Following them feels more like being in a relationship than merely being a fan of a rock band. At the risk of sounding creepy, I might draw the distinction that I don’t love this band - I’m in love with this band. I only bring up this anecdote because I think it hints at precisely what makes being a die-hard Pearl Jam fan unique. Grateful for our experience and happy for the experience of 40,000-plus fellow fans. By the morning, though, any disappointment or jealousy had subsided. I became nearly inconsolable after processing the trio of “Off He Goes,” “Immortality,” and “Rearviewmirror.” No doubt he, like myself, went to bed thinking about our show that should’ve been. He regretted missing his favorite, “State of Love and Trust,” and some deeper Ten cuts. Vedder sings “Soon Forget,” a bouncy parable about materialism, backed by nothing but a ukulele.In words barely more eloquent than those, we spent the next hour, on and off, bemoaning that we had covered the wrong show - like two spoiled brats who had each found a shiny dime at his feet but grumbled that it wasn’t a quarter. The album reflects both Pearl Jam’s longstanding curse of self-importance and a renewed willingness to be experimental or just plain odd. Apparently as tired of grunge as everyone except Creed fans, Pearl Jam delve elsewhere: jumpy post-punk and somber meditations, tightly wound folk rock and turbulent, neopsychedelic rockers that sound like they boiled out of jam sessions. Binaural is a warts-and-all album it has grabbers, songs that sink in slowly and a few absolute duds (e.g., “Light Years”). It comes across as part of an extended conversation among the five band members - all of whom participate in songwriting, including new drummer Matt Cameron from Soundgarden - and fans loyal enough to check in for Pearl Jam’s latest musings on love, death and social responsibility. By contrast, Mad Season by Matchbox Twenty sits up and begs for a chance to grapple with songs, advertisements and engine noise on a Top Forty radio playlist.īinaural makes no attempt to ingratiate itself. A Latin Playboys member who has produced Soul Coughing and Bonnie Raitt, Blake is a proponent of binaural recording, which places two microphones where your ears would be he’d rather have spontaneity than polish. On Binaural, the band hunkers down in the sonic basement with producer Tchad Blake. Pearl Jam sound relieved to be on the sidelines. They’ve reacted to the new circumstances in diametrically opposed ways. Sincere-sounding guys leading guitar-driven bands have been upstaged by other testosteronic life-forms: the ultramacho boors of rap metal and gangsta rap, and the simpering, animatronic pinups of boy bands. Between Matchbox albums, Thomas co-wrote and sang Santana’s blockbuster radio comeback, “Smooth,” and collected a Song of the Year Grammy.Įvery Awful Thing Trump Has Promised to Do in a Second Termįor all their disparities, Pearl Jam and Matchbox Twenty have ended up behind the same pop curve. Formed in Orlando around longtime band mates Thomas, bassist Brian Yale and drummer Paul Doucette, the group had been together for a matter of months when it made its 1996 debut album, Yourself or Someone Like You, which has now sold more than 10 million copies. Matchbox Twenty, by contrast, were late-breaking, avidly commercial followers of 1990s folk-rock bands like Counting Crows and Hootie and the Blowfish. Meanwhile, their music spawned so many imitations that it became hard to hear the heartfelt, wayward intensity of the original. Pearl Jam had pulled together survivors from Seattle underground bands, and they reached the Top Ten almost grudgingly, always worrying about their integrity. They arrived from decidedly different angles. īack in the 1990s, Pearl Jam and Matchbox Twenty both won mass audiences with the aura of earnestness they share. The movie’s pressing question: Who will take Ms. He’s a dead ringer for Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty. But a touch of smarmy self-interest always seems to lurk just under the surface. He’s surprisingly savvy about other people’s feelings, and he can usually mouth the right words. Prospect Number Two, striding through the cafeteria, could be a clean-cut student-council candidate on the stump: overachieving, glad-handing, eager to please. He mumbles and hangs out with his buddies, embarrassed when he gets too much attention on his own, and he looks a lot like Eddie Vedder. Out in the parking lot is Prospect Number One, a scruffy, leather-jacketed misfit, shy but stubborn, with a tendency to brood over everything from romance to the World Trade Organization. She’s being courted by two characters, each working his own kind of sensitive-guy behavior. The camera tracks across a suburban landscape toward Little Ms. Roll credits for Basic Teen Romance, plot Number Four.
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