Pearl Jam - Grunge's "Classic" Side

How many people in the first half of the Nineties would have killed to be Eddie Vedder? Such was his sway over Generation X kids, and so adored was he by the masses, that at a certain point he himself became afraid to face the immense popularity that became one of the main causes behind the suicide of Kurt Cobain, the other great voice of adolescent unease set to music by the grunge movement.
Many years on from the release of the multi-million-selling Ten, Pearl Jam remain among the few still-active protagonists of that era still able to put out credible, authoritative records. Sure, the rage that made their first three records immortal has long since faded, and it's hard to see how it could be otherwise after more than eighty million copies sold, but over time Pearl Jam have always proven dependable and respectable.

The origins: Green River, Mother Love Bone and Temple Of The Dog

The story starts a long way back, in 1984, when bassist Jeff Ament and singer Mark Arm form Green River, one of the bands that most influenced the Seattle sound in the Eighties. Guitarist Stone Gossard joins them the following year. Just enough time to put out a couple of EPs and the alternative hit "Swallow My Pride", and in 1987 Green River split up, due to irreconcilable differences between the Gossard/Ament pair (more inclined to soften the sound in pursuit of success) and the Mark Arm/Steve Turner pair (more uncompromising), who would soon go on to form Mudhoney. In 1988 Green River's only album, Rehab Doll, would come out posthumously on Sub Pop, and only in 2016 would the old-recordings collection 1984 Demos see the light.
From their ashes soon rose Mother Love Bone, made up of Andy Wood, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Bruce Fairweather and Greg Gilmore. After the EP Shine (1989), containing the cult song "Crown Of Thorns/Chloe Dancer", the band was preparing its debut album, Apple, but on 16 March 1990 singer Andy Wood died of a heroin overdose. Apple would come out posthumously in July 1990; two years later, after Pearl Jam's breakthrough, it would be reissued together with the earlier EP and a couple of unreleased tracks in the compilation Mother Love Bone. Despite having a major-label deal, the band's members - devastated by the tragedy - decided to disband the project. In 1993 the home video The Love Bone Earth Affair was released, featuring live footage and interviews with Wood, Gossard and Ament, much of it never seen before.

After a few half-hearted musical ventures, Ament and Gossard, together with guitarist Mike McCready (a recent acquaintance) and Matt Cameron (Soundgarden's drummer), recorded a tape containing the material that would soon become Pearl Jam's music. Meanwhile Dave Krusen replaced Cameron on drums, and the demo ended up in the hands of Jack Irons, former drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who passed it on to Eddie Vedder, a friend working at a gas station in San Diego who liked to spend his free time surfing and singing in Bad Radio, a small local band. Within a few days Vedder wrote the lyrics and recorded the vocal parts for those tracks (they would become "Alive", "Footsteps" and "Once"), in a kind of mini rock opera about his own adolescence, titled "Mamasan".

Following Ament and Gossard's enthusiastic reaction, Eddie left for Seattle, where, just as quickly, the songs that would make up Ten, the band's debut album, were written. Initially the band decided to call themselves Mookie Blaylock, a tribute to a famous basketball player, but almost immediately the name changed to Pearl Jam, referring to a particular hallucinogenic jam that Vedder's grandmother (Pearl, indeed) used to make with peyote for her Native American husband, following pre-Columbian custom and tradition. The album's title - Ten - was meant to keep a link with the band's original name, 10 being the jersey number Blaylock wore for the New Jersey Nets.

Meanwhile, before Pearl Jam's actual debut, in 1990 Vedder, Ament, McCready and Gossard took part, at the invitation of Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron of Soundgarden, in the Temple Of The Dog project, conceived in memory of the late Andy Wood, for many months Cornell's roommate and close friend. Initially received lukewarmly, Temple Of The Dog, after the Seattle sound exploded, would become a bestseller, a true landmark record of the entire scene. The lead single, "Hunger Strike", would go down in history as the first track Eddie Vedder sang with his new bandmates, even ending up in heavy rotation on MTV.
The band reunited in 2016 for their 25th anniversary, releasing a new edition of the album enriched with unreleased material and alternate versions, and playing a handful of live dates in the US. There was a chance the group might go back to writing new material, when Chris Cornell suddenly took his own life on 18 May 2017, putting an end to that experience in the most tragic way possible.

The Ten hurricane

Between March and April 1991 the recording sessions for Ten, Pearl Jam's debut album, took place (Dave Krusen would leave the band shortly after, replaced first by Matt Chamberlain and then by Dave Abruzzese). The album, unlike most records by their "grunge cousins" (who had made the independent label Sub Pop famous), came out on a major label, Epic (Sony), thanks to the contacts Ament and Gossard had kept with Michael Goldstone (formerly at Polydor, then moved to Sony) since their Mother Love Bone days. On Ten the influences absorbed from musicians of the past are evident: the heavy drumming, in the manner of John Bonham, guitar solos recalling Hendrix, and Vedder's voice, which sounds like a kind of Nineties update of Jim Morrison's (it's no coincidence that Vedder would be invited by the surviving Doors in 1993 to perform, live, "Roadhouse Blues", "Light My Fire" and "Break On Through"). The Who (one of Vedder's favorite bands) and "electric" Neil Young (regarded as a grunge artist ante litteram) also make their presence felt in the sound. Journalist Allan Jones, writing about "Oceans", the album's most delicate and melancholy track, even found traces in Vedder's voice of the lyricism of Tim Buckley, imagining the song as an ideal continuation of "Starsailor".
Pearl Jam's debut departs massively from the work of Seattle's other bands: nothing to do with Nirvana's punk fury or the heavy sound of Alice In Chains and Soundgarden. It represents, rather, the classic rock side of grunge, a movement that is defined more by its geographical origin and underlying malaise than by any formal musical traits. That takes nothing away from a debut which, while not offering great innovation or experimentation, manages to convey - even in its heaviest moments - the melancholy, disillusioned, at times almost depressed atmosphere typical of grunge's poetics. Nearly all these songs would remain classics in Pearl Jam's repertoire, and would continue to feature heavily in live shows. Both the more aggressive ones ("Once", "Even Flow", "Why Go") and the more reflective ones ("Black", "Jeremy", "Alive") would set a benchmark.

What struck the younger generation was the sincerity of the work, which draws heavily on the band members' past, but above all on that of singer Eddie Vedder, the main lyricist. "Alive" is an epic rock ride, built around an immortal guitar riff before launching, in its finale, into a jam that seems never to end; the lyrics deal with Eddie's past, the traumatic discovery of the death of his biological father, whose true identity his mother had concealed from him for years. But every track on the album is a snapshot, often tragic and bitter, of the lives of different characters. Vedder's spleen, with that pained singing and that voice as cavernous as it is powerful, echoes the unease of a multitude of young people who saw themselves reflected in the characters described on Ten, ensuring the album's extraordinary success right from the start.
"Why Go" tells of a girl locked up in a clinic by her parents after being caught smoking a joint, "Once", the album's ferocious opener, is the stream of consciousness of a serial killer, "Even Flow" is a propulsive rock number that allows itself a psychedelic detour in its middle section, where Vedder becomes the chronicler of a homeless man's harsh living conditions. "Jeremy" is a grieving ballad inspired by a real news story: an American teenager who, armed with a gun, massacred his classmates before taking his own life. "Porch" (which live always turns into an endless psychedelic jam) and "Deep" (about a girl who suffered sexual assault) are the tracks that depart from the band's typical sound: while the former edges toward punk, even if the chorus then returns to being melodic and epic in classic Pearl Jam style, the latter ventures into proto-metal territory. There's no shortage of more intimate moments either: "Black" is "the" ballad par excellence, the story of a love gone, "faded to black", while "Oceans", marked by thunderous acoustic guitars and a primal rhythm, strongly recalls Led Zeppelin's third album, even if in its closing section Vedder indulges in a Bono-style falsetto. Also very psychedelic is "Garden", rich in religious imagery, but a notch below the album's peaks (the second half of "Ten" doesn't quite match the extraordinary level of the first six songs), while "Release", a slow, almost mystical atmospheric piece, turns into an epic, U2-style ride, bringing the album to a magnificent close, standing as Vedder's heartfelt prayer to his late father.

During the Ten sessions other tracks were recorded, all interesting but left off the album. "Yellow Ledbetter", with its enigmatic lyrics full of recurring war imagery (1991 was, after all, the height of the Gulf War), is among the band's most moving efforts, as is "Footsteps", just guitar and harmonica, in which the band's vocalist once again bares his soul. The funk of "Dirty Frank" and the slow-burning "Wash" would end up on the album's first reissue, with many more to follow in subsequent years.
Paradoxically, Ten is one of the albums the band would prove least satisfied with: Rick Parashar's production (not retained for subsequent albums) gives every track a sound that's too polished and shiny, one that doesn't reflect the violent essentiality the band would go on to prove they possessed. Jeff Ament spoke of "excessive use of reverb", of a "metal sheen" slapped onto every song, and both he and Vedder would repeatedly express a wish to remix the entire album. Band statements aside, it would be impossible to imagine Ten any other way, and it would go down in history as one of the most beloved and important records of the entire grunge scene, opening the doors of the mainstream to dozens of other bands. Within a few months, Ten catapulted Pearl Jam into rock's Olympus, benefiting from - but also contributing to - the simultaneous worldwide rise of the grunge scene (the same period saw the release of the best seller "Nevermind" by Nirvana).

Their blazing success led Pearl Jam to feature, in 1991, among the protagonists of both the film and the soundtrack (alongside, among others, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees and Smashing Pumpkins) of Cameron Crowe's "Singles", a perfect snapshot of Seattle at the time.
The soundtrack revived two tracks from the early Mookie Blaylock sessions, reworked and polished up, never released on any Pearl Jam album but still remembered as major early-period classics: the memorable "State Of Love And Trust" and "Breathe".

The success of the singles "Alive", "Even Flow" and - above all - "Jeremy", bolstered by a video that got heavy airplay on MTV, made the band hugely popular, so much so that they were invited to record a famous acoustic set for the MTV Unplugged series. Pearl Jam had just wrapped up their first American tour. Eddie Vedder was on the verge of becoming a kind of demigod, and was already discussing with Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament how to approach the next record. One evening someone stole a bag containing the lyrics for "Vs", which he then had to rewrite from scratch, but the snapshot captured here is from a little earlier: it immortalizes forever the evening of 16 March 1992, when in New York they recorded the performance that would prove the band had made it, with the grunge wave about to turn them into rock stars. The Unplugged format hadn't been around long, just a couple of years, and the Seattle band were among the first to try their hand at the toned-down, acoustic version of the set. But unlike many other acts, they managed to do it with anything but a subdued attitude: no strings, no lullabies, just five guys with their instruments singing all the post-adolescent unease in the world, packed into songs that were already making history and would remain immortal, so much so that, nearly thirty years on, they still form the backbone of the quintet's sprawling live shows.
Vedder's voice digs into the soul from the very first lines of "Oceans"; his wild-eyed stare still leaves us stunned, everything seems built to become iconic - the first two songs with the cap on, then with his long hair loose, on "Porch" taking off his jacket to reveal the military-green t-shirt and climbing onto the stool. There's the electrifying pace of "State Of Love And Trust", the only track not featured on "Ten" (it was on the "Singles" soundtrack), the solos of Mike McCready, the band's future guitar hero, the assured drumming of Dave Abbruzzese. There's the heart-wrenching "Black", there are the ever-popular "Alive" and "Jeremy", but above all there are "Even Flow" and "Porch" turned into sprawling jams, as would always happen live. These songs were never collected on an official release, though - obviously - they soon circulated as bootlegs, feeding fans' growing hunger for more music. In 2019, almost three decades on, seven of the songs recorded that night were released on vinyl for the first time, leaving out the cover of "Rockin' In The Free World" (which wasn't even broadcast on TV) but including the opening "Oceans" (also not broadcast). The show aired on 13 May 1992 and gave fresh momentum to sales of Ten, which soon climbed to number two on the US charts, going on to sell, over time, more than thirteen million copies in the US alone, not counting subsequent commemorative releases. History had been written, and it was only the beginning...

Vs and Vitalogy complete the initial trilogy

In spring 1993 Pearl Jam went back into the studio to record their second album, Vs. With new producer Brendan O'Brien (who had already worked with Aerosmith, Stone Temple Pilots, Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Black Crowes), the band's approach to the studio changed: tracks were played live, with as few takes as possible and overdubs kept to a bare minimum. The result is clear: Vs sounds much rawer and more vigorous, less polished than its predecessor. On the more direct tracks ("Go", "Animal", "Blood") the influence of old-school rock gurus can still be felt (besides the usual Led Zeppelin and Hendrix, also the Stooges and MC5), but a few soft ballads also appear ("Daughter", "Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town", the closing "Indifference") to soften the mood and add variety to the record. Anticipation was so high that Vs sold a million copies in the US in its very first week, on pre-orders alone: a record destined to stand unmatched for a long time.
The sudden, enormous success created tensions within the band, but above all between the band and the "outside world", manifesting itself in growing frustration with the record industry's promotional machinery. Starting with Vs., the band decided to stop making music videos, a choice they stuck to until 1998, all the more significant given that this was a band whose debut had earned them no fewer than four MTV Video Music Awards for the "Jeremy" clip. At the same time, the battle waged against Ticketmaster, accused of monopolizing the management and pricing of concert tickets, would leave Pearl Jam unable to play live for several months.

Meanwhile, Epic -- in an attempt to combat the rampant spread of unauthorized bootlegs (often of dreadful quality) -- released three live EPs, all titled Dissident, which collected recordings from shows on the triumphant Vs tour, in a kind of live greatest hits featuring much of the material the band had released up to that point.

The next step was Vitalogy (1994), preceded by the single "Spin The Black Circe," an amphetamine-fuelled garage-punk track that would win the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance a few months later. Vitalogy (1994) is Pearl Jam's absolute masterpiece, the logical evolution of Vs, since the formula used to produce it was identical. On one hand it's Pearl Jam's heaviest record ("Last Exit," "Not For You," "Spin The Black Circe," "Whipping"), on the other it features some ballads in the style of those found on the previous album ("Nothingman," "Better Man," "Immortality"). Vitalogy also makes room for a few "experimental" moments, such as "Pray, To" and "Bugs" (on which Vedder tries his hand at accordion), but above all "Hey Foxymophandlemama, That's Me," an eight-minute track made up of a delirious collage of voices and noise, the most psychedelic moment of Pearl Jam's career.
Kurt Cobain's suicide leaves a clear mark on the record, evident on tracks like "Last Exit" and "Immortality." That event marks a turning point not only for the history of 90s rock but also for Pearl Jam's own story, as after Vitalogy the band would increasingly distance itself from what remained of the grunge movement, carving out its own autonomous space within the rock scene.

But the balance of power within the band was shifting dangerously. The Ament-Gossard duo was becoming less and less relevant to the songwriting, while Vedder's contribution grew ever more important -- he now also played guitar live and had (obviously) become the quintet's most recognizable member. As the years passed his role would become increasingly central, not only in composing but in the entire decision-making process; after all, the surfer from San Diego was now one of the most adored rock stars on the planet.
During the sessions for Vitalogy, the first record in which Eddie's choices became decisive, numerous internal frictions emerged.
Rumor has it the band came close to breaking up entirely. The one who paid the price was drummer Dave Abbruzzese, ousted from the band before recording was even finished, to the point that the closing track was already performed by the new drummer, Jack Irons, formerly of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Abbruzzese paid for an attitude considered too rock-star-like and out of step with that of the other four. Although many consider him the "real" Pearl Jam drummer, he wasn't even invited -- many years later -- to the band's induction into the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame, a decision that drew sharp criticism from fans.

Pearl Jam's next experiment is in many ways the swan song of the grunge movement, and it's no coincidence that it closes "Hype!," the 1996 documentary about the Seattle scene. This was Self Pollution Radio, a live radio broadcast hosted by the band, never officially released but widely available as a bootleg, which saw performances throughout the night by Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and, among others, Mad Season.
The latter, a supergroup made up of Layne Staley of Alice In Chains, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam and Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees, would shortly after release the remarkable Above (1995), a grunge record filtered through the lens of blues and psychedelia.

In 1995 Pearl Jam recorded Mirror Ball together with Neil Young, with whom they had already played live on several occasions. The record was officially released under the Canadian's name alone, with the Seattle quintet credited among the backing musicians in the booklet, but never explicitly named as Pearl Jam.
Released under the band's own name, however, was the essential EP Merkinball, made up of two tracks recorded during the same sessions: "I Got ID," a raw rock track enriched by a thrilling electric finale, and "Long Road," a splendid ballad that already looked toward the future.

Post Grunge

The following No Code (1996) stands out for its attempt to shake off the sound that had defined the band up to that point, though the result is at times fragmentary, lacking cohesion. A half-successful record, with nods to punk ("Lukin," "Habit," "Hail, Hail"), to Neil Young-style country rock ("Smile," "Red Mosquito"), passages reminiscent of Springsteen ("Off He Goes") and a kind of British glam rock ("Mankind," written and sung by Stone Gossard).
But No Code also contains the elaborately structured "Present Tense," among the band's artistic peaks, a concentrate of melancholy, delicacy, despair and poetry. No Code definitively closes Pearl Jam's grunge chapter and propels them into a new, unprecedented dimension, one that would eventually see them recognized as one of the finest classic rock bands around.

Yield (1998) marks a return to a more visceral sound, with a different kind of care given to the production, at times cleaner and more radio-friendly, as heard on the singles "Wishlist" and "Pilate." Worth mentioning are the opening "Brain Of J.," "Faithful," "No Way," the furious "Do The Evolution" and the epic "In Hiding." "M.F.C." was written during the band's stay in Rome. The resemblance between the single "Given To Fly" and Led Zeppelin's "Going To California" sparked plenty of debate.
For many, Yield is the last Pearl Jam album worth bothering with: from then on many early fans would feel betrayed by the band's gradual softening, though in reality, at least at first, they were simply trying not to remain trapped in a cliché. The inspiration was still there at the time, while the fan base kept growing along the way, replenished by new generations.

Live On Two Legs documents the 1998 world tour, from which point Matt Cameron, formerly of Soundgarden, took over from Jack Irons on drums.
Pearl Jam's biggest hit, however, came in 1999, thanks to the single "Last Kiss," a cover released to raise funds for Kosovo refugees.

In 2000, Binaural best represents Pearl Jam in their new-millennium form. A record that still holds up to more than decent standards, notable for the change in production, entrusted to Tchad Blake, and for the attempt to wrap the songs in a warmer, more enveloping sound. The connection to their punk-rock roots is still guaranteed by the formidable opening trio, made up of the blistering "Breakerfall," "God's Dice" and "Evacuation," all under three minutes.
These are followed by the excellent ballads "Light Years" and "Nothing As It Seems," which confirm the band's mainstream leanings. Also worth noting are the fine performances of "Insignificance" and "Grievance."

Riot Act, released in 2002, drags along more wearily, boasting the hit "I Am Mine" and gloomier atmospheres, but almost entirely losing the rage of the past, replaced by a veil of bleak resignation.
A record that is disappointing for long stretches, heavily influenced by the difficult political climate of the time (the band would have its say with the explicitly anti-presidential invective "Bu$hleaguer") and by the Roskilde tragedy, for which "Love Boat Captain" stands as an ode to the fans who died.

Things go better with the double rarities and memorabilia collection Lost Dogs (2005), which has the merit of recovering b-sides and gems that until then had been the preserve of only the most devoted fans.

The true dimension of "2000s" Pearl Jam would, however, turn out to be their live shows. The band spent much of the decade touring stages all over the world. In response to difficult moments (the aforementioned tragedy at the Roskilde Festival in 2000 even threatened to undermine the band's own unity), they reacted by crafting ever more intense and lengthy shows, legendary events that often exceeded three hours in length.
From the Binaural tour onward, every Pearl Jam concert would be made available in full, both on CD and in digital format. These were official bootlegs, of excellent quality, which would become highly sought after among collectors.

Is It Just Classic Rock? The Recent Albums and Vedder's Solo Career

In 2006 came Pearl Jam, a full-blooded, energetic, vital record, at times fierce and abrasive. The symbolic stakes are the future of "post-9/11" America, the "halved" victory in Iraq and the many wrong choices made by the American administration. The album can be split into a first, heavily electric half, and a second, more eclectic one, in which the anger often dissolves into arrangements and performances that move in different directions. The first cycle includes the opening trio: "Life Wasted"/"Worldwide Suicide"/"Comatose," in which punk antagonism is underpinned by a powerful, compact rhythm section. "Severed Hand" and "Marker In The Sand," on the other hand, show the band's ability to shift shape, complete with backwards tape loops and a tribal drum ostinato that nonetheless open up into irresistibly melodic choruses. Also delightful is the following "Parachutes," an acoustic pop song suspended between Beatles and Elliott Smith, soft and hazy, with a Hammond organ in the background.
The second stretch opens with the midtempo, Rem-style "Unemployable" and the unrestrained hardcore of "Big Wave," before giving way to the ballad "Gone," structurally similar to the "old" "Betterman": a solitary start with arpeggiated guitar that builds into a full-band surge. After the fifty seconds of pipe organ on "Wasted Reprise" and the other filler track "Army Reserve," the album bids farewell with "Come Back," vibrant with soul passion dedicated to a hypothetical lost partner (it moves along the same lines as "Black"), and "Inside Job," a long and majestic electro/acoustic rock track punctuated by piano, with an epic crescendo that stretches out over seven minutes. The "avocado album," as it came to be nicknamed because of its cover -- on which the exotic fruit sits proudly against a blue background -- certainly deserves credit for keeping the flame alive, right when the band seemed headed for a premature artistic decline.

Meanwhile, Eddie Vedder indulged in the predictable solo debut, composing the soundtrack to Into The Wild, the multi-award-winning film directed by Sean Penn, based on Jon Krakauer's bestseller of the same name about Christopher McCandless's fatal journey into the Alaskan wild. Vedder wrote, entirely on his own, a concept piece on McCandless's story, made up of eleven short, concise tracks, as suited to the film as to a smooth, never-tiring listen.
It's a rock-folk work, at times epic ("Setting Forth," "Hard Sun"), often reflective, centered on Vedder's baritone voice and fingerpicked guitars ("Long Nights" and "Guaranteed," among the finest compositions the singer has ever produced). It also brings to mind a version of Pearl Jam stripped of their more distorted, forceful tendencies ("Far Behind"), while elsewhere inevitable echoes of Springsteen and Young emerge. The cover of "Society" is a collaboration between Vedder and its author, Jerry Hannan.

Pearl Jam's next record, Backspacer, comes out in 2009 and shows a certain continuity with the rough, direct approach of its predecessor. But once the hangover of civic outrage against the Bush administration has worn off, the tones become less heated and charged, the shades softer, the overall mood more relaxed and hedonistic. It's classic rock, with punk outbreaks, hard-rock steroids, the usual predisposition for pathos and a few singer-songwriter moments. The opener "Gonna See My Friends", with that familiar booming riff, is a trivial, adrenaline-fuelled street-rock blast. "Got Some", "Johnny Guitar" and "Supersonic" pursue, with mixed results, an "American Graffiti"-style rock'n'roll rush. Things don't improve with "The Fixer", a thoroughly blunted single with vaguely new wave synth whims.
The songwriting picks back up when the ball returns to Vedder's hands, as he paints two acoustic watercolours, the more bucolic "Just Breathe" and the anguished "The End", or when McCready plays the soft-rock card on "Force Of Nature". "Amongst The Waves" and "Unthought Known" tread paths the band has already walked before, while "Speed Of Sound", a heartfelt mid-tempo with piano and organ to the fore and guitars kept low, stakes (almost) everything on the aching, caressing charm of the vocals. For most fans, Backspacer will represent, artistically speaking, the lowest point in Pearl Jam's trajectory.

Vedder's second solo outing, released in 2011, finds him working with the ukulele, an instrument for which he has never hidden a particular passion, and which this time becomes the record's guiding thread. Ukulele Songs is a collection of mostly original tracks, some fully realized, others little more than sketches, a few already released (the opener "Can't Keep" had appeared in a full-band version on "Riot Act", while the moving "Goodbye" featured on the soundtrack of "A Broke Down Melody" in 2006), and a handful of covers, including a surprising closing rendition of "Dream A Little Dream".
Marked by a pronounced roots component, "Ukulele Songs" occasionally stalls, but it does boast memorable moments, among them the single "Longing To Belong", yet another testament to Vedder's great songwriting skills. On "Tonight You Belong To Me", Cat Power lends a hand, in under two minutes of irresistible romance. Vedder bets everything on intimacy and lyricism, sacrificing musical richness and variety in return. Somewhere between a divertissement and a "grown-up" singer-songwriter record, Ukulele Songs comes across as a small, fragile, introspective work, suffused with a sense of lightness.

On October 15, 2013, the tenth studio album, Lightning Bolt, is released, and it doesn't stray far from their other recent output. Two singles preceded the album in the months just before: "Mind Your Manners", with its pleasantly jarring hardcore-adjacent attitude, and "Sirens", with elegant delicacies ready to envelop the listener. "Sleeping With Myself" was also already familiar, having appeared (in a more "stripped" version) on Ukulele Songs: a track Eddie Vedder wanted to give a second chance, dressing it up in a restrained full-band arrangement. Otherwise, Lightning Bolt can be ideally split into two halves: one fairly traditional (and predictable) Pearl Jam, the other reaching toward new directions, see the urban-blues accents of "Let The Records Play" or the intriguing rarefaction of "Pendulum", the album's peak, with lyrics built around the oscillations that define human nature, a track that shows just how capable the Ament / Gossard duo still is of crafting great songs.
Production is once again firmly in the hands of Brendan O'Brien, the man behind most of the Seattle combo's best work, and here too he helps keep the album tight, balanced between effective electric episodes ("My Father's Son", with Jeff Ament's bass front and centre, and the infectious "Infallible"), and the unmatched tenderness the band can now deliver in its sleep (the closing "Yellow Moon", complete with a solo from guitar hero Mike McCready, and "Future Days", with strings in the background), direct descendants of the Vedder of "Into The Wild". There's some well-executed homework too, like "Swallowed Whole", the title track, and the opening "Getaway", bolstered by one of those choruses that used to make us feel like the center of the world. Lightning Bolt is an album half excellent and half simply steeped in that honesty that keeps Pearl Jam above all the hit-and-run approach that defines today's music landscape. Our ears and attention are too often pulled in all directions by a glut of music that could never be absorbed by an adequately sized audience. In such discographic chaos, stopping for a moment to listen to these five (former) boys is the best way to thank them for all the emotions they've given us over the years. A debt owed by everyone who has dreamed, cried, and found explanations for their own unease in the poetics of "Ten", "Vs" and "Vitalogy".

From the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame induction to the present day

In 2017, their induction into the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame comes as no surprise, in their very first year of eligibility. Meanwhile, rumours swirl about a likely new album, though they remain unconfirmed by the band itself.
Eddie Vedder takes advantage of the summer to put together a successful solo European tour, which at the end of June also stops in Italy for Firenze Rocks, and for two evenings (alongside Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard and a string quartet) in Taormina, in the striking setting of the Teatro Antico.

At the end of 2017, Pearl Jam release Let's Play Two, a concert-documentary film that combines music and a passion for sport, directed by Danny Clinch, who had already worked alongside the band ten years earlier on the filming of "Immagini in cornice". Alongside the film-DVD, a live album is released, a sort of soundtrack with 17 tracks drawn from the concerts held at the stadium of the Chicago Cubs baseball team (of which Vedder is a huge fan) on August 20 and 22, 2016. The show also becomes a way to celebrate the Cubs' return to glory, who after a full 108 years had finally won the World Series again.
Alongside the utterly predictable evergreens "Black", "Jeremy" and "Alive", we find the healthy adrenaline rush of "Last Exit", the ever-intense "Release" and the indispensable "Corduroy"; among the less dated material, "Inside Job" shines, while the more recent "Lightning Bolt" loses out in the unfortunate comparison with the classic tracks. Closing out the selection are "All The Way", a Vedder solo track dedicated precisely to his beloved Cubs, released as a single in 2008, and a cover of the Beatles' "I've Got A Feeling". The setlist also includes one of the finest covers Pearl Jam have ever put out, "Crazy Mary" by Victoria Williams, which in 1993 appeared on "Sweet Relief", a compilation released as a fundraiser to support artists struggling financially due to multiple sclerosis.

In March 2018, while the band is busy with a handful of South American dates, a new single, "Can't Deny Me", is released: expectations for a likely new album start running high. In the summer they go back on tour in Europe, Italy included. No fewer than three shows are scheduled on our peninsula: Milan, Padua, and above all Rome, where they return after an absence of a full twenty-two years.
At the start of the tour, the second London date is suddenly cancelled (later rescheduled at the end of the run) due to Eddie Vedder's voice troubles, though within a few days he fully recovers and manages to complete every scheduled show.

On November 29, 2019, the celebrated March 16, 1992 performance is released on vinyl for the first time as part of the MTV Unplugged series.
In December 2019, a special playlist is released on streaming platforms, featuring twelve of the Christmas singles that over the years have been reserved exclusively for members of the Ten Club, the official fan club. The initiative, called 12 Days Of Pearl Jam, involves putting one track online per day for twelve days in the run-up to Christmas. The first release was "Let Me Sleep (It's Christmas Time)", Pearl Jam's very first Christmas single, released in 1991 and previously included on the "Lost Dogs" compilation.

For 2020, a new European tour is planned (the Italian date is set for Imola on July 5) and, above all, the release of an album of new material, announced on Friday, January 10 through a sort of global treasure hunt, with clues scattered across some of the world's major cities. The album is titled Gigaton and arrives on Friday, March 27, right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic disaster. The album is preceded by the single "Dance Of The Clairvoyants", built on a groove reminiscent of the Talking Heads, representing an attempt to shake off old habits, a desire to update and renew themselves, relying moreover on a new producer, Josh Evans, in place of longtime collaborator Brendan O'Brien. The result is one of the best possible transpositions of their sound into the 2020s, boldly flaunted so that the "rock dinosaurs" label would end up stuck on somebody else's face instead. It's the musically most interesting song on Gigaton, but it remains an isolated case: (almost) everything else on the album sounds as traditionally Pearl Jam as can be imagined.
No electro influences, no funk detours, nothing alien to their well-established compositional habits. A record that, as usual, offers a democratic alternation between punchier tracks, the hyper-classic stadium rockers, perfect for every season and every generation, and the ballads that over time have become less anguished and ever more melancholically similar to one another. A few flashes of inspiration can be spotted in the adventurous spirit of the bass-guided track "Quick Escape" (written by Jeff Ament, with a bassline that with a bit of imagination could recall the gait of Editors' "Sugar" or Bjork's "Army Of Me"), or in the rhythmic drive of the other lead single, "Superblood Wolfmoon", an energetic composition that hides, behind a carefree mood, the memory of a loved one who recently passed away. The first part of the album works reasonably well, rounded out by "Seven O'Clock", intended to renew the quintet's tradition of great mid-tempos, with a coda that brings back the epic stride of the classics, and by the propulsive opening song "Who Ever Said", the usual predictable super-sprint start. The only weak point of the first half hour is "Alright", a dull lullaby that puts the band in trouble, unable to find a way out of a comfort zone that at times is downright unbearable.

The second half of the album cruises along at a steady pace, dominated (though "neutered" might be the better word) by an excess of self-control, pervaded by a whiff of monotony briefly interrupted by the upbeat rhythms of the "Never Destination" / "Take The Long Way" sequence: the former is almost an r&b gone haywire (are those horns lurking in the background?), the latter is Matt Cameron's heavy-leaning contribution. The rest of the tracklist rolls on to the end without leaving much of a mark. At times you almost get the feeling you're holding a handful of outtakes dug up from the bottom of a drawer. And after the faded experiment penned by Stone Gossard, "Buckle Up", a sort of funereal Christmas song that misses the mark and collapses in on itself, Gigaton — literally — fizzles out, with the final three tracks written in the image and likeness of solo Vedder, almost a "record within the record": it's the same pattern, after all, already seen in the triptych that closed "Lightning Bolt". First comes a country-inflected ballad for voice and guitar alone, "Comes Then Goes" (a mournful tribute to Chris Cornell?), which drags on wearily, without a single jolt, for over six minutes of total stasis, and then the last two compositions, "Retrograde" and "River Cross", which linger in the reassuring atmospheres already heard on "Into The Wild". A flagging finale that does no justice to what had seemed like honest, acceptable premises. An album crammed with déjà vu, with few new ideas, smothered under the clichés of already well-trodden paths, and done much better, many years ago. One wonders whether the fear of disappointing their huge army of longtime fans weighed on their choices.
Mike McCready occasionally pulls out one of his circus tricks, sometimes aping the exploits of other guitar heroes (now Eddie Van Halen, now Stevie Ray Vaughan), thereby risking having his own personality called into question by detractors; even Cameron seems hemmed in by performances that feel too "phoned in". Then again, of course, no one could ever slap the "bad album" label on Gigaton — Pearl Jam will never be capable of making one, they'll always guarantee a baseline level of quality, and in case of disaster there's always Vedder's voice to keep the ship afloat. But it seems unavoidable to consider Gigaton, on a par with "Backspacer", as their least successful work. Luckily, the clear and steady decline in inspiration doesn't undermine their usual attention to lyrics, with the band on the front lines of the anti-Trump resistance (the United States is entering the campaign season leading up to the Presidential election), and in promoting a strong environmental conscience, underscored too by the album's graphic concept. Some lines could almost be read as unwitting prophecies about the complicated situation at hand. Particularly striking are "We're stuck in our boxes / When it's open no more" or the cry "I'm Positive, Positive, Positive" that surface within "Dance Of The Clairvoyants". Vedder and company thus find themselves having delivered one of their most modest offerings, to justify a new tour that (for now) cannot even start: not exactly the outcome they'd hoped for. But no matter: their most devoted fans will stand steadfastly waiting for them, ready to shell out serious money for the next deluxe edition, yet another string of official bootlegs, every kind of merchandise, and a pit-area ticket for the next show. Hoping to win the scramble for a spot at the barrier, to try to take home one of Mike's picks or Eddie's tambourine. And maybe to catch his eye for a moment, and feel, just for an instant, like the center of the world. On one of those early-summer nights destined to be remembered forever.

While the Covid-19 pandemic forces the band to postpone the European tour to 2021, Gigaton's sales don't go too badly: despite not always positive reviews, the record reaches number 5 in the United States (where the vinyl edition sells as many as 14,000 copies in its first week alone) and number 6 in the United Kingdom, even climbing to number one on the Italian chart.
Before the year is out, a new track written by drummer Matt Cameron, "Get It Back", is included on the charity compilation Good Music To Avert The Collapse Of American Democracy, in support of voter turnout for the American presidential election, which would be won a few weeks later by Democratic candidate Joe Biden against the outgoing Republican President, Donald Trump, whom the band firmly opposed.

During his time in pandemic lockdown, Eddie Vedder records a handful of songs and, on Christmas Day 2020, surprise-releases a Christmas gift, the EP Matter Of Time, an extension of the single "Matter Of Time" / "Say Hi", released in November for Venture Into Cure, a streaming event in support of research into epidermolysis bullosa, a hereditary genetic disease that causes severe fragility of the skin and mucous membranes. Proceeds from the single's sales went to EB Research, an organization among whose principal co-founders are Eddie Vedder himself and his wife Jill.
"Matter Of Time" is a touching piano ballad, a welcome exception in Eddie's long career, while on "Say Hi" the singer accompanies himself with nothing but acoustic guitar: it's a sort of nursery rhyme written for Eli Meyer, a six-year-old boy afflicted with the rare and debilitating condition. The EP's tracklist is rounded out by three songs from the Pearl Jam catalogue, recorded unplugged at home: "Future Days", originally featured on "Lightning Bolt", was performed for the 2020 Game Awards, while "Just Breathe" and the evergreen "Porch" are instead taken from a session held in October for an Amazon event. The only truly new addition, then, lies in the live, again "acoustic at home", rendition of Bruce Springsteen's "Growin' Up".

During 2020, after the release of "Gigaton", Vedder had already put out the instrumental "Cartography", quite close in mood to "Into The Wild", written for the soundtrack of the documentary "Return To Mount Kennedy".
Worth noting too are a song released by Stone Gossard, "Near", and a new project launched by Jeff Ament together with John Wicks, called Deaf Charlie.

In 2021, Pearl Jam's summer European tour is postponed for a second time, due to pandemic-related issues still unresolved. Eddie Vedder takes the opportunity to put the finishing touches on the soundtrack for his friend Sean Penn's new feature film, Flag Day, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The soundtrack is released at the end of August and contains new songs written and performed not only by Vedder, but also by Glen Hansard, Cat Power, and — for the first time on record — by Eddie's daughter, Olivia.

In February 2022, a new chapter of solo Vedder arrives, Earthling, preceded in the weeks prior by the singles "Long Way", "The Haves" and "Brother The Cloud". Earthling was played and written with a core line-up featuring Chad Smith on drums, Andrew Watt on bass (also responsible for production) and Josh Klinghoffer on guitars, who for a few months now has been playing live with Pearl Jam as an additional guitarist.
Guests include Elton John on "Picture", all too easy to predict as the real bone of contention of the whole record, Stevie Wonder on harmonica on the unbridled "Try", and Ringo Starr on drums on "Mrs. Mills", a track that recalls the Beatles of "Sgt. Pepper's". Everything sounds extremely familiar, but it's the details, the nuances, that make Earthling different from any other chapter Vedder has ever starred in.

For Record Store Day 2023, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of "Yield", Pearl Jam released the live album Give Way, a recording of a concert held on March 5, 1998 in Melbourne, Australia. The recording, broadcast by a local radio station, was originally released in just 50,000 copies bundled with the "Single Video Theory" videocassette. But the band, who had not approved the release, had all copies pulled from shelves and destroyed, save for a few that remained in circulation and went on to fetch tidy sums in the years that followed.
Give Way is the first live album Pearl Jam ever released featuring Jack Irons on drums, who would leave the band just a couple of weeks later due to health problems, replaced by Matt Cameron. Give Way, which contains 17 of the 25 songs played that night, is a fascinating document that catches the band at a complicated, transitional moment, caught between albums that were utterly sincere but no longer quite as memorable, and a post-adolescent drive giving way more and more to craft, and to records that would become progressively less brilliant.

April 19, 2024 brings Dark Matter, which opens with a couple of hyper-electric punches, "Scared Of Fear" and "React, Respond", healthy jolts of adrenaline that show the fire inside hasn't gone out just yet. Only to curl up soon after into the more reassuring, enveloping notes of "Wreckage", one of their typically sweeping ballads, freed from the need to fill up every inch of space. But then we stumble into yet another riff that rips off "I Love Rock'n'Roll", placed at the opening of the title track, and into the muddle of "Upper Hand", an obvious recalibration of "Nothing As It Seems", complete with Gilmour-esque guitar.
The glossy "Won't Tell" could have been written by Vedder on his way back from a Taylor Swift concert, which he attended with his family in tow in Seattle. That winking verse, that killer chorus, that bridge that shuffles the deck - none of it makes it much different from one of the many hits from the American superstar's soft-rock period, who incidentally released her hugely anticipated "The Tortured Poets Department" on the very same day as Dark Matter.
Once again, a Pearl Jam record barely holds up past the halfway mark, a steep collapse that begins with the nearly six minutes of "Waiting For Stevie", written by Vedder while in the studio waiting for Stevie Wonder for a featured appearance on "Earthling", his solo record, and continues through the last three insubstantial tracks, "Something Special", "Got To Give" and "Setting Sun", which endlessly recycle the tried-and-tested formula of intro - verse - chorus - verse - chorus - bridge - Mike McCready solo - chorus - ending. Matt Cameron's drums never truly sound powerful, equalized in an Eighties fashion, lacking force and visceral punch. A programmed outcome, agreed upon with producer Andrew Watt, the newest addition to the band's official lineup and co-writer of all eleven tracks, alongside guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and the rest of the historic crew.

Amid tragic deaths (Andy Wood, Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell) and inevitable break-ups, Pearl Jam remain, along with Mudhoney, the sole surviving witnesses of the grunge movement, born, raised - or rather burned out - and laid to rest in Seattle between the Eighties and Nineties.
The natural waning of inspiration has produced work that reveals a static, formulaic, conservative standard, perfect for reassuring longtime fans and feeding fresh fuel into the tireless engine of their world tours - the dimension in which the band can still deliver its best, justifying over time its own consistency and steadiness.

Contributions by Ariel Bertoldo ("Pearl Jam") and Claudio Cataldi ("Ukulele Songs")

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