equivalent of, "play the vinyl record." However, Eddie uses an addiction metaphor that gives the celebration of traditional musical listening much more weight: "See this needle, see my hand...won't turn you away...you're so warm, oh, the ritual." The music is punk rock, Vedder's vocals screaming in a mad way he never quite reached throughout the first two records. "Satan's Bed," a Stone Gossard composition, is funky and nasty and sticks out as a wild song that somehow makes sense in its spot between "Bugs" and "Better Man." The only thing that saves the track from being yet another downward descent on the album is Vedder's satire in the lyrics. Vedder is sarcastic but not nearly as funny on "Whipping," a song so intent on proving its point that rather than printing the lyrics, its page in the liner notes is devoted to a letter to former President Bill Clinton about the horrors of Pro-Life activists murdering abortion doctors. This trio of up-tempo hard rock tracks is the heart of the punk feel of the album, loud, loose and wild, but still featuring moments of melodic compositional bliss.
Maybe not the best album opener but perhaps the most fitting of Pearl Jam's career, "Last Exit" aptly presents the musical and lyrical themes of Vitalogy, opening with a jazzy jam that forewarns of the freewheeling, eclectic nature of the LP and climaxing with a musical and lyrical motif that feels and sounds like death. "Not For You" could have easily turned the paranoid trio into a four-song rant of fear rallying against invasive enemies, but found its perfect spot batting third on the album, its thick production and epic close giving away perfectly to "Tremor Christ." The latter features the album's most cryptic lyrics and an effective use of Yoda-talk in lines such as "Winded is the sailor," "Gorgeous was his savior" and "Triumphant are the angels." The rhythm section gives the repetitive chord progression a nice balance, while Vedder's vocal delivery and little guitar themes instill the album with its first sense of fleeting lightness.
Lightness is only on the surface in "Nothingman," a Jeff Ament ballad that concerns itself with the heartbreaking, lonely issue of taking a significant other for granted and thus losing her. The music is gentle, sweet and sad, but within the context of Vitalogy, its role becomes more of an example of the loss of self-worth and lack of direction and purpose, a wholly depressing example of the state of Vedder's heart and soul at the time. "Immortality" and "Corduroy" deserve more respect than a few sentences, so see my song countdown for full descriptions, as well as the second readers' day entry for a full e-mailed essay from a fan on "Immortality." All I will say is that these songs serve as separate parts of the crux of the album. "Corduroy" embodies the feeling of lost innocence and disgust with exploitation more than anything else here, while "Immortality," through its use of oblique, obscure imagery, defines the sense of life and death that underlies everything else on the LP. The album would have been much better off closing with this song instead of "Hey Foxymophandlemama, That's Me," because "Immortality" has more of a sense of closure and the despair of Vitalogy than any song the band has written. Regardless, the tracks demonstrate the isolation, fear and horrified aspect of the band marvelously.
As I mentioned in my song countdown, Vitalogy was my first Pearl Jam purchase. I was 12 or 13 and, having heard all of the band's radio songs up to that point, dove head first into the band. This album introduced me to the depths of the band's sound and although I did not understand all of the ideas I was absorbing, I felt more connected to the black weirdness of this album than anything I had heard at the time. While the music of The Beatles made me feel good and sounded so bright and fun, Vitalogy echoed my state of mind and aching heart at the time like nothing else had or could. I believe we Pearl Jam fans are lucky the band made it through this era, the most tortured time of the band's history. Like Nirvana's In Utero, Pearl Jam's Vitalogy was an angry retort to the hype and hoopla of the time, and a deliberate move in an abstract, underground direction. And like the former, the latter was instead another gigantic hit for the band, moving them even further into the spotlight. Somehow, the band did not implode and lived to play another day, spending 1995 barely touring, backing Neil Young and preparing themselves to transform into something different entirely.
Vitalogy YouTube Playlist: www.youtube.com/view_play_list
For all things Pearl Jam, visit my home page: www.examiner.com/x-3940-Indianapolis-Pop-Culture-Examiner
To vote in Mel Duncan's poll regarding the greatest live Pearl Jam shows of all time, visit his page here: www.examiner.com/x-16134-Pearl-Jam-Examiner
Questions, stories, comments, complaints, ideas, etc.? E-mail 24/7 at cpeelle83@yahoo.com
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