Hello again, this is my fourth album review and today I will go back, back to 1991. The debut album of a Seattle based newly-formed Pearl Jam. Now Pearl Jam had a weird composition with musicians from all over the place coming together to work on this project. Ex Mother Love Bone members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament alongside a guitarist Mike McCready formed a band and later recruited a vocalist Eddie Vedder and a drummer Dave Krusen. That was the original Pearl Jam line up. The band originally named themselves Mookie Blaylock by the New Jersey Nets player at the time. Later they changed their name to Pearl Jam but they named their debut album Ten by the number that Blaylock was wearing at the time.
I will be focusing on the main album disregarding the bonus tracks.
The album starts of incredibly strong with Once. Now this song is the most chaotic song on this album even though you have to wait 45 seconds for the song to kick in it's still a great choice for an opening song. Vedder shows all of his vocal capabilities and this song perfectly captures what the entire album will be: Catchy riffs and powerful vocals.
After that we go into Even Flow. Even Flow was the second single of this album. There are some deeper and cleaner vocals than the opening song. The chorus is extremely catchy and the guitar work in the solo is really good. It's that kind of song where everything kind of fits together. I am kind of disappointed that there wasn't a bridge after the solo, but hey, you can't have everything. The band said that this was a hardest song to record and that they weren't satisfied with the end product even though they had 60-70 takes to record the song.
Then we get to Alive. Now, Alive was the first single and a lot of people embraced this song as their anthem. Vedder later stated that the song was about a mother telling her son that his real father died and later the two of them engage in some kind of incestuous relationship. Now for the song, again, catchy riffs and strong, powerful vocals. Vedder really knows how the immerse himself into a song and you can really hear that.
Why Go is really up tempo song. I am not huge fan of guitars in this song, it kind of lacks creativity. Although, vocals carry this song so far. The solo is not that bad, it's pretty cool but I just think the guitars in the verses are boring. This is probably my least favorite track on this album.
After Why Go we slow down and go into mellow Black. Now this is my favorite song of all time. This is an unbelievably emotional piece that manages to be incredibly powerful at the same time. The band refused to release this song as a single because they didn't want to do the music video saying that people should create their on image in their head. This song is the perfect blend of mellow guitars and powerful vocals and I just love this song.
Then we go into critically acclaimed Jeremy. The song about a boy named Jeremy who killed himself in class in front of his classmates. This obviously sparked huge controversy and gave Pearl Jam huge boost in publicity. Vedder said that this was a huge problem and that it needed to be addressed. The song features up tempo verses and slower but melodic chorus and a huge outro where Vedder shines again. This probably is the most popular Pearl Jam song.
Oceans is the song about Vedder's love of surfing. It's the shortest and the slowest song on the album. It's incredible how much creativity can fit into such a short song. There is nothing much to say about this one except that I recomend you to listen to it.
Porch is incredibly fast paced song. First time I was listening to Ten I got caught of guard. Although, the song slows down halfway through for an amazing instrumental break before it picks up again. The composition of this song is amazing and I think is one of the shining examples how to pace a rock song.
Now Garden is a huge ordeal. I mean, it's not that long. Only five minutes but it feels like it's much longer to be honest. Incredibly atmospheric verse to lead into catchy harmonic chorus. And then those grungy guitars in the bridge before a really huge solo. I really like this song.
Deep has an incredible intro. Kinda boring verse but it transitions really strongly into the powerful and catchy chorus. Why I think this is a good song is the fact they transition from one part of the song to another. It's so seamless. And the guitars in the chorus are incredible but still, this is one of the weaker songs on the album. Don't get me wrong, there isn't a bad song on this album, there is just too much competition for Deep to be up there.
Release is the slowest song on the album and it's wonderful. They showed here that they can do whatever they want and that it can still sound great. There are a lot of Oh's in this song but still, great job to close it on such a slow and atmospheric song. Also, this is the longest song on the album as well, it goes for 9 minutes and i swear those 9 minutes are all filled with greatness.
This wraps up the album and when I first heard this it changed my view of music. And you can't deny the impact that this album had on the evolution of rock music. Huge recommendations, one of my favorite albums of all time.
Best songs on the album:
1. Black
2. Alive
3. Porch
(This was so hard)
Album Rating: 98/100-Must Listen
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