All that grunge fun was stuff, but I guess it's over now.
Now that Pearl Jam has faded into irrelevance, I suppose the so-called grunge movement will finally be buried by the media. Actually, no one in Seattle was actually dressing "grunge" when the phenomenon raged nationwide; I was told by folks in the Emerald City that flannel went out of style long before national magazines started touting it as high fashion. Typical.
First, a bit of background before I get the Pearl Jam obituary. Back in the early '80s, the media jumped all over a fairly modest single called "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by an unheralded Seattle trio named Nirvana. Suddenly this new so-called alternative sound, dominated by what the media termed "grunge" was everywhere.
At that time in the early '90s, pundits held up the Big Trinity of Grunge: Nirvana, the band that broke it wide open; Soundgarden, who were the most established; and Pearl Jam, who they said could be, eventually, the most popular of the three.
There was some truth to that prediction. Of course, much of it came true because Kurt Cobain took what he thought was an easy way out of a world he no longer enjoyed. The results of Kurt's suicide include two very sad side effects - 1)we'll never know what other work he could have produced, especially through his budding friendship with Michael Stipe, and 2) it unleashed, in full force, the unpleasant product known as Courtney Love into a world that has shown her far more sympathy (and ink) than she may deserve.
Then Soundgarden, the most talented of the Big Three, split unceremoniously, taking more steam from the grunge movement.
This just left Pearl Jam.
At one point, that would have been fine. "Ten" and "Vs." were a pair of superb albums. With that start, you would think the sky would have been the limit.
It wasn't.
Many of us saw the beginning of the end, and may have not known it at the time. Pearl Jam played with Neil Young at the MTV Video Music Awards, and their lack of class was revealed by their juxtaposition with the rock legend. Granted, Neil Young will never win any Mr. Congeniality awards, but he has done things his way throughout out his career and done it with a certain bearing that has made him a rock icon.
While Young performed his heart out (as usual), Eddie Vedder spent most of the set clutching - and occasionally swigging from - a liquor bottle, while seeming generally out of it. At the end of the song, one of Pearl Jam's guitarists started smashing stage equipment. OK, The Who smashed guitars, and Jimi Hendrix burned them, but if you can't top their acts, you're better off donating your equipment to someone who needs it as opposed to demolishing it pointlessly on national TV. Pearl Jam showed they had brass, but not class.
But the real blow to any reputation they had as musicians was yet to come. It came in the form of their alleged third album, "Vitalogy," which was actually one of the crueler hoaxes perpetuated on the American public in recent memory. The disappointing album, half of which resembled drunken outtakes, pretty much shot their cred with any intelligent fans who expected a real set of listenable tunes. I would have sold my copy to a used CD store years ago, except most shops have a backlog of returned copies of the CD, so the market won't bear any more. Like carrying coal to Newcastle, as it were.
Their visibility declined as they stopped making videos. Their stand against TicketMonster, while very admirable, doomed their chances at a successful tour, and live appearances became ever rarer.
Even though people actually bought their next two CDs, "Yield" and "No Code," the band's profile and relevance continued to shrink.
Maybe their most recent last gasp at redemption was the holiday-timed release of their live album, "Live On Two Legs." A live album by a supposedly popular band that people could rarely see live seems like a home run, right?
Wrong. Or should I say, Whiff!
That vaunted CD never reached higher than #15 on the album chart (The Dave Matthews Band's live release, on the other hand, debuted a year earlier near the top of the chart). By its fourth week, it had sunk like a stone to #49 on the Billboard chart. Maybe "Live With No Legs" would have been a better title.
So with Pearl Jam going the way of The Starland Vocal Band, the question is: ARE THERE ANY LESSONS WE CAN LEARN FROM IT ALL?
One lesson, which applies to both the so-called grunge movement and Pearl Jam is that once the media has bought into something, it immediately becomes passe and is doomed to fail. Makes me feel bad for this new swing movement, because I actually find that music enjoyable.
Another point to be heeded is that no one is above their fans. If you stop touring and put out crappy albums, loyal fans can turn into your biggest critics. Call it quits (or shoot yourself) before you publicly decline.
Finally, everybody - whatever their milieu - should continue to grow and expand their horizons. Pearl Jam's rut of having Eddie mumble the verses and then scream the chorus got old in a real hurry. Nothing new dawned under their sun, and night eventually fell on them. No matter your lot in life, being satisfied with ordinary work just isn't enough any more.
Grunge was fun, in a kind of masochistic way, in its time. Goodbye, flannel! So long, churling angst! Ciao to mass-marketing cynicism as product!
Speaking of products, anybody want to buy a barely used copy of "Vitalogy," cheap? Really cheap?