When Pearl Jam hit it big in the summer of 1992 thanks to the never ending airplay of Jeremy from their debut album, Ten, the band didn't realize what was happening. This resulted in the band fighting what lead singer Eddie Vedder described as a kind of fight for the band's privacy. But any privacy the band gained back in the few months it took to record their second album, Vs., was lost when said album sold nearly a million copies in it's first week on store shelves.
At this point the biggest band in the world, Pearl Jam struggled even more with their fame. They did things out of the box, such as not making videos, not that it affected record sales much, as radio gave almost the entire Vs album decent amounts of airplay. But with Kurt Cobain's suicide in April of '94, things really got bleak for the band.
As tensions rose, Vedder took to himself, composing many of the songs that would form the band's third record, Vitalogy, with minimal input from other band members. While the band played most of Vitalogy live on their spring 94 tour, the band was decidedly not healthy. Vedder was a wreck, and his problems with drummer Dave Abbrusseze, who embraced fame and popularity, escalated in the band firing Dave A in the fall of 1994 (Abbrusseze managed to record the drums for Vitalogy before leaving though). The band would bring in longtime Vedder friend and former drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jack Irons, to replace Abbrusseze, and effectively save the band from imploding from within..
So that brings us to what Vitalogy is and is not. It is not, despite the presence of a couple of arena rockers, another Ten or Vs.. It is not as experimental as the album that would follow it, 1996's No Code. It is also not nearly as straight ahead as 1998's Yield.
What Vitalogy is is an amalgam of rock and punk rock, deftly showing off the band's influences (The Who, Buzzcocks etc) while maintaining a fiery original spirit. It is in many cases, a band playing on the edge: the edge of breakup, breakdown, and everything in between.
Beginning with about 15 seconds of tuning and soundchecking (for lack of a better description), you are then thrown straight into the pounding drum intro for Last Exit, a rocker that seems to make reference to Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain's suicide ("3 days, not much longer, won't ever find me here"), including a reference in the liner notes to how "If one cannot control his life, will he be driven to control his death?"
The barrage doesn't let up either. Spin the Black Circle rages forward with immense punk intensity, although we should get something straight right now: this song is NOT about drug use ("see this needle, see my hand, drop drop dropping it down, oh so slowly!"), but it is rather a tribute from Vedder to his love of vinyl (a love of vinyl that would create history with this album; it was released on vinyl two weeks prior to being released on CD, and entered the chart at #55, dropping to #178 in week two, and then making the biggest one week jump to #1 in history thanks to the CD release).
The band gave a nationwide preview of Not For You on the April 1994 broadcast of Saturday Night Live, and while the song is more mid-tempo than anything, it has bite and is one of Vedder's harshest rails against fame and the fair weather fans that came to dominate the band's 1993 and 1994 tours (in a related sidenote, Vedder would constantly dedicate this song on the 1994 Spring tour to ticket scalpers making a quick buck on the band's popularity).
Of course, most people know Vitalogy because of the two big hit singles it generated, including by far the biggest hit the band has ever had (sorry Last Kiss). Better Man was a song written by Vedder as a teenager, but it began it's Pearl Jam resurrection in 1993 when the band started playing it live. It's a simple pop song about the stress of staying in an abusive relationship because the woman doesn't think she can do any better ("she lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man").
The other huge hit off this record was Corduroy, an arena-ready rocker that has a great buildup and one of the best opening lines ever ("The waiting drove me mad!"). Corduroy refers to Vedder's brown corduroy jacket, and how sheik corduroy jackets became when Pearl Jam blew up big. It's another song railing against fame and the things that come with it ("can't buy what I want because it's free").
Perhaps the most haunting number on the album is Immortality, a song debuted just days after Cobain's body was found and long thought to be about Cobain, despite Vedder's denials ("scrawl disolved, cigar box on the floor" is one line that stands out as being in direct reference to Kurt's body being found). I love the dense dark tone on Vedder's guitar on this track. The other ballad on the album, bassist Jeff Ament's Nothingman, is a lush, gorgeous ballad with some unbelievable imagery. I took my title from the song, and the bridge is to die for.
There are a couple of other heavy rockers to be found on the disc (Whipping is intense and fiery, Satan's Bed sounds like a demo). And the only real disappointment in terms of an actual song on the disc can be applied to TremorChrist, which tries so hard to sound somewhat psychedelic but comes up rather empty in my eyes.
Many people were turned off by this album due to the little experimental things the band threw in throughout the album. While Vedder playing accordian on Bugs remains to this day my favorite Pearl Jam tongue in cheek moment (Oh come on, sell 16 million records and just LOOK at what your record company will let you put on an album!), the other tracks, like the annoying Pry To and Aye Davanita kind of get in the way of the album flowing like it could. And don't even get me started on Hey Foxymophandlemama, That's Me, also known as Stupid Mop, which is just creepy as hell.
That being said, Vitalogy is a solid album outside of TremorChrist and the experimental stuff. It is truly close to being a five star album, but the weird tracks break up the flow that a truly cohesive "album" would have. That being said, it is as close to a true concept album the band would have (the packaging and some of the liner notes are based on an old medical book called Vitalogy, which cost the band a pretty penny to get the rights to reprint), and while not their best, it definitely belongs in the collection of the casual Pearl Jam fan.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.