Anyone that follows my Twitter, has met me in person, or has basically traded any kind of contact with me, knows that I'm a Pearl Jam fan. It's all to a bit of an embarrassing degree, really, but I simply can't help myself.
Anyways, with the band recently releasing their 10th studio album and my heading to Seattle soon to see them (see?) I thought now as good a time as any to rank their studio albums from best to worst. Let's get started
10. Riot Act – If you subtract all the bonus tracks and gaps
between hidden tunes, Riot Act is Pearl Jam’s longest album by a good margin.
It’s also their most politically damning piece thanks to Half Full and
Bushleager. On top of that it holds some of the group’s darkest, heaviest songs
in the form of Save You and All or None. Only one beacon of positive energy
interrupts the middle of the record – the twinkling, magical I Am Mine and the beautifully
soothing Thumbing My Way.
All that goes to say that Riot Act is something of a drag.
Individually, a lot of its songs are very strong. In fact, the haunting pace of
All Or None makes for one of the band’s best. But it’s not balanced right – the
songs that should be more upbeat lack punch. Ghost and Cropduster are dull
sounding tunes that come and go without making any kind of impression. There
are 15 songs to learn here, and you can’t help but feel Riot Act would have
been a lot stronger with a handful of them cut off.
9. Binaural – The highest praise I could give Binaural would
be to call it a mixed bag, but in truth it’s kind of a mostly-mediocre bag.
Standout tracks here include the heart breaking Light Years, the painfully
sarcastic Soon Forget and the enlightening Parting Ways, which watches a
relationship do just that in a sort of self-aware glory.
But elsewhere Binaural just seems to fall short of any of
the five albums that preceded it. There’s no No Code-style identity and no
Vs-enthused rocking, just a collection of songs that pale in comparison to
those earlier works. It’s not an especially bad piece of work, just a rather
forgettable one.
Fortunately, it’s pretty much where the mediocrity stops.
8. Pearl Jam – Coming off of the last two albums, the self-titled
eight album makes up lost ground at a lightning pace. From the first five
seconds of Life Wasted you can tell the band have gone back to basics and are
now charging onwards. That trend carries right through the stomping World Wide
Suicide and ferocious Comatose. In fact, it doesn’t really stop until the band
says it does with the light-headed musings of Parachutes.
But the album doesn’t over-simplify itself with loud bangs
and conventional ballads. Mike McCready’s Inside Job closes out the record with
startling complexity and technical accomplishment. It slips up once or twice in
its running time, but Pearl Jam is, for the most part, a big toothy grin of a
return to form.
7. Lightning Bolt – When a band has been around for over twenty
years, made nine studio albums prior along with collections and literally
hundreds of live albums, it’s a wonder something like Lightning Bolt can still
be achieved. Lightning Bolt shows Pearl Jam as their most comfortable with an
all-round solid rocker of an album. Getaway proves they haven’t lost their edge
for anger-induced thuds, but then Mind Your Manners comes along and suggests,
if anything, they’re better at it than they’ve ever been.
Even the albums more conventional slower songs are among
their best. Sirens is a hypnotic five minutes of ups and downs while Yellow
Moon is perfect company for a relaxing stroll in the dreary end-of-year
weather. And then the band pulls something like Pendulum out and shows that
they’re still full of surprises. Lightning Bolt is a reassurance that Pearl Jam
are going to keep churning out quality music for years to come
.
6. Backspacer – Sitting in between the last two entrants,
Backspacer is the shortest, punchiest PJ album going. It’s the most fun record
the group has put out, offering up head-thrashingly excellent fast-paced
rockers like Gonna See My Friend and Supersonic and even charming power pop in
the likes of The Fixer.
It’s easily the most uplifting of all of the band’s works. You
can practically feel the wind rushing up behind you and carrying you off during
the breezy Amongst the Waves and Force of Nature. Even when it bids farewell
with the humble The End, you can’t help but hold a knowing smile as it tells a
tale of separation. Quirkier than Lightning Bolt, but all the more loveable as
a result.
5. Ten – Few albums run from stone cold killer hit to hit
like Ten does. Nothing need be said about the likes of Alive and Even Flow,
which are immortal sounds that overwhelm entire stadiums and festivals. Then
there’s the loveable pairing of Black and Porch that, although separated on the
album, seem to go hand-in-hand at the best live concerts as stunning reminders
of just what a powerful band this is.
The whole record has an ‘airy’ feeling to it, carried by
Vedder’s voice. It’s yet to distinguish itself like it will in Vs, but
compliments McCready’s epic solos and Ament’s strumming bass. To tie a bow on
it all is Release, one of the most empowering, accomplished songs ever burned
onto a disc. All told, it’s easy to see why Ten made such an impact back at the
start of the 90s.
4. Yield – No Code goes half the way to being a mellow Pearl
Jam album, but Yield makes the full trip. Aside from the body-convulsing Brain
of J and the incredible mix of sarcasm, anger and frustration that is Do The
Evolution, this is easily the band’s most laid-back album. It’s back half is
rousing collection of easy-going treats from the homely Low Light to MFC, a
song that feels like it was made for the rainy Isle of Wight festival setting
that I first saw it played.
Given to Fly also manages to stand out all on its own as a
glorious ballad, but it’s All those Yesterdays’ easy-going build up that’s the
star of the show. Just because their taking things slowly, doesn’t make Pearl
Jam any less great.
3. No Code – Four albums in and Pearl Jam made their biggest
distinction yet. The evolution from Ten to Vs to Vitalogy is clear to see but
when No Code throws Sometimes and Who You Are at you, you have to check you’re
listening to the same band. This is a record that goes from
strength-to-strength, showing the band getting as close to metal as they’ll
ever be with Habit and the essential Lukin, while displaying some of their most
intelligent and confident song writing in the form of Off He Goes and Present
Tense.
At 13 tracks, it’s easy to forget just how many wonders No
Code holds. If you’ve got Red Mosquito in your head all day you’ll be overjoyed
when you remember that something as incredible as Smile is just a few tracks
back. No Code is a triumph of a band that was starting to mature past its younger
beginnings.
2. Vs – VS makes a great case for the top of the list in
just its first two songs. Go and Animal are so energetic, emotion-fuelled and
all round groovy that they’ll never fail to get you singing along with all your
heart. And it doesn’t let up from there – some of the band’s most unstoppable
stompers like Blood and Leash are mixed in with tunes that could be from an entirely
different set of people.
Elderly Woman is a joyous sing along for anyone with a
degree of happiness in their life, while Indifference is one of the band’s most
unique, haunting and all-round memorable ballads. When it wants to be, Vs is
Pearl Jam at its most aggressive, at its most experimental, and, more often
than not, at its best.
1. Vitalogy – Every time the drum beat of Last Exit paves
the way for Vitalogy to take control of my life, I smile. Every. Single. Time.
More than any other album, Vitalogy mixes things up and
tries out new, successful sounds. One moment you’re thrashing around to the mad
genius of Spin the Black Circle, the next you’re pouring your heart out to
Nothingman. Without its final track, it’s
47 minutes and 13 tracks worth of masterful, youthful, energetic, sarcastic,
self-aware, soulful music.
Bugs shows them not afraid to be downright weird in the face
of overwhelming popularity and Corduroy shows you what earned them that fame. Not
For You gives voice to an entire generation, while Satan’s Bed is an audible
scarecrow for anyone not in the same mindset as the band. Whipping will crank
your neck back and forth for the rest of your life and Betterman will be sung
for the rest of time.
Pearl Jam has made many a great achievement. Viatlogy is its
biggest.
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