There’s nothing daring about Pearl Jam's Backspacer

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      Pearl Jam
      Backspacer (Universal)

      Even though they’ve lasted the longest, that doesn’t change the reality that Pearl Jam was the least-interesting of the bands that made Seattle the world’s number-one musical mecca back in ’91.

      Looking back to those ancient times, you had four platinum-shifting, grunge-caked heavyweights: Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, and, Pearl Jam, each accomplishing something notable.

      Alice In Chains left behind the metal-strafed monster that is Dirt, which remains the most harrowing chronicle of one’s man’s struggles with addiction that’s ever been committed to tape. Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger elevated hard-rock to punishingly ugly art, the best thing being the record didn’t begin to sound even remotely listenable until about the 10th spin.

      Nirvana’s Nevermind merely kicked down the wall that separated underground America from the mainstream, exposing an entire generation of kids to the lunatics like the Butthole Surfers, the Jesus Lizard, and the Melvins. Pop music, God bless Kurt Cobain’s tortured soul, has never been the same.

      And what of Pearl Jam? Well, Ten was the record that even the most thick-headed of high-school jocks could relate too, an "alternative" album for meatheads who spend their formative beating up the likes of, ironically, Kurt Cobain.

      Flash forward 18 years, and only one of those big four have survived. (Sorry, the sad cash-grab currently billing itself as "Alice In Chains" doesn’t count, considering that human-pincushion Layne Staley has been dead longer than Mudhoney’s career). And wouldn’t you know it that the longest-lasting would be the least adventurous of those four. There’s nothing wrong with Pearl Jam, but then again—with the exception of "Jeremy" and "Alive"—there’s never been anything terribly exciting about them either. They are the deservedly fabled Seattle grunge scene’s version of bland, inoffensive, meat-and-potatoes alt-rock. And, to their credit, they are admirably sincere, to the point where you actually want to like them.

      The key word here though is "want". You can want to like Pearl Jam for a whole shitload of reasons—topped, of course, by that ill-fated attempted Ticketmaster takedown—but that doesn’t necessarily make the band interesting.

      Backspacer isn’t going to change that.

      To Pearl Jam’s credit, singer Eddie Vedder, guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, bassist Jeff Ament, and drummer Matt Cameron have obviously decided that they have no intention of mellowing out. Right from the tuff-gnarl, kick-off rocker "Gonna See My Friend", the Seattle survivors arrive ready to kick out the jams. A one-hook-short chorus is all that keeps the revved-up "Got Some" from the gold star it otherwise deserves, and "Supersonic" blurs by with enough speed-spiked energy to almost live up to its name.

      "Johnny Guitar" finds Vedder at his most surprisingly soulful, with extra credit going to the Gossard and McCready, who come on like a two-man tribute the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls. And Cameron and Ament are a powerhouse team on "The Fixer", a loose-limbed mid-tempo shot of grunge-pop where—as on most of Backspacer—they do all the heavy lifting.

      Pearl Jam does a laudable job of mixing things up. The campfire-quiet “Just Breathe” takes dead aim at Jack Johnson’s fanbase with its acoustic guitars and star-swept strings. And the equally low-key “The End” verges on symphonic, with Vedder turning in a performance that just the right balance of vulnerability and tenderness.

      So what’s the problem? Well, it’s somehow all safe and weirdly artless, a criticism that will suffice for your Pearl Jam record of choice. There’s nothing daring about Backspacer, unless of course you’re idea of daring is a group of 40-something musicians occasionally making a half-hearted attempt to embrace their inner Sex Pistols.

      Those (i.e. former high-school jocks) who are of the opinion that Pearl Jam are nothing less than groundbreaking legends will of course argue that Backspacer is the greatest thing since Nirvana’s In Utero. Or at least the Screaming Trees' Uncle Anesthesia. As for the rest of us, is it unfair to ask for something more? Well, probably so, given that history shows Pearl Jam is incapable of straying from the meat-and-potatoes menu that made them famous back when everyone wore plaid, including the high-school quarterback.

      Download This: “The End”

      Comments

      36 Comments

      eric s

      Sep 25, 2009 at 11:40am

      high school was obviously a very tough time for the author of this article. he's just one of those people who don't like pearl jam just because of the people who do. hater.

      The High School Quarterback

      Sep 25, 2009 at 12:21pm

      Nor is there anything daring about writing a rote history lesson then devoting a mere three short paragraphs to critique devoid of any description of the music being critiqued other than the stale phrase "meat and potatoes."

      By the way, those same thick-headed jocks dug Nirvana just as much as Pearl Jam.

      Lori

      Sep 25, 2009 at 12:24pm

      Not the biggest fan of this band (like Yield, most of the rest is too moody for me), but this review is rediculously stupid. Based entirely in the author's (inaccurate) vision of a time almost 20 years past, and not at all on the inexplicably power pop-style record they're supposed to be evaluating.

      Boris

      Sep 25, 2009 at 12:46pm

      The author was a big fan of the 1995 movie Powder and often confuses actor Bradford Tatum -who played the bully in the movie- to Eddie Vedder.

      Clem

      Sep 25, 2009 at 1:00pm

      Is it possible to even write a review/article of Pearl Jam without relying on the same old boring paint by numbers Kurt Cobain/Ticketmaster/Flannel shirt references that we've heard over and over and over again for the last 20 years?

      Perhaps you should take your own advise and try to be a little bit more daring yourself there Michael.

      Art Vandelay

      Sep 25, 2009 at 2:30pm

      The author is a decent writer, but is WAY, WAY OFF on the accuracy...and a lot of other things:

      " Pearl Jam is incapable of straying from the meat-and-potatoes menu that made them famous back when everyone wore plaid, including the high-school quarterback.

      I'm pretty sure the "high school quarterback" didn't go buy No Code, Yield, Binaural , Riot Act, Lost Dogs, Merkinball, and countless other PJ releases that the general public has no idea exist, because they were viewed as "straying" or weird ... This is another writer who, like the high school QB he talks about, looked the other way , when they put out extremely experimental and bad ass records the past 13 years. Get your facts straight dumb fuck.

      Doug Stewart

      Sep 25, 2009 at 2:50pm

      Gee, making music that people might like & making money at your job. How dare popular artists not live off the taxpayers, struggling in freezing garrets, stoking the fires with coal and burning artistic desire. I think all of those posthumously famous artists would have given up the starving, freezing part for some regular creature comforts. Don't recycle "no guts, all glory" Cobain. How much money did he give back to the fans. How many paychecks did he turn down? Mighty nice neighbourhood he lived in. Catch up to the rest of the world.

      Brendan Kennealy.

      Sep 25, 2009 at 2:58pm

      You said: "Sorry, the sad cash-grab currently billing itself as "Alice In Chains" doesn’t count, considering that human-pincushion Layne Staley has been dead longer than Mudhoney’s career."
      First off, AIC's current tour of small intimate clubs is hardly a cash grab. It's affordable for fans and small in scale.
      Second, calling a dead man and drug addict a human pin cushion is a cheap shot. I hope he haunts your dreams, Jackass.
      Third, they wore flannel. NOT PLAID. You have no authority on any of this Seattle-era music, and worse, no respect for it. Obviously.
      Finally, Backspacer is made by a vastly different group than the band who put out Ten. It's been 20 years!!! I'm of the school that believes it is "daring" for a band to stray from their hits and not rely on their laurels. If you want to hear a stagnant Pearl Jam circa 1994, go listen to Creed. They suck hard enough to please you. And they're grabbing at cash to boot.
      Jesus, did you even listen to Backspacer? Or their last self-titled album? Or Vedder's solo Into the Wild? The man is not trying to prolong grunge. He is daring himself to make the music that moves him. And that changes. Every time out.

      Langerhans

      Sep 25, 2009 at 3:11pm

      Fuck you!

      RBJ

      Sep 25, 2009 at 4:07pm

      One of the few bad reviews of Backspacer.... and, interesting enough, one of the few that mentions Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Grunge, Ticketmaster, and a ''flash forward of 18 years".
      Did you get lost in an island a la 'Lost' for 18 years? Or did you fail to follow the path of PJ? A band that sells out every arena in the world, produces its own albums and still sells them well deserves a better review.