Steven Hyden is a music critic I really enjoying reading, so I was happy to spend some time chatting with him about his latest book, which investigates why Pearl Jam still matters. Over at InsideHook, we had a long talk about nostalgia, bands that aren't cool, and what it says about both of us that we love No Code. Hope you enjoy.
Continuing this month's "Songs of Pine" series, I will now acknowledge that, yes, at one embarrassing moment in my life, I was so heartbroken that I actually said to myself (to the woman who had made me so sad)...
I know someday you'll have a beautiful life I know you'll be a star In somebody else's sky But why Why Why can't it be Why can't it be mine?
Yup, those are lyrics from "Black," the emotional centerpiece of Pearl Jam's first album, Ten.
To this day, the song kinda makes me cringe because of just how nakedly earnest my feelings were in that moment. But I'll say this: Eddie Vedder was never a creep or a jerk in his lyrics. "Black" is a song about losing someone, about being left behind, but there's no misogyny or snottiness in his delivery. In the history of rock songs about dudes getting dumped, "All I taught her was everything" is pretty mild rancor. In other words, I feel embarrassed but not ashamed to have clung to this song in a vulnerable moment. Vedder is actually trying to be an honorable person while acknowledging how distraught he is. Many have expressed themselves in far uglier fashion under the same circumstances.
In their later years, Pearl Jam have had no stronger defender than me. OK, I'm sure that's not true, but I've said nice things about their recent output, including Backspacer, and I've felt that they've aged gracefully, a not-insignificant achievement. (And bear in mind that this is coming from a card-carrying Nirvana fan who always thought Pearl Jam were kinda mediocre back in the day.) All of this is my preamble before admitting that their new album, Lightning Bolt, is incredibly OK -- and it's incredibly OK in a dispiriting way. For my Culture Club column at Playboy, I discussed the album and the failed dream some of us had about alt-rock. You can read it here.
Pearl Jam are celebrating their 20th anniversary today. Think about that for a second.
In honor of this momentous occasion, I decided to pick a recent favorite of theirs, off of 2009's Backspacer. And if you've seen the not-as-terrible-as-advertised Life As We Know It, yes, "Just Breathe" is used in the film.
