Artist bio

See also: Hovercraft, Mad Season, Three Fish

When Pearl Jam first rose to superstardom in the early ‘90s, the quintet was rarely regarded in the same light as Seattle colleagues such as Nirvana (more attitude) or Soundgarden and Alice In Chains (they rocked harder). Indeed, at first everything was a struggle for Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, and Mike McCready, from getting “metal” radio to play “Alive” to struggling for cred amid its more established local mates. Then suddenly Pearl Jam and its roaring update of Aerosmith, the Who, and Led Zeppelin was more popular than them all. Ten went on to sell 9 million copies. Vs. set a record by shifting nearly 900,000 units in its first week of release. Listeners followed the band’s every whim: when 1994’s Vitalogy was issued on vinyl two weeks before it came out on CD, enough people bought that version that it debuted just outside the top-50 of The Billboard 200. Appropriately, the first single was called “Spin the Black Circle” and was the band’s least radio friendly track to date.

But with success came struggle, some media generated (the famous losing battle with Ticketmaster) but most of it fueled by band members’ own insecurity with their newfound celebrity. Pearl Jam pulled back on every level, looking to its influences for guidance and in the process establishing for itself new and important means of collaboration. What followed were a series of increasingly personal, musically intricate albums (1996’s No Code, 1998’s Yield, 2000’s Binaural) that often befuddled the masses but cemented Pearl Jam’s place as one of the best rock bands of its generation. The group’s rabid following was always rewarded with thrilling live shows that never featured the same setlist, justifying the otherwise preposterous scheme that saw 72 complete concerts from the 2000 tour made available to retail. By the 2002 release of Riot Act, Pearl Jam had reached a milestone not one of its hometown rivals had even come close to achieving: more than a decade of great music, made on its own terms.

Albums by this artist

Binaural (2000)

'Given To Fly' (1998)

Yield (1998)

No Code (Recommended) (1996)

Merkin Ball (1996)

Vitalogy (Recommended) (1994)

Vs. (1993)

Concerts

August 18, 2000
Deer Creek Amphitheater, Indianapolis

Pearl Jam

'Given To Fly'

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» JONATHAN COHEN | SENIOR EDITOR

Pearl Jam 'Given To Fly' Epic, 1998 RiYL: Led Zeppelin, The Who

Pearl Jam's Yield album is one of the most solid rock records to be released in the '90s. The album's first single, Given To Fly, is a soaring rock epic that, despite its melody's passing resemblance to Led Zeppelin's "Going To California," more than conveys Yield's majestic splendor.

Lead singer Eddie Vedder narrates the tale of an airborne, near-Messianic youth who "floated back down 'cause he wanted to share/the key to the locks on the chains he saw everywhere." Verses are reverb-loaded and hushed, but the bomb-dropping chorus heads straight for the stratosphere.

"Pilate," a curious number penned by bassist Jeff Ament that likens the regular-guy narrator to Pontius Pilate, successfully marries a strummy, acoustic verse to a grinding, sing-songy chorus of "Like Pilate / I have a dog." Non-album track "Leatherman" extends Vedder's Who fetish with a melody that bolts out of the gate while the singer intones the details of a leather-clad hermit to whom he might be related.

This trio of songs got Pearl Jam fans salivating in a hurry for the subsequent release of Yield, one the band's most satisfying albums to date.

JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"