Icon: Pearl Jam
When Pearl Jam finally compiled a catalog-skimming greatest hits collection in 2004 – a decade after the demise of Nirvana, six years after they stole Soundgarden’s drummer and nearly 15 into their platinum-lined career – they really should have considered changing its title from rearviewmirror to We’re Still Alive. After all, who would’ve thought they’d be grunge’s Last Band Standing back when Kurt Cobain called the Seattle vets ‘sellouts’ and Eddie Vedder was swinging from the rafters like a flannel-wearing freak in their infamous “Even Flow” video?
Not only are Pearl Jam survivors of countless modern rock movements; they are a band that’s as Important-With-a-Capital-I as U2, whether that amounts to blasting George Bush, supporting incredibly divisive issues (Pro-Choice organizations, the environment, Ralph Nader) or spitting in the collective eye of the concert industry in a very public pissing match with Ticketmaster. All in the hopes of – Rolling Stone‘s words, not ours – “deliberately tearing apart their own fame.” Or at the very least, MTV’s version of what fame entails, from vapid music videos to stylist-flanked cover shoots.
Like their longtime hero Neil Young, Pearl Jam are focused on rocking in the free world…so long as it’s on their own terms. Musically, that’s meant a catalog that offsets its obvious singles (most of Vs. and Ten) with accidental hits (“Better Man,” “Yellow Ledbetter,” the Young-backed “I Got Id”) and art-damaged asides. (We still don’t understand why Vitalogy – a truly underrated brush with brilliance – includes a Ween-like tribute to “Bugs,” a seven-minute noise collage about getting spanked, and the TMI tidbit that Vedder would “never suck Satan’s dick.” Thanks for clarifying, brother!)
Meanwhile, Alice In Chains have sparked a second career with a new singer, and a ‘reunited’ Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots have struggled to appear as anything but a cash-grabbing, walking wax museum of Generation Angst. Guess Kurt called out the wrong guys, huh? – Andrew Parks
