Pearl Jam - Backspacer

Pearl Jam are one of those bands – their fans follow them with a fervour most artists can only dream of, as the rapturous reception of their epic, August gig at the O2 showed. But, for the majority of people Pearl Jam are a band who haven’t mattered since 1994 and the death of grunge with its poster boy, Kurt Cobain. The problem is that too many people still agree with the Nirvana frontman’s opinion, that Pearl Jam were nothing more than a corporate-rock cash-in on Seattle’s Generation X explosion – an opinion shared by certain British music magazines for too long now. Their many critics conveniently overlook the succession of fantastic, progressive albums that the band has produced since their 1991 debut, Ten. It is, perhaps, a slightly blinkered attitude to judge a band solely on the basis of a debut, which itself is consistently misunderstood. The band’s evident influences from classic rock in a movement more indebted to punk, worked against them at the time, despite the fact that Nirvana themselves played “Heartbreaker”, by Led Zeppelin, as a live staple throughout their early years. What too many people missed, or preferred to overlook, were the evocative themes and great songs behind what was probably an unfortunately produced album.

From Vs to their eponymous effort of 2006, Pearl Jam have produced deep and moving albums covering themes both personal and political, albums which were honest and gracious without the meaningless posturing of too many bands of recent times. Backspacer, their most recent release, is perhaps the album which can change one opinion of the band as grumpy, old ex-alt-rockers. From the surf-punk opening of first track, “Gonna See My Friend”, to the shivering closer, “The End”, Backspacer is the sound of a band revelling in the companionship and joy of playing music together - Eddie Vedder even sounds happy! While, dissatisfaction and a feeling of “us against the world”, has always been integral to the Pearl Jam sound, this time round the true heirs to the title, “The Last Gang in Town”, have put their battles behind them and made an album for themselves and it sounds incredible. “Got Some” is a perfect slice of melodic punk seeing Mike McCready in explosive form as Vedder howls the lyrics with passion, while “The Fixer” is probably the poppiest song the band have ever done and that is by no means a bad thing as it sounds electrifying. Perhaps the highlight for this reviewer is “The End”, a contemplation of the fleeting nature of mortality and an achingly beautiful song with the fragility and frailty of its subject matter.

There is a slightly ominous side note to this album though, as the listener experiences the silence following the closing track. Backspacer sounds suspiciously like a goodbye, with its themes of hope, joy and parting culminating in a song entitled “The End”. We can only pray this is not the case because if they continue to produce records this good and this imbued with life, modern music would miss them greatly. Backspacer is the shortest album Pearl Jam have put out so far, clocking in at just over thirty-six minutes in length, but the band pack as much into that time as possible. The songs are exceptional, the passion still burns with as much fire as ever and although Pearl Jam are not exactly breaking new ground with this record, if this is what the old ground sounds like then I’m very happy to be staying there.

Problems of a Digital Age

As techies’ whispers echo across the boundless expanse of cyberspace, that a Spotify-killer has been spawned in the great halls of Google…don’t you just love the dramatic terms that technological news bulletins use? A Spotify-killer? It creates an image of the internet sensation of 2009 as a great and brutal Goliath, ruling a virtual kingdom, pillaging villages and stealing all the best music for itself - like some King Kong stealing La Roux away to the top of a digital skyscraper – with Google’s new LaLa streaming service running around in sandals with a virtual sling. Spotify does seem to have somewhat of a monopoly on the digitally streamed music market however, and to top it all off, they’ve gone and done what every other new media project has done: they’ve got themselves an app for the iPhone. Now at the risk of sounding like a utter luddite I have absolutely no clue what Google’s new LaLa system does, other than the fact that it has a vaguely amusing name; much like Boris Johnson – he’s quite funny but I have no idea what he’s for.

But I don’t really want to talk about LaLa because I won’t understand why it’s better or worse, and because I quite like Spotify: if all its claims about paying artists for their songs, and about combating piracy are true, it’s probably a good thing at a time of dwindling music sales. In my last job, I pretty much listened exclusively to Spotify with certain artists and playlists on shuffle and, for that, it’s perfect. My problem with it is one that verges on being one of those mind-numbing “back-in-the-day” rants that men, who you only thought existed in Last of the Summer Wine, subject you to in the pub at closing time. Just like my parents experienced the joy of buying a vinyl record and opening it up to all the artwork and detail that came with Electric Ladyland or Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, I still remember the shiver of pleasure I got ripping the cellophane off the CD that I had just bought and placing it, almost reverently, into the stereo for the first time. I would sit there and listen to it while reading the album sleeve, whether it was reading the lyrics, or looking at the artwork.

The convenience of having Spotify or iTunes just a click away is something that is very easy to succumb to. Indeed, I used iTunes almost exclusively in my last year of university, and with Spotify on phones, who needs an iPod? And of course there’s nothing wrong with this as long the artists still get paid, because, while there are those who would argue that art should be free and available to anyone, those people need to drag themselves out of their posturing bohemianism and respect the amount of work that recording and touring musicians put in, to get their art out there. As Frank Turner put it, “recording isn't free, instruments aren't free, session players, producers, engineers, artists aren't free”¹. However, that’s not what this discussion is about, and I don’t want to argue there is anything wrong with legal media for listening to music and discovering new artists. What I would say though, is that at the end of that year, I had just finished my dissertation and had some time to kill, in which I ordered a CD on a whim - The Gaslight Anthem, The’59 Sound - and I experienced that almost childish sensation again: I sat in my rather dreary student living room with a beer, took a breath and removed the packaging. I placed the CD on the wheel, hit ‘play’ and took out the album sleeve. For an afternoon, I rediscovered that feeling of really listening to a new CD - not while I was driving, not while I was working on anything else - just listening to great music. So next time you’re on iTunes getting your next hit of whatever it is you listen to, remember what listening to a CD for that first special time felt like and maybe consider trying that again, because if people stop buying CDs, the little things, like the artwork, like the anticipation as the wheel starts to spin will disappear and I hope that, like me, you think that would be a very sad thing.

¹Frank Turner, http://www.frank-turner.com/2009_08_01_archive.html