Pearl Jam - “Ten”

I have written a lot about Grunge and Grunge bands, I guess; nevertheless, it is one of those subjects I never mind going back to. Musically, it is one of the most amazing genres ever created by mankind. Although mainstream only had access to a parcel of what was coming out of Seattle - me included - some of those mainstream albums were, in fact, a deep hole in which one would not like to be buried in.

 

I never paid much attention to the depth of the music when I was growing up, which is normal. Years later it hit me, and that is why it still has the effect it has on me, from time to time, whenever specific songs come up on my playlist. I did not understand what was being sung on any of these songs, and just enjoyed them for their musical value. In a way

 

I played the part, you know? I still have the flannel checkered jacket my parents got me when I was 12 or 13. I was not getting it because it was related to Grunge, I was getting it because I liked the jacket, period. However, there was something that guided me to that specific one, or at least you want to see it like that… it is more romantic, is it not? This all sounds like rubbish and reminiscence of times of old, but guess what? I am old…

 

Pearl Jam’s first album is, in my modest and non-musically educated opinion, a masterpiece of 90ies Rock n’ Roll. Is it Grunge? Well, Mother Love Bone was not Grunge, but people seem to read Seattle and think Grunge, so go figure… Pearl Jam is not, again in my opinion, a Grunge band. The music does not have that feeling, that “scent”. It is more polished and neater. This album is heavy, and heavy as Hell, but not Grunge. Some say they reached a higher peak with “Vs.”, but I am quite happy with “Ten”, thank you.

 

“Ten” has songs, and we will not dissect each and every one of them, that hold a dark and disturbing sense of something I cannot wrap my mind around. Human existence, maybe? Songs like “Jeremy” are self-explanatory, so carry on. On a different note, the clip for “Even Flow” looked bloody amazing! Me, as a kid, stuck to my geeky things, watching Vedder swing above the crowd, with an MJ shirt, in awe! Very impressed I was.

 

And I went back to “Ten” because I was checking a live performance of some of the tracks from the “Into the Wild” soundtrack, and mentioned it to a sweet friend of mine, and here we are. She loves “Vitalogy”, I love “Ten”, and “Vs.” sits there in the middle… some cool tunes. Maybe one of the few bands to come out of Seattle that was able to build a solid base for the future. Well, look where they are now. Not writing more “Even Flow” and teen anthems.

 

And were they teenage anthems? Is this not an awful description of what Pearl Jam has always been? A band with a message, as David Letterman said in 2017, at the “Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame”. They were, and still are, anthems. That innocence that we all extracted from their music, naked of glitter and fashionable whatever. Songs that take us back to when our concerns were smaller, innocent, irrelevant to say the least.

 

Pearl Jam is not the band they were in the Past; I am not the same kid I was in the Past; “Ten” is still that turning point. And here we are, in 2023, celebrating when music was a force to reckon with.