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Pearl Jam

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Pearl Jam is an American rock band, formed in 1990 in Seattle. The guitarist Stone Gossard and the bassist Jeff Ament started afresh with the guitarist Mike McCready after Andrew Wood, the singer of their band Mother Love Bone, died in 1990. Via the drummer Jack Irons, their demo tape ended up with Eddie Vedder, a singer from San Diego, who sang lyrics over it and sent it back. Together with Nirvana, Pearl Jam became the best-known band of the Seattle grunge scene.

Music and breakthrough

The band was first called Mookie Blaylock, after a basketball player, and the debut album Ten (August 1991) is named after his jersey number. Ten sounds less raw than Nirvana. The guitars are heavy but clear, the songs long, and Vedder sings low and full. The first single, Alive, was released in July 1991. Gossard had written the music as an instrumental piece back in 1990; Vedder wrote a partly autobiographical lyric for it, about a boy who discovers that his father is in fact his stepfather. Ten spent almost five years on the American album chart and peaked at number 2. Its successor Vs. (1993) sold more than 950,000 copies in its first week, a record at the time.

Influence

Pearl Jam stood closer to the rock of the 1970s than other grunge bands. In 1994 the group filed a complaint with the American Department of Justice against the ticket seller Ticketmaster, in order to keep service fees low for fans. The investigation came to nothing. In 2017 Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in the first year it was eligible.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to the end of Alive: after the last chorus Mike McCready takes over with a long, melodic guitar solo, as rock bands did in the 1970s. McCready has said that he borrowed that solo largely from Ace Frehley of Kiss.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Mentioned in other articles

See also

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (en): Pearl Jam
  2. Wikipedia (en): Eddie Vedder
  3. rollingstone.com
  4. Wikipedia (en): Alive (Pearl Jam song
  5. kiro7.com
Categories: ArtistsGrunge