Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam

Vitalogy

Epic

I was really apprehensive about buying Pearl Jam's Vitalogy. I wasn't sure I liked the musical direction in which Vedder and Sons were going. Ten was a seething mass of passion, as if someone had figured out how to lay down human tears and screams on a recording track, but Vs. seemed too preoccupied with funky grooves and the like. I really like Vs., but it took quite a while for it to grow on me.

But anyway, I digress. The point is that after all my anxieties, I liked Vitalogy after the first listen. "Better man," "Corduroy" and "Nothingman" easily stand out as the best tracks on the record. "Nothingman" recaptures some of Ten's brooding rawness. "Better man" makes good use of Rule Number One from Kurt Cobain's School of Songwriting: Begin grungy hit single with subdued guitar and hushed lyrics. Continue through first verse of song. As second verse commences, instruct drummer to pound the bejesus out of kit, turn up amps, scream. Vedder also cribs from Inside Edition's Number One Rule of How to Make Popular Pieces of Entertainment: Wife beating is hot. Yet Vedder easily sidesteps the melodrama involved and instead paints a somewhat stark, somewhat poignant story of domestic abuse: "She lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man. She dreams in colors, she dreams in red." And my buddy's got a little "Better man" game you can play: "See, because the line's, like, in blank verse/iambic pentameter, you can say it after any sentence and it sounds good." (Ok, so it was me who figured out the pentameter part, but I didn't want him to sound like too much of an idiot.)

"Corduroy" is my hands-down favorite. It totally rocks in that rolling, Dave Matthews kind of beat, and it's really melodic and is a good sing-along song. I also like the line "I don't wanna take what you can get. I would rather starve than eat your bread."

"Bugs" is the True Romance of the album: you either totally love it or totally hate it. Guess which side I'm on by the following clues: a) the only instrument is an accordion, b) it's got no melody even by an accordionist's standards, c) the lyrics go something like "I've got bugs in my ears, bugs in my head, should I kill them?" and Vedder sounds lobotomized. If this computer would let me, I'd write the answer upside-down like they do on the backs of cereal boxes, but it won't so I'll just tell you that I like it.

Let's see, the only other thing worth commenting on is the last thing on the album. On the CD, it's called "hey foxymophandlemama, that's me," but if you're that other person I've heard about who bought it on cassette it's just called "stupidmop." Anyway, it's about seven minutes of experimental junk, the kind that make Andy Warhol and Iggy Pop scratch their heads and go, "Man, that's fucked up." There's some kid who reminds me of the Piano girl talking throughout the track saying things like "I like spanking because you have to get closer to the other person." It's a noble effort but the song is still worthless: as a joke, as something meaningful, as something worth not skipping (or fast forwarding, as the case may be.)