Gay4Grunge: Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam are the survivors of Grunge. While the band has experienced lots of trials and tribulations over the years, they've always managed to soldier on no matter what. Pearl Jam's perseverance is what defines the group the most at this point, especially since they have been together for over 30 years now. While Pearl Jam has gone through multiple drummers, the band has more or less stayed intact without one member dying tragically. Pearl Jam also was able to weather the media storm with Grunge in the early 90s and not become victims of it like many of their peers. Maybe one of the reasons for that is that two of the band members, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, had already experienced tragedy in one of their previous bands Mother Love Bone. Mother Love Bone's lead singer Andrew Wood died from a drug overdose right before the band was set to release their first album on a major label in the Spring of 1990. Wood's death would unfortunately start a trend of Seattle Grungers dying before their time. Still, I can't help but feel that the members of Pearl Jam learned a lot of lessons through Mother Love Bone and were able to avoid the pitfalls that befell most of their Seattle peers afterwards. 

Something that goes unsaid with Pearl Jam nowadays is that back in the early 90s they were the biggest of the Seattle Grunge bands, selling more records than Nirvana even. When people talk about Grunge and Nirvana now, they seem to always conveniently forget that Pearl Jam actually was bigger than Nirvana. In fact, growing up in the early to mid-90s I had no idea who Nirvana, Soundgarden or Alice in Chains even were, because I was only listening to Disney songs and what my parents liked at the time, which was 80s Adult Contemporary. Pearl Jam on the other hand I knew of, because they were name dropped and referenced in countless TV shows and movies throughout the 90s. Off the top of my head I can say that Pearl Jam has been referenced in Sliver, Can't Hardly Wait, The Simpsons, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Frasier, Mad TV, Clarissa Explains it All, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Northern Exposure, The Brady Bunch Movie, Wayne's World 2, Stepmon, Wings, Hackers, House Guest, The Nanny, Saved by the Bell: The College Years and of course the movie Singles, which Pearl Jam also appeared in. Pearl Jam's Yellow Ledbetter is also used in the series finale of Friends and Portlandia has a whole plot revolve around some guy having an Eddie Vedder tattoo. I honestly can't name you one single TV show or movie from the 90s that actually references Nirvana (besides Beavis & Butthead) and that's including Singles, which features most of the other major Grunge bands and their songs in some fashion but not Nirvana. 

Still, while I knew of Pearl Jam, I wouldn't become familiar with their music until the late 90s when I became a pop music fan in 1997 thanks to the Spice Girls. While Pearl Jam had stopped making music videos by 1997, MTV still talked about Jeremy a lot in much the same way they talked about Smells Like Teen Spirit a lot. Usually, it was MTV giving themselves a pat on the back for helping to push these bands and those music videos into the mainstream, which they are not wrong honestly. Still the first time I really experienced a Pearl Jam song fully was with the release of Do the Evolution from their 1998 album Yield. Do the Evolution was accompanied by an anime style music video, which was the first time Pearl Jam had made and submitted a new music video to MTV since 1992. Of course, with the music video being animated, Pearl jam themselves didn't appear in it so Pearl Jam could have its cake and eat it too. That music video was incredibly dark as it showed how humans were basically destroying each other and the planet all in the name of greed and power. The music video to Do the Evolution definitely left a deep impression on me and I eventually did tape it off MTV one day, but more so for the video itself than the song at the time. That video also seems more relatable now in 2022 than it did in 1998. 

My next exposure to Pearl Jam came in 1999 when they released a cover of the song Last Kiss, which became an improbable smash that year. Pearl Jam's cover of Last Kiss was originally recorded for a benefit album, but soon that song took on a life of its own which surprised everyone including Pearl Jam. That summer Last Kiss was inescapable as it went all the way up to #2 on the pop charts where it was sharing chart space with Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera. To this day, Last Kiss still stands as Pearl Jam's biggest hit single, which is crazy to think about because it really feels like an outlier in their catalogue. By 2000 Pearl Jam released another album called Binaural, but what I remember more were the countless live albums that dropped with the coinciding tour. Pearl Jam released every single show from that tour on CD, which was unheard of back then. I remember flipping through the CD racks back then and just seeing so many of these Pearl Jam live albums in the P section. 

Still, I wouldn't become a Pearl Jam fan until 2002. If you've been following Gay4Grunge since the beginning you know that thanks to Stone Temple Pilots, I was now fast becoming more interested in Alternative Rock and Grunge than the modern top 40 by the Spring and Summer of 2002. Towards the end of my sophomore year, I was taking a photography class and one of my favorite things about that class was using the dark room, because you were allowed to listen to the radio in there, which I would do every chance I got.  One day I remember I was doing something just outside of the dark room and I heard this song coming from inside the dark room that sounded vaguely familiar and really intrigued me. I didn't know what the song was called but I was pretty sure that it was Pearl Jam and that it wasn't Last Kiss, Do the Evolution or Jeremy. 

As I wrote in my Alice in Chains' article, there was one summer morning where I got up before everyone else so I could go on the internet and learn about the Seattle Grunge bands. This is when I started getting a better understanding of Pearl Jam's career and albums and it felt like their debut album Ten probably had the song I was looking for. So, then I went over to CD Now's website who were the only site to have 30 second clips for each song off every album. I listened to all the sound clips from Ten and it became clear that the song I was looking for was probably Evenflow, but I also recognized Alive as well. It wasn't too much later that I bought a used copy of Ten and it went straight into heavy rotation for me. I was also now a committed listener of rock radio so I was also hearing the songs off of Ten constantly at that point. I was also starting to hear other songs by Pearl Jam that were not on Ten such as Daughter so I then started to look into their other albums as well. 

Vs. was an album I had heard of beforehand only because when it came out in 1993 it broke the sales record for most albums sold within the first week. That record stood until NSYNC broke that record in 2000 with No Strings Attached, which is probably where I learned that little factoid about Vs. Anyway, by the fall of 2002 I picked up a used copy of Vs and then that album went straight into heavy rotation as well. It was around this time too that a new Pearl Jam single started getting played on rock radio called I Am Mine. At first, I wasn't too taken with I Am Mine, but after multiple listens, the song did begin to grow on me so the third Pearl Jam album I purchased was Riot Act, which got released in the fall of 2002. By Christmas I got the rest of Pearl Jam's studio albums which were Vitalogy, No Code, Yield and Binaural. Vitalogy grabbed me first because it came out right after Ten and Vs and it also had songs that were still on the radio such as Betterman and Corduroy. Still, I eventually made my way through all of their albums and became a pretty big fan. 

Pearl Jam quickly became one of my favorite bands to the point that they were probably my second favorite band after Stone Temple Pilots for quite a while. I bought a book on Pearl Jam called Five Against One which I read cover to cover. I also read tons of reviews and articles about the band as well and tried to absorb as much Pearl Jam as humanly possible. Once a tour was announced I knew I had to go see Pearl Jam live. Pearl Jam's reputation as a live band precedes them. Even people who don't like Pearl Jam end up coming around to the band after they see them live. So, I knew this was going to be an epic concert that I didn't want to miss. Since it was 2003 getting tickets online wasn't actually feasible yet or at least as commonplace as it is now. As a result, my Dad and I stood in a long line outside the music box record store in Newport Rhode Island in order to buy tickets. We did get tickets though and I was going to see Pearl Jam with a friend that summer. 

Now by 2003 Pearl Jam truly was the last band standing of the big Seattle 4. With Kurt and Layne both dead by that point it seemed like both of those bands were over and done with. No one was predicting the comeback Alice in Chains would have at the end of the decade. Chris Cornell and Scott Weiland meanwhile were now fronting supergroups such as Audioslave and Velvet Revolver so seeing Soundgarden or Stone Temple Pilots anytime soon felt out of the question as well. When it came to Grunge, Pearl Jam was the only game in town by 2003. This was reflected in the audience at that concert, which included both long term fans of the band, some of whom even had concert t-shirts from the Vs tour, as well as kids my age and younger who had Nirvana and other Grunge related T-shirts on. Those kids and I knew Pearl Jam was the only Grunge band left that we could experience live by that point since we were too young to see any of the other Grunge bands live in the early to mid-90s. 

Pearl Jam, as expected, put on a great show. Seeing Pearl Jam live made me appreciate even more of their music, especially the song Go, which exploded when they performed it as the second song of their set. That said, there was one guy right behind me who was drinking and moving around too much that he eventually fell over on top of me, which caused him to spill his beer all over me too. As you can imagine it wasn't pleasant, but there's really nothing you can do about it in these types of situations. This was my first example of how rock concerts were different from pop concerts and not always for the better. I loved seeing these rock bands live but having all these straight guys drinking and hollering and not even respecting your personal space sometimes was not something I ever enjoyed. When I went to rock concerts I was there purely for the music and connecting with the band on stage, but I never connected with the audience at these rock shows. Now when I go to concerts with queer artists I connect with all sorts of strangers and talk to them and honestly that's a huge part of the appeal. Queer pop concerts are not just about the music, it’s about the sense of community that's built in as well and everyone is way more respectful of one another too. 

That Pearl Jam show was when I first realized that there was a disconnect between what the band stood for and how some of their fans acted. While Grunge was a very liberal genre of music when it came to its politics, no band lived up to those liberal ideals more than Pearl Jam. Right from the start Pearl Jam announced what their politics were. Pearl Jam was very anti guns and one of their earliest t-shirts said that 9 out of 10 kids prefer crayons to guns. The group was also Pro-Choice right from the start, with Eddie Vedder talking about his thoughts on abortion in major magazines like Spin magazine. When Pearl Jam performed on MTV's unplugged in 1992, Eddie Vedder got on top of his stool that he had been sitting on for most of the performance so that he could write pro-choice on his arm with a marker and have everyone see it. Rock bands didn't do this sort of thing before Grunge, at least not ones that got played on MTV and rock radio nonstop. U2 probably comes the closet, but I've never saw Bono write pro-choice on his arm while performing Mysterious Ways. 

Pearl Jam always used their status and privilege to help make things better and fight the good fight even if the odds were stacked against them. This of course leads us into Pearl Jam's battle with Ticketmaster in the mid-90s. You really can't talk about 90s era Pearl Jam and not talk about this, because it really is one of the defining moments of their career. As monopolies grew larger and larger in the 90s, it was only a matter of time before a company like Ticketmaster took over all major concert venues in the country. Since Ticketmaster had no real competition either they could add lots of extra admission charges and processing fees, meaning they could charge the consumer more money for no other reason than to profit. Pearl Jam felt this was wrong so they sued Ticketmaster, which led to a hearing with a subcommittee on capitol hill. 

Unfortunately, no one on the subcommittee took Pearl Jam very seriously and Pearl Jam didn't have much help from any fellow musicians either including their fellow Grunge bands. Pearl Jam also took a big hit themselves, because they were not going to perform in any Ticketmaster venues which meant they could only perform at smaller and less convenient venues. It was Pearl Jam's fans that took the brunt of this because Pearl Jam are known for their legendary live performances, but it was now nearly impossible to see Pearl Jam live throughout 1994 and 1995. Even TV and films of the time commented on this from one character on the Simpsons holding up a sign asking aliens to help him score some Pearl Jam tickets to the Brady Bunch movie where someone says "Forget about Marsha Brady, she's harder to get into than a Pearl Jam concert." While that joke is pretty sexiest in retrospect, it does go to show you that Pearl Jam's battle with Ticketmaster was truly headline news that everyone was following and it's because Pearl Jam was still the biggest band in the world at that point. 

Pearl Jam's battle with Ticketmaster ended up eroding a large portion of their fanbase, but that fanbase had started eroding just before then too due to Pearl Jam themselves. When Ten came out it took a few months for it to take off, but once it did it became a runaway freight train that just kept selling and selling and selling. All of a sudden Pearl Jam went from being nobodies to the biggest band in the world and that scared the crap out of them, especially Eddie Vedder. Pearl Jam realized they couldn't keep up with the pace of their success, because if they tried to, it would not only wear them out, it might lead to disastrous consequences. All the Grunge bands complained about fame and playing the game with the music industry, but Pearl Jam actually did something about it. Pearl Jam didn't want to make music videos anymore even though MTV had been crucial to their breakout success so Pearl Jam stopped making music videos. Pearl Jam didn't want to talk to every single press outlet so they cut back on doing press. Pearl Jam didn't like Ticketmaster's practices, so they took Ticketmaster to court. Pearl Jam always backed up their words in a way that say Kurt Cobain never did. Sure, Kurt would complain about MTV, the press and corporations in general, but he never did anything about it either. Kurt talked the talk, but it was Pearl Jam who always walked the walk. 

Yet, because Pearl Jam actually stood for something, that also meant that they could alienate portions of their mass audience, which is exactly what happened. Ten sold over 11 million copies in the U.S. alone, but by the time the band reached their 4th album No Code 5 years later it only sold a million copies. From that point forward Pearl Jam became a cult band, though to be fair they were the biggest cult band in the world. Kurt on the other hand was a rebel without a cause most of the time, and that is exactly how we like our rebels in this country. We love to stick it to the man without actually doing anything to you know dismantle the patriarchy. Pearl Jam did though and that's why they'll never achieve the eternal coolness of Nirvana, but it's also why I respect Pearl Jam more. They're not whiners, they're doers. 

In the 2000s Pearl Jam's biggest target was George W Bush. On their 2002 album Riot Act they have a song called Bushleager where Eddie doesn't hold back his disgust for the former President. When I saw the band live for the first time, Pearl jam performed Bushleager and there were people in the audience who were not pleased. Yet, it perplexes me that certain listeners of the group are still surprised by Pearl Jam's extremely liberal politics because it's always been there since the beginning. Maybe it's because many of those Gen Xers grew up to be Republican capitalists, who knows. Either way Pearl Jam never backed down on their politics and as the 2000s progressed they released the World Wide Suicide single off of their 2006 self-titled album. World Wide Suicide once again took aim at the President and those in power at the time, though it feels even more fitting in the times we live in now. World Wide Suicide became one of the Pearl Jam's biggest rock radio hits and you have to wonder if the message of the song went over people's heads yet again. 

Of course, another new Pearl Jam album in 2006 meant another world tour and I was definitely excited to see the band again so I got 2 tickets to see Pearl Jam in Boston that summer. I ended up going to the show with a friend from high school and her name was Hannah. Hannah and I became friends my senior year of High School and she had a crush on me, which I suspected pretty early on, but I didn't say anything because I was still in the closet. I suspected she had a crush on me when she told me one day that she went on to Amazon and bought a bunch of used CDs by Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Collective Soul, The Cranberries and more. We both went to prom together and she was the one to ask me to the prom. I eventually told her I was gay the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. She said she kind of already suspected as much, but she was hoping it wasn't true. We still remained good friends though and she was definitely excited to see Pearl Jam with me. 

Now remember this was before GPS was built in our cars so I was going by some directions that a co-worker of my dad’s gave us. This was my first time driving through Boston and let's just say I got REALLY lost. I could not for the life of me figure out how to get to the venue for the Pearl Jam concert. We ended up driving up and down Boston so much that I eventually decided to find the next parking garage, park there, and hail a taxi and tell them to take us to the Fleet Center. We finally made it to the show after that and we only missed the opener thankfully. I ended up enjoying this show even more than the first one, in large part because the band performed some of my all-time favorites that they didn't do at the 2003 show I attended including Alive, Rearviewmirror and Corduroy. They did perform Evenflow at both shows, which is always appreciated since that's probably my favorite Pearl Jam song. I also remember that some of the proceeds from that night's concert were going to a battered women's shelter in Boston, proving once again that Pearl Jam uses every opportunity they have to give back in some way, shape or form. 

That would be the last time I saw Pearl Jam and I'm honestly nor sure why because they were so good at both shows and I really should see them again. All I can think of is that a few years later their Grunge peers started reuniting and playing concerts and I made it a priority to go see Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden because I didn't know if I'd have many more chances to see those bands live. Turns out I was right, at least with Soundgarden and the Scott Weiland led version of Stone Temple Pilots. In 2009 though Pearl Jam released their 9th studio album Backspacer and it was a tighter album that also saw the group having fun and feeling good about life, which is probably because we now had Obama instead of Bush in office. The lead single The Fixer had a full-fledged music video that was played on Vh1 a lot and the song received heavy rotation on rock radio. I remember hearing from some people at work that they loved The Fixer and thought it was Pearl Jam's best single since the early 90s. I consider The Fixer to be the last truly classic Pearl Jam single. 

As the 2010s commenced Pearl Jam celebrated their 20th anniversary with a movie by Cameron Crow about the band's history that was well received by fans and critics alike. Then in 2013 Pearl Jam released their 10th studio album Lightning Bolt. The first singles Mind Your Manners got decent airplay on my local rock station at the time DC101, but it didn't stick around long. As I've mentioned in previous Gay4Grunge articles, the 2010s is when Alternative Rock radio began to phase out newer singles from Grunge and Post Grunge bands, though they continued to play the 90s hits for a while. After that Pearl Jam slowed down in a big way. We wouldn't get a new album until 2020 with Gigaton. Pearl Jam has been so prolific and hard working for their entire career that it was a little strange to think about the seven-year gap between the albums by that point. Gigaton saw Pearl Jam pissed off and angry again and it's probably because the album came out in 2020 and everybody was pissed off by then. 

I will say that for Pearl Jam's last two albums they are not bad, but they feel more like business as usual for Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam is too talented to ever put out a terrible album, but I do feel a bit indifferent to both of those albums if I'm being honest. Still knowing me and my obsession with all things Grunge I'll probably really get into those two albums 10 years from now. Pearl Jam was also about to embark on a world tour for Gigaton, but of course those plans got cancelled thanks to COVID. Still thinking about how long Pearl Jam has been around for, it's crazy to think about how they broke through back when MTV was everything, most people lacked internet and cell phones and Bush senior was President and yet here they are in the midst of COVID, Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, Roe V Wade being repealed by the supreme court and mass shootings happening every day multiples times a day by this point. I'm sure Pearl Jam are horrified with everything that's been happening and disappointed too. Pearl Jam were always crusaders for social justice who did everything they could to help push the needle to the left as far as possible, but the future they dreamed of in the early 90s has now gone down in flames. 

And yet, Pearl Jam has survived for over 30 years now, which is incredible for any rock band but especially for a Grunge band. The fact that Pearl Jam is still here alive and well, proves that they must have done something right. Whether you like the band or not you gotta respect the longevity they've had. A big part of that is their fans with whom they've always had a close connection with (except maybe that guy who spilled his beer all over me). Pearl Jam more than any of the other Grunge bands always felt like the people's band. They were the band that would take a stand and fight for their fans, whether it was with Ticketmaster, Pro-Choice, Gay Marriage or any other cause they felt was worth fighting for. Pearl Jam's biggest fans know this and it's why they've stuck with them through thick and thin for over 3 decades now. Things may look bleak now, but they can get better if you're willing to fight for a better future and to me that perfectly sums up Pearl Jam's philosophy. Pearl Jam will tell you how terrible things are, but then they will guide you on what you can do now to make things better. 

Tune in next week when I begin the first of two countdowns of my favorite Pearl Jam songs. Next week it will be my Top 20 Pearl Jam songs from 1991-1995.