This is one of those posts where I don't mean for it to be bait whatsoever, I am being totally genuine here, but with the reaction I've gotten for stating this opinion throughout my life, I figured I'd start with thatI do not like Pearl Jam at all, save for a song or two I think are good, I like the song Black quite a bit and I heard another song I can't remember the name of once that I thought was alright. But every single time I try to listen to this band's discography, I hate it. At one point, I wanted to like Pearl Jam and listened to Ten a ton to try to acclimate myself to the album like I've done with many others I had an initial sour taste to. I thought it was annoying. If every band from the 90s is Red Hot Chili Peppers but more or less annoying on a spectrum, Pearl Jam is on the lower end of that spectrum. However, I still find Pearl Jam to be annoying and uninspiring.
Am I just too young to understand them? There are a lot of vocalists I don't understand that I like because of how they use their voice as an instrument, but I find how Vedder using his vocals absolutely indecipherable. Someone will hear some lyrics from him and be like "damn I felt that" when I didn't understand a goddamn word Vedder had said. I've listened to a lot of grunge, really love The Smashing Pumpkins and Dinosaur Jr. the most because I'm also a lover of dream pop and shoegaze. I should be okay with Veddar having indecipherable vocals, it just seems like they way he does it is stupid.
If you guys have any suggestions for Pearl Jam songs you think I'll like, feel free to comment them, I'm not going to just be a shithead. I'd also appreciate hearing what you guys specifically appreciate about the group or the song you comment. I feel like I'm missing so much context with how many people I like also being Pearl Jam fans, but maybe I'm not missing anything and other people also agree with how annoying they are?
help hexbear
If you want to give it another shot, in addition to some of the more iconic songs (black, even flow, daughter, alive) there are a few just below that level that you might like (go, corduroy, dissident, given to fly, yellow Ledbetter). But the real way to give them a shot is to watch their full concerts from the first couple years when they were together. Specifically, watch the pink pop performance from the Netherlands in the early 90s. That will give you a better idea of what the actual experience was like for people that had been, at that time, given nothing but boomer rock and other things that denied the reality of the shit sandwich Gen X was being served. If that doesn’t at least pique your interest a bit more, then they really aren’t for you and that’s ok.
The people in here saying they are a bad copy of nirvana or that can’t forgive them because of the shitty imitators that tried to ride their coattails are off base in my opinion. On the former, it’s like they heard that one clip of Kurt Cobain trashing Eddie Vedder and decided to run with it (and apparently ignored Kurt’s later retractions and apologies about that, admitting that he was essentially being an edge lord shithead, which he had a really bad tendency to be). On the latter, Creed sucked but that’s has nothing to do with Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam other than the fact that they basically cribbed off of their sound and image sort of but badly. That would be like not liking The Simpsons because you think Family Guy is bad.