It is sometimes weird how a premature death alters history. In the late seventies The Beatles were just that band Paul McCartney was in before Wings then they became the biggest band ever with the murder of John Lennon, who himself went from the third most successful artist to its first. Yet had it been Brian Wilson who was gunned down we very may have considered The Beach Boys the most influential band of all time.
In my lifetime it is weird to see the hero worship around Kurt Cobain (how does he crack the top fifty in Rolling Stone's Greatest Singers of All Time?) when Pearl Jam completely overshadowed them in the early nineties. I was one of the million people that bought Vs. the week it came out (which I can prove as it lacks a name on the cover which the first shipment didn’t have) while Nirvana’s sophomore album was pretty much a flop. Then Cobain puts a shotgun in his mouth and he is a voice of a generation.
But it was Pearl Jam that was making the better music and later this month see the reissue of Ten on two CD’s (the original version on one and each song remixed by Brendon O’Brian on the second with bonus tracks) and a DVD (featuring the band’s Unplugged performance). And the album is this month’s Scooter Hall of Fame inductee.
The album starts off with a jolt in the arm, Once featuring Eddie Vedder’s controlled growl that is part scream but never loses its melody. The song even reduces into almost a jam band kind of groove before getting back to rocking. Maybe it was the moody teenager in me, but I cannot count the times I would let loose with the chorus of the second track letting anyone know, “Whoa, I’m still alive.”
The song that got the most play time thanks to an over abuse of the repeat button was Black, a heavy handed song that was a great soundtrack for almost any event for a teenager in the early nineties. But the true stars of Ten were the duel guitars of Stone Gossard and Mike McCready who really shined in that Unplugged setting highlighted by Porch. Yeah the camera focused on Vedder scribbling on his arms, but it is the solo in the song, with help from Jeff Ament, that got full attention from my ear and may be the worth double downing on the reissue when it comes out.
Personally, I liked Pearl Jam and loved Nirvana, but both bands were hugely different from one another.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is journalistically sound to say that Pearl Jam either overshadowed Nirvana or that they outsold them by any massive amounts.
Taking sophomore efforts (technically, In Utero was Nirvana's third album, second major label release though), both In Utero and Vs. sold relatively well. Neither lived up to either band's major label debut's however.
Vs. debuted #1, sold nearly 1 million copies in its first week, a major feat for any band, and to date, has sold around 7 million copies worldwide.
In Utero also debuted #1, selling 180,000 unites in its first week, despite the fact it was a limited run available only on cassette and vinyl. To date, it has sold approximately 5 million copies worldwide.
In contrast, Nirvana's major label debut has gone on to sell over 10 million units. Pearl Jam's Ten is right around 9.5 million units sold to date, just shy of diamond status.
I hate musical debates because no one ever wins, but statements like, "when Pearl Jam completely overshadowed them in the early nineties" are blanket statements that are rarely true.
I do like debates in general (which I guess is in part why I wrote that statement) but I think the exact oppisite is true in that both sides win because people are talking about them regardless of what side of the coin you are on. It is better that people debate Band A is better than band B than no one talking about them at all.
ReplyDeleteSaying that Pearl Jam overshaddowed Nirvana was perhaps a bad choise of words as Nirvana definally did better right out of the gates, but in terms of sophomore records Vs. actually lived up to the hype while In Untero was a disappointment and the sales show that even if the got closer if only because people picked up the album only after Kutr dies.