3rd February 2010

Text

case study - pearl jam’s sophomore slump: a project 18 years in the making

The “sophomore slump” is a common refrain in music. The band (or artist) bursts onto the scene with a quality album, a top-to-bottom effort that highlights the band/artist’s unique background and message it wishes to convey. In a great number of cases, this “unique message” is angsty and gutsy as F. The band is lauded as the next big thing, and as their record climbs the charts and their appearances on Letterman and SNL accumulate, the band starts to believe in the image that is being packaged and presented to the world: Visionaries. Deep. Edgy. Unique. Talented.

THEN they go back to the studio to record their second album, the one that’s REALLY going to push them to the stratosphere of stardom. This is where the trouble (usually) starts.

The songs that made up the distinctive first album were written, conceptualized, and developed after dead-end gigs, in cramped tour vans, and in the front garages/living rooms/dark bars on Tuesday afternoons in the band’s quiet, dead-end [enter geographic region here] hometown. The songs that will make up the second album are often written by the pool just after MTV’s Cribs shoots an episode, or after a sold-out show at Staples Center. The songwriting edge is gone. The hunger to express is tapped out. And the fans can tell. (I’m looking in your direction, Sam’s Town.)

In the case of Pearl Jam, this “slump” took a little longer to come along. The band’s first five albums (Ten, Vs., Vitalogy, No Code, and Yield) all charted extraordinarily well, and were acknowledged as expressions of real, tangible twenty-something angst.

While their commercial success faded with the unremarkable releases of Binaural in 2000 and Riot Act in 2002, they fired back with the angsty, anti-Bush and anti-war 2006 release Pearl Jam, which certainly encapsulated what I first fell in love with about Pearl Jam: pissed off, well-structured rock.

Then came 2009’s Backspacer.

As a PJ fan since age 14, I will vouch for any and all of their music to anyone. But I wanted to demonstrate a specific instance of how the prior angst and edge that set them apart has given way to a general tone of satisfaction and ease with the state of the world. In no way is this clearer than the comparison of the lyrics and tone of Yield’s “Wishlist” (1998) and Backspacer’s “The Fixer” (2009).

“Wishlist” is the musings of a broken man: someone who has a pocketful of inadequacies and shortcomings (real or imagined) that spur the creation of a wishlist of things he wishes he could be. “I wish I was the pedal brake that you depended on; I wish I was the verb ‘to trust’ and never let you down,” and - my favorite - “I wish I was a messenger and all the news was good.” Full of the singer’s desires as he pines for self-improvement, “Wishlist” is a forlorn plea for salvation from mediocrity and uselessness. (Music & lyrics are below.)

Eleven years later, and we find “The Fixer” - the polar opposite of the author of the “Wishlist.” Optimistic, energetic, and super-organized, “The Fixer” pledges: “When something’s broke, I wanna put a bit of fixin’ on it.” He follows with, “When something’s lost, I wanna fight to get it back again,” and, most optimistically,
“If there’s no love, I wanna try to love again.” “The Fixer” is not a man who lacks confidence, agency, or determination. At every challenge, he promises to fight to fix it. (Again, music & lyrics are below.)

Nice, positive message? Absolutely. But how much stock can we put in these lyrics from the same group who just 11 years ago solemnly “wish[ed] [it] was a sacrifice but somehow still lived on”?

It seems Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam have certainly settled into a comfort zone; a post-grunge/Generation X/9-11/Bush/Iraq/Katrina place of satisfaction and center-edness. While it may be a nice status to have achieved, it certainly does not make for entertaining, challenging music. Especially if you expected to hear the screeching, wailing, and desperate guitar solos and vocals typical of the kind of music (in Ten, Vs., and Vitalogy) that catapulted Pearl Jam into relevance. “The Fixer” is representative of the rest of the songs on the Backspacer album, and while the album is all-in-all a pleasant, easy, sublime rock ‘n roll ride, that’s not what I pay to hear in Pearl Jam albums.

——-

Pearl Jam - “Wishlist” - Yield (1998)

I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off
I wish I was a sacrifice but somehow still lived on
I wish I was a sentimental ornament you hung on
The Christmas tree, I wish I was the star that went on top
I wish I was the evidence, I wish I was the grounds
For 50 million hands upraised and open toward the sky

I wish I was a sailor with someone who waited for me
I wish I was as fortunate, as fortunate as me
I wish I was a messenger and all the news was good
I wish I was the full moon shining off a Camaro’s hood

I wish I was an alien at home behind the sun
I wish I was the souvenir you kept your house key on
I wish I was the pedal brake that you depended on
I wish I was the verb ‘to trust’ and never let you down

I wish I was a radio song, the one that you turned up
I wish…
I wish…

——-

Pearl Jam - “The Fixer” - Backspacer (2009)

Yeah, hey, hey
When something’s dark, let me shed a little light on it
When something’s cold, let me put a little fire on it
If something’s old, I wanna put a bit of shine on it
When something’s gone, I wanna fight to get it back again

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

When something’s broke, I wanna put a bit of fixin’ on it
When something’s bored, I wanna put a little exciting on it
If something’s low, I wanna put a little high on it
When something’s lost, I wanna fight to get it back again

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

When signals cross, I wanna put a little straight on it
If there’s no love, I wanna try to love again

I’ll say your prayers, I’ll take your side
I’ll find us a way to make light
I’ll dig your grave, we’ll dance and sing
What’s saved could be one last lifetime

hey, hey, hey
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
fight to get it back again, yeah, yeah, yeah
fight to get it back again, yeah, yeah, yeah
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah