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Album Review
by Scott Sterling-Wilder
27-11-2004
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| Pearl Jam in temporal 'rearviewmirror': |
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Pearl Jam: 'rearviewmirror (Greatest Hits 1991 - 2003)'
(Epic)
Pearl Jam - A-grade Epic goodbye
With ‘rearviewmirror (Greatest Hits 1991 - 2003)’ Pearl Jam complete their contractual obligation to Sony’s label and future is… a wide-open highway. The band’s not been happy with a label for a number of years because they craved artistic fulfilment white the label bosses wanted more hits. Not that the band has been very happy with the music business all together and fought the establishment - i.e. ticket agency in the USA for charging their fans too much service fee but, alas, lost the case.
It may sound strange due to the fact that Pearl Jam were never considered revolutionary: their contemporaries, such as Nirvana being in the Rock’s Parthenon and Alice In Chains being so ‘beautifully’ wasted, took the plaudits while PJ concentrated on making music. In a sense, they resemble Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ breakthrough at the time of punk.
They didn’t fit the time but the time was kind to them; Pearl Jam were around the Seattle period when anything from the city was hailed indiscriminately as the Biblical text. Inspired and influenced by more melodic rockers - Neil Young being a special favourite, closely followed by Led Zeppelin - most of the members had already established deep roots before formation in 1990.
In the mid-Eighties, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were members of Green River that split in 1987 to make room for Mother Love Bone, one of the earliest Seattle bands to sign a major label. Just before the band was to record its debut album, singer Andrew Woods OD’d on heroin. The label wanted them to record with a new singer but the future Pearl Jammers refused*.
Consequently, Gossard and Ament, with Seattle veteran Mike McCready, started work on a demo tape in late 1990. Former Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Jack Irons turned down their offer to join, due to leading his own band, but would sign on in 1994, passed on their demo tape to a San Diego singer, Eddie Vedder. He put lyrics to the music, sent it back and got invite to Seattle.
The band’s debut album ‘Ten’ - named after a jersey number of a basketball player under whose full name they had originally appeared, Mookie Blaylock of the New Jersey Nets then - was released in 1991. Selection from this record, and all subsequent ones are represented here, 33 tracks in total.
Included are remixes of three songs from their debut album ‘Ten’: ‘Once’, ‘Alive’ and ‘Black’, all reworked by the band's longtime producer Brendan O’Brien. The set also includes ‘Man of the Hour’ from Tim Burton's 2003 film ‘Big Fish’ and ‘Last Kiss’ which was originally released as a charity single in 1999.
When Kurt Cobain ended the grunge episode it was widely assumed that he’d be succeeded by Vedder as the genre’s spokesman but the frontman had different ideas and withdrew even deeper into his anti-star mode. It never stopped him writing some killer lyrics backed by some killer music.
8/10
*Gossard, Ament, McCready, Vedder, along with AudioSlave singer Chris Cornell and then fellow Soundgarden member Matt Cammeron, recorded ‘Temple Of The Dog’, a tribute to Andrew Wood, released in 1991 by A&M.
Scott Sterling-Wilder
27-11-2004
Pearl Jam‘s ‘rearviewmirror (Greatest Hits 1991 - 2003)’ is released 29 November 2004 by Epic
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