With the end of the decade approaching, its about time to evaluate what has made it exciting. Ten records for ten years, not that this means every year will be represented, necessarily. The term best has been precluded by favourite as that makes it a bit more subjective. Which is nice. So, onwards and upwards, in no particular order. To start us off,
an under-appreciated gem...
Pearl Jam -
Binaural
Not a surprise. The second best rock album of the decade saw Eddie Vedder and the crew at the peak of their powers with an album that distils all of the band's influences to create something that wouldn't be out of place in the back catalogues of Pink Floyd or The Who.
Sleight of Hand is a brooding, sonic masterpiece that ebbs and flows like cross-town traffic, culminating in a crescendo of Vedder's cracked vocal and wailing guitars; it sounds like it could knock down buildings.
Breakerfall is over before its even begun, a smash'n'grab track, swirling by in a cluster of charged aggression and pinpoint noise.
"When we looked up the word 'binaural,' it meant to listen with both ears. So it seemed like a fitting title for the album" /
Stone GossardBinaural sees Gossard produce some of his best work on a Pearl Jam album, in terms of feelings as well as riffs. Gossard creates polar opposites in
Thin Air and
Rival; as
Thin Air explores the emotional release of being in love,
Rival is Gossard reflecting, an attempt to understand the mindset of a killer and those they touch, on the barren aftermath of
the Columbine massacre.
While the naysayers would point to tracks such as
Gods' Dice or
Evacuation as a sign of the album's inconsistency, it is worth understanding the fragility of the band in the face of uncertainty and change, something which is approached in both
Light Years and
Nothing as It Seems. While
Gods' Dice is by no means Jeff Ament's key contribution to Pearl Jam's history (that would be
Nothing As It Seems), the swirling mess it became is emblematic of a band cutting loose and playing their full hand.
"There is a lot of music out there that is very easy to digest but we never wanted to be part of it" / Eddie VedderThis is not to say that the album didn't suffer a troubled genesis. Jack Irons' departure saw Pearl Jam recruit their fourth drummer in six albums, former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, whilst lead guitarist Mike McCready went into rehab for an addiction to prescription drugs. To top it all off, Vedder had the music for the songs that would become
Insignificance and
Grievance, but no lyrics. Nothing was forthcoming. Vedder swore himself off the guitar, then he set eyes on a ukelele...
Soon Forget would be forgotten, sandwiched as it is between
Sleight of Hand and the focussed, destructive distortion of
Parting Ways, but for its innocent uke jangle,
Soon Forget is betrayed by a darker set of lyrics as Vedder waves goodbye to a man of destitute greed. He holds wealth, but he is a man without purpose, truly insignificant.
At the prompting of producer Tchad Blake (
Binaural was the first Pearl Jam album not produced by Brendan O'Brien), the album focusses wholeheartedly on moods and feelings, whether those are the highest highs (
Thin Air) or the crushing lows (
Light Years,
Parting Ways). Indeed, the mood of fan favourite
Sad (originally called
Letter to the Dead) was deemed too "
pop" by the band, according to Ament, and was cut, as was the Blake-endorsed
Fatal. Although both of these tracks would get the eventual release they deserved on
Lost Dogs, its difficult to see how the album could have been considered poorer for the inclusion of these songs. A straight swap with
Gods' Dice and
Evacuation would see little argument about which is Pearl Jam's best studio album - Binaural by a knockout.
Binaural's
original tracklisting:
01
Breakerfall02
Insignificance03
Evacuation04
Letter to the Dead (Later renamed
Sad)
05
Rival *
06
Grievance07
Light Years08
Of the Girl *
09
Thin Air10
Nothing as It Seems *
11
Fatal12
Sleight of Hand *
13
Soon Forget *
14
In the Moonlight15
Parting Ways16
Education* indicates use of binaural recording
The pressed album certainly flows better, but whether this is due to familiarity is not so clear. At sixteen tracks, however, a cull was inevitable, as 2002's
Riot Act feels bloated at fifteen; as above, whether the right tracks remained in place is an issue of personal preference, but the album's quality remains undiminished. The Guardian's dismissal of the album's "duds" in its 2000 review could well include tracks like
Grievance and
Rival, but the anger and emotion that is prevalent in the tracks lifts them high above
Gods' Dice or
Evacuation; as Vedder wails on
Grievance, "
you don't give blood, then take it back again. We're all deserving something more".
"Because Mike wasn't all there, and there was a 'get-to-know-you' thing with Matt, everyone wasn't on the same page" / Stone GossardThe evolution of Pearl Jam has continued because of their embrace of the past and a burning hope for a better future and this is apparent in the use of binaural recording techniques on some of the songs, one of the most successful of which is the Gossard-penned
Of the Girl. A love story brimming with sweeping guitars that sound like trains edging away from a station platform, a juddering, bluesy mid-section sees the occasional jams of a Pearl Jam live show brought into the studio. Small tremblings of guitar not dissimilar to Jimi Hendrix echo all over the backdrop; like finding buried treasure.
Of The Girl is full of mystery, even after the seven or so years that I've been listening to
Binaural, I've never truly gotten to the bottom of the track, never completely discerned just what it is that creates such an air of abstract detachment that draws you in completely, not unlike the album itself.
"The reason that we went with Tchad Blake is because he provides an amazing atmosphere to songs.... So, I think we wanted the artwork to represent that" / Jeff AmentThe emptiness of giant spaces and the feeling of being a miniscule something within them prompted the use of photographs from NASA's Hubble Telescope for the album's cover, inserts and liner notes. Examining these with a soundtrack of
Nothing As It Seems creates a dense, crushing feeling that Pearl Jam never captured before or since, encapsulated by Vedder's mutter,
"a scratching voice all alone, its nothing like your baritone".
Ultimately, as highlighted by the selection below,
Binaural is about a band examining a new direction, and although Pearl Jam didn't reinvent themselves to the extent that Radiohead did with
Kid A, the progression from
Yield, a balls-out rock'n'roll album, to an introspective work full of elongated tracks and spacial arrangements (the beautiful juxtaposition of April Cameron's viola and Justine Foy's cello against the guitars on
Parting Ways) helped Pearl Jam to create their most atmospheric work.
A fractured, aching masterpiece.
The true meaning of Light Years
