Pearl Jam vs. Nirvana

[spike]

And it occurred to me that my teens may not have been such a dreary slog if I hadn't been inundated with corporate minor-key grunge rock all day.

haha, i've reflected on this thought before. i remember being happier and more easygoing when i was listening to eazy-e in 1992.

[BurtReynolds]

Seems like the appropriate thread for this:

Went into the local office supply store today, and they were playing this song:



I hadn't heard this for years, and was immediately struck by how it managed to sound simultaneously A) super depressing and B) very slick. And I got this immediate jolt of how I felt in 1994: disenchanted, depressed, typical suburban grunge teen shit. It was like I had stepped into a wayback machine. And it occurred to me that my teens may not have been such a dreary slog if I hadn't been inundated with corporate minor-key grunge rock all day.

i was all about that song. I'm still kind of a sucker for those big slick guitars, though.

[Biff Pocoroba]

I always thought Nirvana had the better follow up album to their break through. Of course we never got a Vitalogy, No Code or Yield from Nirvana.

[bodysnatcher]

I feel like In Utero was comparable to Vitalogy in terms of reaction, message, and shift

[stip]

Vitalogy was significantly more popular, though

[Strat]

and better

[Birds in Hell]

Nah. Pearl Jam have obviously been around longer and have a deeper catalogue at this point but I have no hesitation in saying Nirvana were the better, more interesting band. I'd still argue that now, even with Pearl Jam's expanded catalogue factored in, but I think it was definitely true during the period in which both bands existed.

Both pretty good bands though.

[stip]

I have great hesitation, even during both bands peaks

[bodysnatcher]

they were so drastically different, it's hard to compare and contrast

[Birds in Hell]

Yes, I think you're probably right.

[stip]

they were so drastically different, it's hard to compare and contrast

But easy to rank!

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

Listen to Cobain's "Fecal Matter" demo or the first studio demo with Crover from 1988. Pearl Jam never did anything nearly that twisted. Pearl Jam was very much stadium rock oriented from the start, and Cobain was good friends with the Green River dudes who are in Mudhoney, so I can see how that would annoy him. He probably should have just kept his mouth shut, but he wasn't wrong. But then again, I'm a person who thinks that Pearl Jam really didn't get going until "No Code", after they had fully absorbed the Neil Young influence/attitude for the better.

[bodysnatcher]

Comparing the two is like comparing The Who to Black Sabbath or something. Completely different forces.

[twoheadedboy]

Listen to Cobain's "Fecal Matter" demo or the first studio demo with Crover from 1988. Pearl Jam never did anything nearly that twisted. Pearl Jam was very much stadium rock oriented from the start, and Cobain was good friends with the Green River dudes who are in Mudhoney, so I can see how that would annoy him. He probably should have just kept his mouth shut, but he wasn't wrong. But then again, I'm a person who thinks that Pearl Jam really didn't get going until "No Code", after they had fully absorbed the Neil Young influence/attitude for the better.

Fully agree here. I feel we are only starting to truly understand Kurt's creative range musically over the last 6 months with the leaks and upcoming solo demo album coming out. It's not just Fecal matter, it's all the pre-Bleach stuff. And I think by early '94, Kurt was beginning to reexamine his non-3-minute-grunge side. It might have happened in the lead-up to In Utero but he was too fucked up during that Summer '92 - Rio phase...In Utero was originally supposed to be complete by November '92 and a whole arena tour for that month was cancelled. As it was, roughly half that album was songs that existed before Nevermind and almost the entire album existed in some format a year earlier than it was recorded...the difference between Incesticide and In Utero was the fact that the latter consisted of songs that were previously unreleased in any format and all recorded at the same studio session.

[McParadigm]

Nirvana means next to nothing to me. There was never an emotion I could connect to, an idea that resonated with me, or an aesthetic that gripped. I also didn't find them substantially less derivative than Pearl Jam...they just chose hipper derivation points. Hell, even the Fecal Matter demo just sounds like somebody trying to write a song that could fit on Hot Animal Machine.

They did often give the perfect middle school-humor MTV interviews for a Beavis and Butthead generation, though. Christ, they were obnoxious.

I appreciate In Utero for what it is, and genuinely enjoyed parts of the Unplugged, though I never feel compelled to listen to either one.

[matt reeder]

Nah. Pearl Jam have obviously been around longer and have a deeper catalogue at this point but I have no hesitation in saying Nirvana were the better, more interesting band. I'd still argue that now, even with Pearl Jam's expanded catalogue factored in, but I think it was definitely true during the period in which both bands existed.

Both pretty good bands though.

Pretty much this. I love PJ so much because I've been able to see them and connect to them, and I think they're a brilliant band even now in spite of their many warts. But they aren't and could never have been Nirvana.

Nirvana has a sort of timeless quality that is hard to define. Beyond the great music, they always seemed apart from all their counterparts. I love the shit out of PJ (and Soundgarden, and Mudhoney, and to a lesser extent Alice in Chains) but they had to work extremely hard to even touch the brilliance that Nirvana just put out effortlessly.

[matt reeder]

Case in point:



They barely rehearsed for what was the definitive concert of their career, and yet nailed this show (a terrible, terrible version of "Love Buzz" not withstanding). There were better concerts but this remains perhaps the defining moment of their career - and they barely rehearsed. They had an effortless brilliance that was timeless. This footage is still thrilling to me something like 20 years after I first heard it.

[Birds in Hell]

[Strat]

3 chord pop punk songs dont require much rehearsal guys.

Spoiler: show

Just messing'

[bodysnatcher]

Case in point:



They barely rehearsed for what was the definitive concert of their career, and yet nailed this show (a terrible, terrible version of "Love Buzz" not withstanding). There were better concerts but this remains perhaps the defining moment of their career - and they barely rehearsed. They had an effortless brilliance that was timeless. This footage is still thrilling to me something like 20 years after I first heard it.

I think this hits on a lot of Nirvana's allure. Part of their appeal... or schtik... or whatever... was the fact that they were so loose, but tight at the same time. They were spastic, seemingly unrehearsed. They had that air about them that you just didn't really know what was about to happen... that they could become unhinged at any given moment. And maybe that was all on purpose, but I don't think so. I hate the word "dangerous" when people describe music or art, or anything that's not really dangerous at all. But they had something about them that just tightroped that line of uneasiness, but were still extremely appealing. I think that's where Kurt was good.... he could craft a pop song that was so catchy, but masked it in just enough punk attitude that it could draw anyone from 12 years old to 35 years old.