Published on Oct 17, 1997
I swear, Pearl Jam has to be one of the spottiest bands in the
world. One minute they’re impressing me with their all-guns-blazing
approach to alternative, the next minute they’re getting bogged
down in their own pretentiousness or in Eddie Vedder’s political
views.
Flash back to 1994, and Pearl Jam’s third album
Vitalogy. This one brought it all together in one humongous
mass — all the power, all the weirdness, all the great moments,
all the whacked-out experimentation… even originally wrapped up
in a — gasp! — vinyl package. One wonders how they pulled it off
so well.
After taking a slightly softer edge to their secind album
Vs. (and taking the time to record a three-disc live album
available as an import only), Vedder and crew turned the amplifiers
up again on this one, and unleashed a sonic fury that took up most
of the first half of the disc. “Spin The Black Circle” is a
lightly-veiled tribute to the all-too-soon forgotten vinyl record,
as well as the band’s condemnation of the CD as being like “bad
acid – not for production or consumption.” (Never stopped you from
releasing albums on CD, though, eh?) The opening cut, “Last Exit,”
is a return to the power the band showed off on their first album,
while “Whipping” is an orgasmic thrill ride that ends much too
soon.
And sure, I know not all the songs on the first part of
Vitalogy are balls-out rockers. “Tremor Christ,” while not a
great choice for the first song released to radio, is a song that
grows on the listener. “Nothingman” is a gentle tribute to the
dreamer in all of us, and is probably my favorite song on the
album.
All of the pre-release publicity, however, may have hurt
portions of
Vitalogy. I preferred the “Saturday Night Live” version of
“Not For You” over the official release (though I have heard it
from time to time on alternative radio in Chicago). And, during the
time between
Vs. and
Vitalogy, I remember hearing a live version of “Better Man”
on the radio. Part of me likes hearing Dave Abbruzzese’s drumming
throughout the song, while part of me still cannot fathom why Pearl
Jam fails to keep accurate time on the first bridge (where you hear
only vocals, guitar and organ). And, only three years after the
album’s release, I am sick of hearing “Corduroy” on the radio –
c’mon, all you in radio land… there’s more than
one single on this album!!!
Four songs on
Vitalogy fall into the “experimental” category — and three
of them are complete wastes. “Pry, To” is one of the wastes, but
it’s so short that it doesn’t get on my nerves that badly. The same
can’t be said for “Bugs,” which has Vedder waxing poetic — with an
accordion background, for crissakes – about bugs. The album’s
closer, “heyfoxymophandlemama, that’s me” is eight minutes of
perpetual weirdness a la “Revolution 9” by The Beatles that is best
left alone. It also features the debut of Jack Irons on the drums –
in my opinion, bad move. Abbruzzese’s drumming created a groove
that the band could fall into, while Irons is more of a
“whack-whack-whack” drummer — check out Neil Young’s
“Downtown.”
That leaves the one experiment that works — “Aye Davanita.” The
song builds itself into a decent enough groove that grabs you
before you can do anything about it. In a sense, Vedder’s absence
from this track does the band a favor – it lets them prove
themselves without the omnipresent frontman.
Vitalogy is an album that both invigorates me and confuses
me at the same time. It does contain some of the best music that
Pearl Jam has created in their brief career, but one wonders what
the hell they were smoking when they cut songs like “Bugs” and
“Satan’s Bed”. Are tracks like this bad? Only in one case – I
rarely can sit through an entire airing of “mophandlemama” without
running for the “Stop” button. The others I can plow through pretty
much without too much damage.
This album may also be a challenge for the long-term Pearl Jam
fan, mainly because of the experimental changes heard here. In one
sense,
Vitalogy was a warning sign of things to come; their next
full-length effort,
No Code, was a whole experiment — and one that failed.
If there is one Pearl Jam album that is a “must-own,” I wouldn’t
hesitate to nominate
Vitalogy as that album — just approach portions of it with
caution.