What do you think?
Rate this book
Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation
A leading music journalist’s riveting chronicle of how beloved band Pearl Jam shaped the times, and how their legacy and longevity have transcended generations.
Ever since Pearl Jam first blasted onto the Seattle grunge scene three decades ago with their debut album, Ten, they have sold 85M+ albums, performed for hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, and have even been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack Of A Generation, music critic and journalist Steven Hyden celebrates the life, career, and music of this legendary group, widely considered to be one of the greatest American rock bands of all time. Long Road is structured like a mix tape, using 18 different Pearl Jam classics as starting points for telling a mix of personal and universal stories. Each chapter tells the tale of this great band — how they got to where they are, what drove them to greatness, and why it matters now.
Much like the generation it emerged from, Pearl Jam is a mass of contradictions. They were an enormously successful mainstream rock band who felt deeply uncomfortable with the pursuit of capitalistic spoils. They were progressive activists who spoke in favor of abortion rights and against the Ticketmaster monopoly, and yet they epitomized the sound of traditional, male-dominated rock ‘n’ roll. They were looked at as spokesmen for their generation, even though they ultimately projected profound confusion and alienation. They triumphed, and failed, in equal doses — the quintessential Gen-X tale.
Impressive as their stats, accolades, and longevity may be, Hyden also argues that Pearl Jam’s most definitive accomplishment lies in the impact their music had on Generation X as a whole. Pearl Jam’s music helped an entire generation of listeners connect with the glory of bygone rock mythology, and made it relevant during a period in which tremendous American economic prosperity belied a darkness at the heart of American youth. More than just a chronicle of the band’s career, this book is also a story about Gen- X itself, who like Pearl Jam came from angsty, outspoken roots and then evolved into an establishment institution, without ever fully shaking off their uncertain, outsider past. For so many Gen-Xers growing up at the time, Pearl Jam’s music was a beacon that offered both solace and guidance. They taught an entire generation how to grow up without losing the purest and most essential parts of themselves.
Written with his celebrated blend of personal memoir, criticism, and journalism, Hyden explores Pearl Jam’s path from Ten to now. It's a chance for new fans and old fans alike to geek out over Pearl Jam minutia—the B-sides, the beloved deep cuts, the concert bootlegs—and explore the multitude of reasons why Pearl Jam’s music resonated with so many people. As Hyden explains, “Most songs pass through our lives and are swiftly forgotten. But Pearl Jam is forever.”
Ever since Pearl Jam first blasted onto the Seattle grunge scene three decades ago with their debut album, Ten, they have sold 85M+ albums, performed for hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, and have even been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack Of A Generation, music critic and journalist Steven Hyden celebrates the life, career, and music of this legendary group, widely considered to be one of the greatest American rock bands of all time. Long Road is structured like a mix tape, using 18 different Pearl Jam classics as starting points for telling a mix of personal and universal stories. Each chapter tells the tale of this great band — how they got to where they are, what drove them to greatness, and why it matters now.
Much like the generation it emerged from, Pearl Jam is a mass of contradictions. They were an enormously successful mainstream rock band who felt deeply uncomfortable with the pursuit of capitalistic spoils. They were progressive activists who spoke in favor of abortion rights and against the Ticketmaster monopoly, and yet they epitomized the sound of traditional, male-dominated rock ‘n’ roll. They were looked at as spokesmen for their generation, even though they ultimately projected profound confusion and alienation. They triumphed, and failed, in equal doses — the quintessential Gen-X tale.
Impressive as their stats, accolades, and longevity may be, Hyden also argues that Pearl Jam’s most definitive accomplishment lies in the impact their music had on Generation X as a whole. Pearl Jam’s music helped an entire generation of listeners connect with the glory of bygone rock mythology, and made it relevant during a period in which tremendous American economic prosperity belied a darkness at the heart of American youth. More than just a chronicle of the band’s career, this book is also a story about Gen- X itself, who like Pearl Jam came from angsty, outspoken roots and then evolved into an establishment institution, without ever fully shaking off their uncertain, outsider past. For so many Gen-Xers growing up at the time, Pearl Jam’s music was a beacon that offered both solace and guidance. They taught an entire generation how to grow up without losing the purest and most essential parts of themselves.
Written with his celebrated blend of personal memoir, criticism, and journalism, Hyden explores Pearl Jam’s path from Ten to now. It's a chance for new fans and old fans alike to geek out over Pearl Jam minutia—the B-sides, the beloved deep cuts, the concert bootlegs—and explore the multitude of reasons why Pearl Jam’s music resonated with so many people. As Hyden explains, “Most songs pass through our lives and are swiftly forgotten. But Pearl Jam is forever.”
Audiobook
First published September 27, 2022
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 166 reviews
August 14, 2022
The book covers Pearl Jam's (so far) 31-year career: roughly chronologically, although each chapter teases out themes that have recurred throughout their time together. It is not a biography of the band, so casual readers are likely not going to be able to follow parts of it. It is not quite a journalistic examination of the band, because Hyden's fandom overwhelms his objectivity at points. Nor is it quite a fan's exploration of what the band has meant to him or other fans. Given all this, I'd say it was a Pearl Jam "experience."
Early on, it was amazing. Hyden evoked what Pearl Jam felt like for many young listeners in the early and mid 90s. I found myself so excited by the detailed descriptions of milestone moments in their career that I toggled between reading chapters and finding YouTube clips so I could relive the moments he was describing.
In some ways, this is the easy part of the Pearl Jam story. There's no shortage of Pearl Jam, "Seattle sound," and alt-rock lore to draw from. And this is key: I have no idea what his sources actually were, beyond materials that were already out there. Hyden is not revealing new information about the band; rather, he is packaging and interpreting existing content. He's a close reader of albums and lyrics, and a speculator about authorial intent. More on this in a bit.
The harder part of the Pearl Jam story is where this book falls down--the "Side B" of their career from Binaural to Gigaton, a period spanning over 20 years and 2/3 of their time as a band. For someone who owns all 70+ bootlegs from the 2000 Binaural tour, Hyden surprisingly fails to capture precisely why this band is unmatched as a live band. All the giddiness I felt in "reliving" key moments through his depictions of their early career felt flat in his assessment of their later years. He cannot capture the magic of their live shows, and he does not seem to fully get the beauty in their later albums. It makes for a real letdown.
Part of this ties to how he's approached his subject--the close reading of music and speculation about why Pearl Jam did what they did. The close reading is cringe-worthy at times, largely because he frequently gets the words wrong. This goes beyond typos: he's building the meaning of his analysis on incorrect reads of lyrics publicly and easily accessible on the band's website. And, look: Eddie Vedder is notoriously easily to mishear, and not just on songs like Yellow Ledbetter, where he turns mumbling into an art form. But if you are going to close-read the text, double check to make sure you get it right. (This happened at least a half-dozen times, and each time I found myself double-checking lyrics that I thought I'd had correct but could very well have misheard in past listens. Per Pearl Jam's self-published lyrics, I did not.)
Yet even when he gets the lyrics right, the close reading of the lyrics and albums is jarring when he becomes judgmental about the quality of the lyrics or songs. In his preface, he says that he's trying to tell a story about the band, how they managed to survive and evolve where so many contemporaries did not (quite literally at times), and how they shaped and were shaped by their generation. His assessment of the quality of the music--particularly for later albums--often runs counter to those themes. He does not clearly articulate why the band could be putting out the so-so music he claims they generated on later albums and still be the band that evolved and survived. In this, he stumbles in meeting the purpose he sets out.
But perhaps the greater misstep here is how he attempts to analyze the members of the band--their probable thoughts, feelings, influences, and motivations. He does not interview the band and makes clear early on that that's not his purpose for the book; he says that they have had their own chance to tell their story in 2011's Pearl Jam Twenty, and he does draw much of his first-person quoting from that book and other published interviews. Yet he regularly attempts to build narratives around not just the music but the band members themselves--primarily Eddie Vedder--based on his own speculation about how they see themselves in their music or in the larger rock pantheon. Frankly, if I wanted that, I would just wait for Pearl Jam Forty.
Moreover, he gets some of his facts wrong. For instance, he claims that Pearl Jam never covered Mother Love Bone's "Chloe Dancer" with "Crown of Thorns"--a claim that becomes the basis of his speculation about Stone and Jeff's relationship with Andy Wood after Andy's death. It's also a claim that is factually incorrect and easily checked, since Pearl Jam has on their website a list of every song they've played and when they played it. His assertion--already a somewhat specious take--completely falls apart. This happens a various points in the text.
Lastly, this book overly centers Eddie Vedder; given that I am like the heart-eyes emoji for Eddie and pretty much always have been, I am surprised to be saying this. I love the Into the Wild soundtrack, and have seen his solo shows many times. Eddie is a wonderful performer, but his musical longevity does not stem from his solo work. Nor does PJ's longevity stem strictly from the musical chops each band member brings to the table. There are a few important nods to what Jeff and Stone had to do to make this band work in a way Mother Love Bone probably would not have, had Andy Wood survived. And oddly, for all the focus on Eddie as the benevolent dictator of the band, Hyden misses how Eddie had to give up control in the same way that Stone and Jeff did to keep the band alive. He also skimmed over all the other work that the rest of the band has done: their solo or side projects, their other artistic and philanthropic endeavors, etc. Had Hyden done more of this, it would have been a much more interesting and relevant book, because arguably it's the work outside the band's albums that has been the greatest contribution to their ability to continually gravitate back together.
I wanted to love this book, and if you had asked me to write this review around the time he was describing the Vs. or Vitalogy eras, I would have given it 4 or 5 stars. Hyden just tries to do too much here, deviates too often from his named purpose, and gets sloppy in his analyses. It's not a bad read for a Pearl Jam fan, but perhaps it should be read less as a deep or definitive read of the band's longevity and more as a fan trying to work through his own feelings about the band, their music, and the 90s music scene.
I received an advance reader copy from Netgalley for an honest review.
Early on, it was amazing. Hyden evoked what Pearl Jam felt like for many young listeners in the early and mid 90s. I found myself so excited by the detailed descriptions of milestone moments in their career that I toggled between reading chapters and finding YouTube clips so I could relive the moments he was describing.
In some ways, this is the easy part of the Pearl Jam story. There's no shortage of Pearl Jam, "Seattle sound," and alt-rock lore to draw from. And this is key: I have no idea what his sources actually were, beyond materials that were already out there. Hyden is not revealing new information about the band; rather, he is packaging and interpreting existing content. He's a close reader of albums and lyrics, and a speculator about authorial intent. More on this in a bit.
The harder part of the Pearl Jam story is where this book falls down--the "Side B" of their career from Binaural to Gigaton, a period spanning over 20 years and 2/3 of their time as a band. For someone who owns all 70+ bootlegs from the 2000 Binaural tour, Hyden surprisingly fails to capture precisely why this band is unmatched as a live band. All the giddiness I felt in "reliving" key moments through his depictions of their early career felt flat in his assessment of their later years. He cannot capture the magic of their live shows, and he does not seem to fully get the beauty in their later albums. It makes for a real letdown.
Part of this ties to how he's approached his subject--the close reading of music and speculation about why Pearl Jam did what they did. The close reading is cringe-worthy at times, largely because he frequently gets the words wrong. This goes beyond typos: he's building the meaning of his analysis on incorrect reads of lyrics publicly and easily accessible on the band's website. And, look: Eddie Vedder is notoriously easily to mishear, and not just on songs like Yellow Ledbetter, where he turns mumbling into an art form. But if you are going to close-read the text, double check to make sure you get it right. (This happened at least a half-dozen times, and each time I found myself double-checking lyrics that I thought I'd had correct but could very well have misheard in past listens. Per Pearl Jam's self-published lyrics, I did not.)
Yet even when he gets the lyrics right, the close reading of the lyrics and albums is jarring when he becomes judgmental about the quality of the lyrics or songs. In his preface, he says that he's trying to tell a story about the band, how they managed to survive and evolve where so many contemporaries did not (quite literally at times), and how they shaped and were shaped by their generation. His assessment of the quality of the music--particularly for later albums--often runs counter to those themes. He does not clearly articulate why the band could be putting out the so-so music he claims they generated on later albums and still be the band that evolved and survived. In this, he stumbles in meeting the purpose he sets out.
But perhaps the greater misstep here is how he attempts to analyze the members of the band--their probable thoughts, feelings, influences, and motivations. He does not interview the band and makes clear early on that that's not his purpose for the book; he says that they have had their own chance to tell their story in 2011's Pearl Jam Twenty, and he does draw much of his first-person quoting from that book and other published interviews. Yet he regularly attempts to build narratives around not just the music but the band members themselves--primarily Eddie Vedder--based on his own speculation about how they see themselves in their music or in the larger rock pantheon. Frankly, if I wanted that, I would just wait for Pearl Jam Forty.
Moreover, he gets some of his facts wrong. For instance, he claims that Pearl Jam never covered Mother Love Bone's "Chloe Dancer" with "Crown of Thorns"--a claim that becomes the basis of his speculation about Stone and Jeff's relationship with Andy Wood after Andy's death. It's also a claim that is factually incorrect and easily checked, since Pearl Jam has on their website a list of every song they've played and when they played it. His assertion--already a somewhat specious take--completely falls apart. This happens a various points in the text.
Lastly, this book overly centers Eddie Vedder; given that I am like the heart-eyes emoji for Eddie and pretty much always have been, I am surprised to be saying this. I love the Into the Wild soundtrack, and have seen his solo shows many times. Eddie is a wonderful performer, but his musical longevity does not stem from his solo work. Nor does PJ's longevity stem strictly from the musical chops each band member brings to the table. There are a few important nods to what Jeff and Stone had to do to make this band work in a way Mother Love Bone probably would not have, had Andy Wood survived. And oddly, for all the focus on Eddie as the benevolent dictator of the band, Hyden misses how Eddie had to give up control in the same way that Stone and Jeff did to keep the band alive. He also skimmed over all the other work that the rest of the band has done: their solo or side projects, their other artistic and philanthropic endeavors, etc. Had Hyden done more of this, it would have been a much more interesting and relevant book, because arguably it's the work outside the band's albums that has been the greatest contribution to their ability to continually gravitate back together.
I wanted to love this book, and if you had asked me to write this review around the time he was describing the Vs. or Vitalogy eras, I would have given it 4 or 5 stars. Hyden just tries to do too much here, deviates too often from his named purpose, and gets sloppy in his analyses. It's not a bad read for a Pearl Jam fan, but perhaps it should be read less as a deep or definitive read of the band's longevity and more as a fan trying to work through his own feelings about the band, their music, and the 90s music scene.
I received an advance reader copy from Netgalley for an honest review.
July 10, 2024
I read a free ARC of this book through NetGalley.
When Ten was released in August 1991, I had just turned 15. Although I was never an intense music fan of any band or singer, Pearl Jam was the band of my high school years and I still love their early music. But I was like a lot of people who sort of forgot about them in the late 90's when radio stations moved to more poppy music or women with guitars (Shawn Colvin, The Indigo Girls, Sarah McLachlan etc.). I have never seen Pearl Jam live, and I don't think I even have an old copy of Ten on CD. So when I saw this book I impulsively requested it and I'm glad I did. This is not a history of the members of Pearl Jam so much as of the band itself, and the cultural and political times in which they have existed for the last 30 years. (Damn, I'm old.) It was an interesting analysis of their catalog, and the way that Pearl Jam affected, and was affected by, the world. And there is a fair amount of comparison and contrast to other "grunge" bands of the early 90's, most of whom are now gone due to the death of members from substance abuse and depression.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book and have taken it as a nudge to revisit both Pearl Jam and some of their peers and influencers, and to appreciate the fact that they continue to tour and make music.
When Ten was released in August 1991, I had just turned 15. Although I was never an intense music fan of any band or singer, Pearl Jam was the band of my high school years and I still love their early music. But I was like a lot of people who sort of forgot about them in the late 90's when radio stations moved to more poppy music or women with guitars (Shawn Colvin, The Indigo Girls, Sarah McLachlan etc.). I have never seen Pearl Jam live, and I don't think I even have an old copy of Ten on CD. So when I saw this book I impulsively requested it and I'm glad I did. This is not a history of the members of Pearl Jam so much as of the band itself, and the cultural and political times in which they have existed for the last 30 years. (Damn, I'm old.) It was an interesting analysis of their catalog, and the way that Pearl Jam affected, and was affected by, the world. And there is a fair amount of comparison and contrast to other "grunge" bands of the early 90's, most of whom are now gone due to the death of members from substance abuse and depression.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book and have taken it as a nudge to revisit both Pearl Jam and some of their peers and influencers, and to appreciate the fact that they continue to tour and make music.
July 6, 2022
30 years ago (!!!!) Pearl Jam erupted onto the scene and Steven Hyden, a well known rock critic has created the
a engaging and entertaining look at the group. Hayden is focused on the career arc of Pearl Jam, and the model that they created for other bands. Hyden claims that PJ is an anomaly because they started big (on radio, in arenas) and now is equally popular in a counterculture way via bootlegs and devoted fans.
I have always been a PJ fan, an Eddie Vedder fan and a grunge listening flannel wearing Gen xer. I wasn't sure if this story was for me but I found it incredibly nostalgic and enjoyable.
Long Road - a look at the storied career of a well known band that survived, is broken into 18 chapters titled by PJ classic songs. There is so much I didn't know, and lots that I wanted to hear again. If you are a Gen Xer, a PJ fan or just love rock music, this book is surely for you!#Hachettebooks #Hachette #Netgalley #Netgalleyreads #LongRoad #PearJam #PJ10 #Steven Hyden
a engaging and entertaining look at the group. Hayden is focused on the career arc of Pearl Jam, and the model that they created for other bands. Hyden claims that PJ is an anomaly because they started big (on radio, in arenas) and now is equally popular in a counterculture way via bootlegs and devoted fans.
I have always been a PJ fan, an Eddie Vedder fan and a grunge listening flannel wearing Gen xer. I wasn't sure if this story was for me but I found it incredibly nostalgic and enjoyable.
Long Road - a look at the storied career of a well known band that survived, is broken into 18 chapters titled by PJ classic songs. There is so much I didn't know, and lots that I wanted to hear again. If you are a Gen Xer, a PJ fan or just love rock music, this book is surely for you!#Hachettebooks #Hachette #Netgalley #Netgalleyreads #LongRoad #PearJam #PJ10 #Steven Hyden
June 7, 2022
Between the years of 1991 and 2003, I would have counted Pearl Jam among my all-time favorite bands…maybe even my number one. When Riot Act was released, I found my interest waning, though I still loved everything prior and I still own all of the records up to that point and have still found things to enjoy on every record since. I know there are much bigger fans out there (I know some of them) who own everything the band has ever produced including many of the “official bootlegs”. I never had the money to seek out everything in the catalog back in the 90’s, but much of that output has been officially released since, so I’ve heard it. The point is that I’m not a casual Pearl Jam fan who only knows the hits, but neither am I a “superfan” who listens relentlessly and collects memorabilia and music from the band.
My reason for telling you all of this is that your enjoyment of Long Road will likely be predicated upon what you expect from it. If you go into this book expecting a basic biography, you will likely be disappointed, because this is not a standard biography. While Steven Hyden does touch on biographical elements, he expects you to know the basics by now. Long Road is more of a critical analysis of Pearl Jam’s legacy and influence. If you already know how the band got it’s name and don’t need another long explanation of the Mamasan, then you are likely ready to expand your thought process of a band that will stand next to Led Zeppelin and The Beatles in the lexicon of music history. Much like those bands, there has been an astounding amount written about Pearl Jam but Hyden’s book is a welcome addition for those who want to read about the band, but don’t want to read everything.
Steven Hyden is a good writer and Long Road is a well-written book. “Your Favorite Band is Killing Me” and “Twilight of the Gods” are both good books and this carries on his tradition of adding a personal touch to rock history and analysis of his favorite music. Hyden clearly loves the band and their music and Long Road reads like a love letter. However, he doesn’t shy away from talking about some of the missteps along the way (most notably, Eddie Vedder’s grumpy guy act) and the maturation of the band members through over two decades together.
Long Road will likely not provide any new information for those who devour everything they can find on the band, but it will probably entertain them enough to warrant a read. Conversely, a PJ newbie could find a worse place to start learning about the band. Though Long Road is a book for fans, there is enough about the history of the band to keep a neophyte interested while providing some much-needed context about the “whys” as much as the “how’s”. There are no interviews with the band members here (though Hyden does quote regularly from previous interviews) and there are no deep dives into their lives. There are not any astounding revelations here, but if you want to reminisce about your old love for a band from your youth or “geek out over Pearl Jam minutiae”, then you, like me, will find Long Road to be a fun read. I had a blast reading Long Road and I’m even more excited to see the band live again in September 2022. Thank you to Netgalley and Hachette Books for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
My reason for telling you all of this is that your enjoyment of Long Road will likely be predicated upon what you expect from it. If you go into this book expecting a basic biography, you will likely be disappointed, because this is not a standard biography. While Steven Hyden does touch on biographical elements, he expects you to know the basics by now. Long Road is more of a critical analysis of Pearl Jam’s legacy and influence. If you already know how the band got it’s name and don’t need another long explanation of the Mamasan, then you are likely ready to expand your thought process of a band that will stand next to Led Zeppelin and The Beatles in the lexicon of music history. Much like those bands, there has been an astounding amount written about Pearl Jam but Hyden’s book is a welcome addition for those who want to read about the band, but don’t want to read everything.
Steven Hyden is a good writer and Long Road is a well-written book. “Your Favorite Band is Killing Me” and “Twilight of the Gods” are both good books and this carries on his tradition of adding a personal touch to rock history and analysis of his favorite music. Hyden clearly loves the band and their music and Long Road reads like a love letter. However, he doesn’t shy away from talking about some of the missteps along the way (most notably, Eddie Vedder’s grumpy guy act) and the maturation of the band members through over two decades together.
Long Road will likely not provide any new information for those who devour everything they can find on the band, but it will probably entertain them enough to warrant a read. Conversely, a PJ newbie could find a worse place to start learning about the band. Though Long Road is a book for fans, there is enough about the history of the band to keep a neophyte interested while providing some much-needed context about the “whys” as much as the “how’s”. There are no interviews with the band members here (though Hyden does quote regularly from previous interviews) and there are no deep dives into their lives. There are not any astounding revelations here, but if you want to reminisce about your old love for a band from your youth or “geek out over Pearl Jam minutiae”, then you, like me, will find Long Road to be a fun read. I had a blast reading Long Road and I’m even more excited to see the band live again in September 2022. Thank you to Netgalley and Hachette Books for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
October 10, 2022
A really bad study of Pearl Jam’s discography and band history, but a really, really good and thoughtful personal memoir and survey of cultural trends of 1990-2022, “Long Road” will not disappoint so long as you know what you’re getting.
More than anything, “Long Road” is a reflection piece. Hyden spends all 280 pages reflecting on his own experience with pop culture, political culture, aging and mortality, youthful angst — all through the lens of Pearl Jam’s evolution from misunderstood, feral punk rock/arena rock megaband into self-assured, middle-aged live band existing well outside the musical and cultural mainstream.
“Long Road” misses a lot of what many Pearl Jam fans may want. It focuses almost exclusively on Eddie Vedder, relegating the other band members, who are arguably just as indispensable as the frontman, to occasional footnotes. It gives short shrift to post-1998 Pearl Jam, devoting three-quarters of its pages to Ten, Vs., Vitalogy, No Code, and Yield.
Hyden doesn’t get everything right, but he’s also not trying to. Again, this isn’t a history of Pearl Jam. It’s Hyden’s musings on the past thirty years, and Pearl Jam is the muse. I really enjoyed Hyden’s writing style — he’s a slightly more direct and slightly less funny Chuck Klostermann — and I found many of his insights on the music culture I, too, grew up in to be fascinating. But it probably is not for everyone.
More than anything, “Long Road” is a reflection piece. Hyden spends all 280 pages reflecting on his own experience with pop culture, political culture, aging and mortality, youthful angst — all through the lens of Pearl Jam’s evolution from misunderstood, feral punk rock/arena rock megaband into self-assured, middle-aged live band existing well outside the musical and cultural mainstream.
“Long Road” misses a lot of what many Pearl Jam fans may want. It focuses almost exclusively on Eddie Vedder, relegating the other band members, who are arguably just as indispensable as the frontman, to occasional footnotes. It gives short shrift to post-1998 Pearl Jam, devoting three-quarters of its pages to Ten, Vs., Vitalogy, No Code, and Yield.
Hyden doesn’t get everything right, but he’s also not trying to. Again, this isn’t a history of Pearl Jam. It’s Hyden’s musings on the past thirty years, and Pearl Jam is the muse. I really enjoyed Hyden’s writing style — he’s a slightly more direct and slightly less funny Chuck Klostermann — and I found many of his insights on the music culture I, too, grew up in to be fascinating. But it probably is not for everyone.
October 9, 2022
Hyden is one of my favorite music writers and this book does nothing to damage that. He takes a look at the macro and micro of the band, focusing on a specific song in each chapter. Often, those songs are live versions. I've definitely listened to those as I've read the book and even listened to a whole bootleg from 2000 in the process. Pearl Jam is a band that I loved in the 90s and into the mid-2000s, but admittedly haven't listened to their last 3 albums all that much. Still, this is a really good read and an excuse to listen to music I love and maybe music I haven't given enough of a chance.
October 7, 2022
Pearl Jam was the first band I ever loved. When Ten was released in 1991 I was an 11 year old kid with no access to MTV who was completely apathetic to music, other than wishing that my Dad would turn down the Led Zeppelin songs he was always playing at ear-splitting volumes. I remember dreading being in his truck at 10PM when the local radio station (Broadcasting from high atop Frog’s Mountain, THE lunatic fringe of American FM, 102.7 WEBN) would “let the Led out” and play a block of Zeppelin songs.
Eventually I grew to enjoy the 80s rock that permeated WEBN’s playlist. And then, for whatever reason, one particular song caught my thirteen year old ear, and I just couldn’t get enough of it. And so, based solely on my love of Daughter, I begged Dad to drive me to Media Play where I purchased the first album (on cassette!) that I would ever own: Pearl Jam’s Vs..
And it blew my little thirteen year old mind. The content of the lyrics mostly went completely over my head. Thirteen year old me did not pick up on the fact that Animal was about sexual assault. But damn did it rock my world. For months on end that cassette did not leave my Walkman. Pearl Jam became the first band I ever loved.
Vitalogy was under the tree Christmas of ’94 and I can only imagine what the family thought as I ignored everyone to curl up in the corner listening to the new album (still on cassette!). My most vivid memory is my utter confusion upon encountering Bugs. What the hell was I listening to? Was that an accordion? This is Pearl Jam?!? But mostly I was again enraptured as Vitalogy became the soundtrack to my life. That next summer I had my first kiss while Better Man played on the radio. Now you might think that Eddie Vedder crooning, “Can’t find a Better Man” ruined the magic of my first makeout session. You would be wrong. Much later in life I would reflect on the irony, but in that moment? I was kissing a girl for the FIRST TIME EVER while my FAVORITE BAND was on the radio. Does life get any better for a 14 year old?
I bought Merkin Ball (the companion piece to Neil Young’s Mirror Ball) when it came out in 1995 (finally this time on CD!) and for the first time a Pearl Jam release disappointed me. Metallica released Load in the summer of 1996, which resulted in my discovering their entire back catalog. I was so caught up in my newfound love of Metallica I completely ignored No Code. I saw Metallica in concert in 1997 for the first time and they blew me away. Pearl Jam, caught in its battle with Ticketmaster, never toured anywhere near me. So by the time Yield was released I had a new favorite band.
On pages 150-151 of Steven Hyden’s Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation he captures my experience perfectly:
“Seeing [Pearl Jam on the Yield] tour already felt like nostalgia.... Pearl Jam signified my childhood, and like all almost-twenty-one-year-olds, I was eager to get away from my childhood. Eventually I would come to see the error in this. But in 1998, I really thought Pearl Jam was finished… I mentioned all this because I don’t think my situation is unique. It seems like so many rock fans of my generation went through the exact same change of heart with Pearl Jam at around the same time. This band was so central to the coming-of-age experience of millions of people that once those people got older it suddenly because unbearable to listen to Pearl Jam”
And for a time it was unbearable. My 19 year old self spent a lot of time disparaging their new stuff (especially Last Kiss). But still, I couldn’t quite quit Pearl Jam. I bought the Cincinnati Live Binaural tour album, and when my high school sweetheart broke my heart I listened to Black over and over, screaming I know someday you'll have a beautiful life. I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky, but why. Why, why can't it be, oh, can't it be mine? until I was hoarse.
I finally saw Pearl Jam in concert in 2006 (with my Led Zeppelin loving father), which accelerated the healing process until Pearl Jam and I had finally reconciled. Last Kiss is a beautiful song. Hyden describes Sirens as the song that hits him the hardest now that he’s in his 40s. For me it’s Vedder’s 2017 contribution to the Twin Peaks soundtrack, Out of Sand:
I stare at my reflection to the bone
Blurred eyes look back at me
Full of blame and sympathy
So, so close
Right roads not taken, the future's forsaken
Dropped like a fossil or stone
Now it's gone, gone
And I am who I am
Who I was I will never come again
Running out of sand
It's almost like Eddie Vedder is the older brother I never had, helping me understand the world at various stages of my life. I think Hyden captures this feeling perfectly in this book and throughout his insights gave me goosebumps:
“You see a band you have loved for most of your life, and if they can still move you, then time manages to stand still. But only for awhile. And only if they can still do this. Because one day, the won’t”.
“The tension of can they still do this? is what keeps them alive. But do they deserve to be? There is no question”.
Eventually I grew to enjoy the 80s rock that permeated WEBN’s playlist. And then, for whatever reason, one particular song caught my thirteen year old ear, and I just couldn’t get enough of it. And so, based solely on my love of Daughter, I begged Dad to drive me to Media Play where I purchased the first album (on cassette!) that I would ever own: Pearl Jam’s Vs..
And it blew my little thirteen year old mind. The content of the lyrics mostly went completely over my head. Thirteen year old me did not pick up on the fact that Animal was about sexual assault. But damn did it rock my world. For months on end that cassette did not leave my Walkman. Pearl Jam became the first band I ever loved.
Vitalogy was under the tree Christmas of ’94 and I can only imagine what the family thought as I ignored everyone to curl up in the corner listening to the new album (still on cassette!). My most vivid memory is my utter confusion upon encountering Bugs. What the hell was I listening to? Was that an accordion? This is Pearl Jam?!? But mostly I was again enraptured as Vitalogy became the soundtrack to my life. That next summer I had my first kiss while Better Man played on the radio. Now you might think that Eddie Vedder crooning, “Can’t find a Better Man” ruined the magic of my first makeout session. You would be wrong. Much later in life I would reflect on the irony, but in that moment? I was kissing a girl for the FIRST TIME EVER while my FAVORITE BAND was on the radio. Does life get any better for a 14 year old?
I bought Merkin Ball (the companion piece to Neil Young’s Mirror Ball) when it came out in 1995 (finally this time on CD!) and for the first time a Pearl Jam release disappointed me. Metallica released Load in the summer of 1996, which resulted in my discovering their entire back catalog. I was so caught up in my newfound love of Metallica I completely ignored No Code. I saw Metallica in concert in 1997 for the first time and they blew me away. Pearl Jam, caught in its battle with Ticketmaster, never toured anywhere near me. So by the time Yield was released I had a new favorite band.
On pages 150-151 of Steven Hyden’s Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation he captures my experience perfectly:
“Seeing [Pearl Jam on the Yield] tour already felt like nostalgia.... Pearl Jam signified my childhood, and like all almost-twenty-one-year-olds, I was eager to get away from my childhood. Eventually I would come to see the error in this. But in 1998, I really thought Pearl Jam was finished… I mentioned all this because I don’t think my situation is unique. It seems like so many rock fans of my generation went through the exact same change of heart with Pearl Jam at around the same time. This band was so central to the coming-of-age experience of millions of people that once those people got older it suddenly because unbearable to listen to Pearl Jam”
And for a time it was unbearable. My 19 year old self spent a lot of time disparaging their new stuff (especially Last Kiss). But still, I couldn’t quite quit Pearl Jam. I bought the Cincinnati Live Binaural tour album, and when my high school sweetheart broke my heart I listened to Black over and over, screaming I know someday you'll have a beautiful life. I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky, but why. Why, why can't it be, oh, can't it be mine? until I was hoarse.
I finally saw Pearl Jam in concert in 2006 (with my Led Zeppelin loving father), which accelerated the healing process until Pearl Jam and I had finally reconciled. Last Kiss is a beautiful song. Hyden describes Sirens as the song that hits him the hardest now that he’s in his 40s. For me it’s Vedder’s 2017 contribution to the Twin Peaks soundtrack, Out of Sand:
I stare at my reflection to the bone
Blurred eyes look back at me
Full of blame and sympathy
So, so close
Right roads not taken, the future's forsaken
Dropped like a fossil or stone
Now it's gone, gone
And I am who I am
Who I was I will never come again
Running out of sand
It's almost like Eddie Vedder is the older brother I never had, helping me understand the world at various stages of my life. I think Hyden captures this feeling perfectly in this book and throughout his insights gave me goosebumps:
“You see a band you have loved for most of your life, and if they can still move you, then time manages to stand still. But only for awhile. And only if they can still do this. Because one day, the won’t”.
“The tension of can they still do this? is what keeps them alive. But do they deserve to be? There is no question”.
January 26, 2023
As usual, Hyden's books are affable, thoughtful, well-versed in the subject, and has a subtle moral perspective. He wants to rock just as much as anyone else does, but he admirably doesn't have any patience for prima donna behavior, aesthetic laziness, or cock rock sexism.
For a kid like me who grew up in the 90's, Pearl Jam were cool until they weren't. I remember how I was informed about all the cool folklore of the band and hollered along to stuff like Evenflo. But they weren't just a band for jocks-- though in my High School they sure were-- all those songs about alienation, depression, and an anti-commercial, anti-egotist concern over selling out that was very 90's meant something.
Hyden was just as pissed off at the way things are when he first heard them in High School but he has the benefit of wisdom and perspective with years. And so, as he explains, does Pearl Jam.
I was really enjoying the book about 80% of the time, because of the trip down headbanging memory lane and a lot of the points a nerd like me has always wanted someone to bring up. And I like the essay-as-track-in-a-mix-tape format a lot. Remember mix tapes? That sure went the way of the dodo.
For example, WMA is a song written and performed immediately after Eddie's Black friend was beaten up by the cops while they were walking to the studio one day. A very powerful statement. As is Yellow Ledbetter, even if no one quite understands the words, finally this reflective number gets some attention and some backstory.
And there's Elderly Woman... which Hyden is right to point out is a pretty mature kind of tune to write when you're in your mid-twenties. Or the guitar in Dissident, or Jeff Ament's funky bass in Rats, or the ferocity over the world's injustice in Do The Evolution, Glorified G, and even poor king Jeremy the wicked. And you've got to love how Eddie scrawled PRO-CHOICE!!!! on his arm in magic marker live during MTV Unplugged.
Hyden is very perceptive about their punky passion and idealism (covering The Clash's Know Your Rights and Dead Boys' Sonic Reducer, one of the fiercest punk songs of all time) collided with their arena rock grandiosity (Pete Townsend, Bruce Springsteen, and Neil Young were heroes who became mentors) which made for some lasting music and spoke to the anxious tenor of the counterculture at the time.
Kurt Cobain was at his bitchiest when unwarrantedly dissing them in the press, but Eddie was nobly ready to give him all the credit he deserved and to be shell-shocked by his suicide as well as by his own overwhelming fame.
I'll admit that I pretty much went my separate way sometime after No Code, maybe. Vitology was probably the last record of theirs I ever paid close attention to. And Hyden acknowledges that too.
The only reason why it went down to three from four stars is that the conclusion sort of drops off, without really landing any significant summation about the band after a couple hundred pages.
For a kid like me who grew up in the 90's, Pearl Jam were cool until they weren't. I remember how I was informed about all the cool folklore of the band and hollered along to stuff like Evenflo. But they weren't just a band for jocks-- though in my High School they sure were-- all those songs about alienation, depression, and an anti-commercial, anti-egotist concern over selling out that was very 90's meant something.
Hyden was just as pissed off at the way things are when he first heard them in High School but he has the benefit of wisdom and perspective with years. And so, as he explains, does Pearl Jam.
I was really enjoying the book about 80% of the time, because of the trip down headbanging memory lane and a lot of the points a nerd like me has always wanted someone to bring up. And I like the essay-as-track-in-a-mix-tape format a lot. Remember mix tapes? That sure went the way of the dodo.
For example, WMA is a song written and performed immediately after Eddie's Black friend was beaten up by the cops while they were walking to the studio one day. A very powerful statement. As is Yellow Ledbetter, even if no one quite understands the words, finally this reflective number gets some attention and some backstory.
And there's Elderly Woman... which Hyden is right to point out is a pretty mature kind of tune to write when you're in your mid-twenties. Or the guitar in Dissident, or Jeff Ament's funky bass in Rats, or the ferocity over the world's injustice in Do The Evolution, Glorified G, and even poor king Jeremy the wicked. And you've got to love how Eddie scrawled PRO-CHOICE!!!! on his arm in magic marker live during MTV Unplugged.
Hyden is very perceptive about their punky passion and idealism (covering The Clash's Know Your Rights and Dead Boys' Sonic Reducer, one of the fiercest punk songs of all time) collided with their arena rock grandiosity (Pete Townsend, Bruce Springsteen, and Neil Young were heroes who became mentors) which made for some lasting music and spoke to the anxious tenor of the counterculture at the time.
Kurt Cobain was at his bitchiest when unwarrantedly dissing them in the press, but Eddie was nobly ready to give him all the credit he deserved and to be shell-shocked by his suicide as well as by his own overwhelming fame.
I'll admit that I pretty much went my separate way sometime after No Code, maybe. Vitology was probably the last record of theirs I ever paid close attention to. And Hyden acknowledges that too.
The only reason why it went down to three from four stars is that the conclusion sort of drops off, without really landing any significant summation about the band after a couple hundred pages.
June 5, 2022
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Very well written.
I'm not a huge PJ fan, (though I own a number of their cd's) & I really enjoyed the book.
If you are a big PJ fan, I suspect this would be a must-read. There is also a lot here for a person (perhaps "rock fan") who is interested in the musical & cultural changes from "the Boomers" to "Generation X" to "The Millennials" & finally to 'The Zoomers". The author spends a significant time on how music relates to culture (especially from the 60's - the 90's) & has some interesting insights.
Mr. Hyden is a huge fan, but he is also an accomplished writer, & not only focuses on PJ, but spends a lot of time putting the albums & music in both a generational & time of release setting.
A brief bit about me to put the review in context: I'm a 64 yo boomer. I was a working full time musician when 10 came out. Good thing I liked it, as I played several of the songs (Jeremy, Evenflow & Black) every night. I also played my favorite PJ song, Rearviewmirror when VS was released.
At the time I really liked the band a lot. Today, I'm most likely to play the song Rearviewmirror or the 2 live ep set (which oddly is not mentioned in the book, Dissident.).
The band pretty much lost me after Vitalogy (Which I'm only so so on) as I found the songwriting to go downhill & many of the songs just didn't stick in memory (to paraphrase the author); though the author stated he really liked the first 5 albums before losing some interest.
Ironically, (FYI I am doing a LOT of paraphrasing in this review as opposed to 100% factual quoting) The author said what got him back into the band in a major way was the official bootleg series'. I had the opposite experience. At that time, I ran a pretty large online music store, & a reviewer sold me the entire first set. But how many times could I listen to PJ play mostly the same songs with (as the author states) the main variation being the guitar solos & some covers they added to the live shows. The track selection of each show was somewhat different, but with that many shows (an entire tour) I just ended up keeping the 2 Seattle shows (I live there) after playing as many of the 2000 releases as I could before burning out.
For the author those "official boots" really hit him & brought him back into the fold.
He also finds it remarkable (& I don't disagree) how long the band has successfully stayed together; especially as their sales really dropped over VS & Vitalogy. They've gone through 5 drummers, & 1 member (per the author) has had substance abuse problems, but no one died at a young age & the band is stll a very succesful live act today (as much as any artist can be in the age of Covid).
Another focus of the book is the Grunge culture; how most of the other bands in the genre fell apart (but my favorite Grunge band Bush, isn't mentioned!!) He largely speaks of what he called the big four: PJ, Soundgarden, Nirvana, & Stone Temple Pilots. He also spends significant time on Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Red Hot Chili Peppers & other artists that had an impact on PJ. Heck, in the end Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga even get a couple pages for A Star Is Born (apparently Vedder helped prepare Cooper for the role).
Each chapter has a number of sub headings, + is tied to an unofficial bootleg which Mr Hyden uses as a sort of outline for that chapter.
Also, worth mentioning is the author's belief (which may very well be accurate; again, I was not a mega fan) that PH has a fan based family similar to the Grateful Dead; both known as the "Jamily" & the "Jammers".
Finally I do recommend this book, especially if one is a PJ fan, but even if not there is a lot to sink your teeth into for rock fans in general.
While I wasn't aware of this before doing this review, Mr. Hyden has written several other books; some of which I intend to check out. The title that intrigues me the most is "Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock".
Very well written.
I'm not a huge PJ fan, (though I own a number of their cd's) & I really enjoyed the book.
If you are a big PJ fan, I suspect this would be a must-read. There is also a lot here for a person (perhaps "rock fan") who is interested in the musical & cultural changes from "the Boomers" to "Generation X" to "The Millennials" & finally to 'The Zoomers". The author spends a significant time on how music relates to culture (especially from the 60's - the 90's) & has some interesting insights.
Mr. Hyden is a huge fan, but he is also an accomplished writer, & not only focuses on PJ, but spends a lot of time putting the albums & music in both a generational & time of release setting.
A brief bit about me to put the review in context: I'm a 64 yo boomer. I was a working full time musician when 10 came out. Good thing I liked it, as I played several of the songs (Jeremy, Evenflow & Black) every night. I also played my favorite PJ song, Rearviewmirror when VS was released.
At the time I really liked the band a lot. Today, I'm most likely to play the song Rearviewmirror or the 2 live ep set (which oddly is not mentioned in the book, Dissident.).
The band pretty much lost me after Vitalogy (Which I'm only so so on) as I found the songwriting to go downhill & many of the songs just didn't stick in memory (to paraphrase the author); though the author stated he really liked the first 5 albums before losing some interest.
Ironically, (FYI I am doing a LOT of paraphrasing in this review as opposed to 100% factual quoting) The author said what got him back into the band in a major way was the official bootleg series'. I had the opposite experience. At that time, I ran a pretty large online music store, & a reviewer sold me the entire first set. But how many times could I listen to PJ play mostly the same songs with (as the author states) the main variation being the guitar solos & some covers they added to the live shows. The track selection of each show was somewhat different, but with that many shows (an entire tour) I just ended up keeping the 2 Seattle shows (I live there) after playing as many of the 2000 releases as I could before burning out.
For the author those "official boots" really hit him & brought him back into the fold.
He also finds it remarkable (& I don't disagree) how long the band has successfully stayed together; especially as their sales really dropped over VS & Vitalogy. They've gone through 5 drummers, & 1 member (per the author) has had substance abuse problems, but no one died at a young age & the band is stll a very succesful live act today (as much as any artist can be in the age of Covid).
Another focus of the book is the Grunge culture; how most of the other bands in the genre fell apart (but my favorite Grunge band Bush, isn't mentioned!!) He largely speaks of what he called the big four: PJ, Soundgarden, Nirvana, & Stone Temple Pilots. He also spends significant time on Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Red Hot Chili Peppers & other artists that had an impact on PJ. Heck, in the end Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga even get a couple pages for A Star Is Born (apparently Vedder helped prepare Cooper for the role).
Each chapter has a number of sub headings, + is tied to an unofficial bootleg which Mr Hyden uses as a sort of outline for that chapter.
Also, worth mentioning is the author's belief (which may very well be accurate; again, I was not a mega fan) that PH has a fan based family similar to the Grateful Dead; both known as the "Jamily" & the "Jammers".
Finally I do recommend this book, especially if one is a PJ fan, but even if not there is a lot to sink your teeth into for rock fans in general.
While I wasn't aware of this before doing this review, Mr. Hyden has written several other books; some of which I intend to check out. The title that intrigues me the most is "Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock".
October 16, 2022
I wanted to like this book. I'd read Hyden's Radiohead book a couple of years ago, and thought he'd done a good job with it. I'm a big Pearl Jam fan, and I've seen Hyden post glowingly on social media about PJ often and figured I would also enjoy this iteration of a band-centric book. I was wrong.
I think the concept is a good idea; essays about specific PJ songs over the course of their career, as a mixtape. My biggest problem with the book is the inaccuracies, albeit trivial ones. Like the assertion that the shortest gap ever between albums was No Code and Yield (18 months). Vs. and Vitalogy, their second and third albums, respectively are 13 months apart.
Another part of the book talks about the song Bu$hleaguer, which is/was an anti-Bush (George W.) song from their album, Riot Act. They played it several times during the tour of that album, which was in 2003. In the essay about Bu$hleaguer, Hyden wrote, "There were also issues earlier in the month after it was played in Denver and Oklahoma City, though in those cities people for the most part just quietly stormed out." It was not played in Oklahoma City. I know because I was in attendance for that show.
It's disappointing because the aforementioned inaccuracies are simple math and fact-checking.
What a bummer.
I think the concept is a good idea; essays about specific PJ songs over the course of their career, as a mixtape. My biggest problem with the book is the inaccuracies, albeit trivial ones. Like the assertion that the shortest gap ever between albums was No Code and Yield (18 months). Vs. and Vitalogy, their second and third albums, respectively are 13 months apart.
Another part of the book talks about the song Bu$hleaguer, which is/was an anti-Bush (George W.) song from their album, Riot Act. They played it several times during the tour of that album, which was in 2003. In the essay about Bu$hleaguer, Hyden wrote, "There were also issues earlier in the month after it was played in Denver and Oklahoma City, though in those cities people for the most part just quietly stormed out." It was not played in Oklahoma City. I know because I was in attendance for that show.
It's disappointing because the aforementioned inaccuracies are simple math and fact-checking.
What a bummer.
July 15, 2023
After reading Chuck Klosterman's The Nineties and this book, I am so thankful I was coming of age at the END of the 90's. The expectations to not be a sell-out sound exhausting.
Here are my key takeaways from this book:
1. Pearl Jam took their cues from Nirvana and every other alt/grunge/rock band took their cues from Pearl Jam.
2. Hyden has this impressive ability to gatekeep and chide Pearl Jam simultaneously.
3. People are capable of listening to only one genre of music.
4. The single sentence about Layne Staley was dismissive and revolting.
Hyden- next time you speak Dave Grohl’s name, say it with some GD reverence.
**Disclaimer- If you do not agree with my review of this book, then you are a phony-baloney, sell-out.**
Here are my key takeaways from this book:
1. Pearl Jam took their cues from Nirvana and every other alt/grunge/rock band took their cues from Pearl Jam.
2. Hyden has this impressive ability to gatekeep and chide Pearl Jam simultaneously.
3. People are capable of listening to only one genre of music.
4. The single sentence about Layne Staley was dismissive and revolting.
Hyden- next time you speak Dave Grohl’s name, say it with some GD reverence.
**Disclaimer- If you do not agree with my review of this book, then you are a phony-baloney, sell-out.**
October 18, 2022
Hmm ja lastig. Het probleem is dat ik deze band te goed ken. Alle verhalen ken ik, de hele geschiedenis tot in den treure tot mijn genomen, alle obscure tracks allang duizend keer gedraaid. Dus ja, een boek over de geschiedenis van die band brengt niet veel nieuws. Het is duidelijk geschreven met liefde voor de band, net als het boek wat hij schreef over Radiohead. Het verschil is alleen wel dat de focus hier wel erg ligt op het verhaal van de band, en dan met name over Eddie Vedder. Had wat meer gemogen over de muziek. En ja, dat verhaal is van mythologische proporties, maar we kennen het al. Ik had gehoopt dat hij met meer waardering zou spreken over de minder goed scorende platen, maar ook Steven heeft niet door hoe goed die platen zijn helaas. Geschreven door iemand die geobsedeerd was met de band in de jaren 90 en ze kwijt raakte begin 21e eeuw, en dat was iets te duidelijk. Vier sterren alsnog, omdat ik gelijk zin kreeg bootlegs uit de kast te halen.
August 4, 2024
Meh. Good elements about the ups and downs of the band and some excellent Eddie Vedder heroics. Besides that it's just an excuse for pompous Hyden (never liked him much) to share his wizard like knowledge of music and review each album for chapter after chapter going round in circles without a clear conclusion.
December 20, 2022
Really enjoyed this dive into Pearl Jam from the early 90s to the present day. It’s made me want to re-listen to so many songs and has made me so nostalgic. Probably only for fans, or lovers of alternative music.
December 30, 2022
I do not own a single Pearl Jam album, but as a 49 year-old fan of rock music, I enjoy their singles from the 90's as much as any from that era. I am a big fan of Steven Hyden's writing stemming back from his days at Grantland. This is the third book of his that I have read, and I loved the format of this one (he always seems to come up with a unique angle). Hyden takes 18 renditions (either from specific shows, performances or album cuts) of Pearl Jam songs and discusses them in relation to his own life, the history of the band, or society in general. I'd love to see him do this with a number of other bands because I found it totally engrossing and I plowed through this book in two days. I would imagine a true PJ fan would really love this book, but I think it speaks to Hyden's writing that I was so taken with it as someone with just the most basic knowledge of their songs and history.
September 29, 2022
fans love to “solve” the music they love. we dig through lyrics, read and reread interviews, and demand clarity from the sonic murk of records we can’t stop playing even after we’ve long since evolved beyond our teenaged selves.i was late to school on october 19, 1993. i’d inexplicably convinced a parent of my compelling need to buy pearl jam’s sophomore album on cassette the very minute the mall music shop lifted its gate on that much-anticipated tuesday morning. i had been a pretty ardent fan since the group’s videos first entered regular rotation on mtv — and it had already been a solid year of enduring embarrassingly bad “jeremy” renditions every time i met someone who imagined themselves clever. pearl jam loomed large throughout my teenage years, however much that ardor eventually cooled (but later warmed again!). i even had the unmistakable opening bars of “yellow ledbetter” as my flip phone ringtone so many ages ago.
steven hyden’s long road: pearl jam and the soundtrack of a generation mixes rock bio, band chronicle, music criticism, and fan appreciation to combine for a must-read for any devotees of the seattle quintet. arranged as a mix-tape featuring 18 tracks (each chapter titled with a pj song name and particular performance), long road explores the origins, ups, downs, all-arounds, and enduring legacies of this venerable, anomalous band — some 30+ years(!) after their formation and first album. hyden, a fellow teen-in-the-90s, clearly admires and was shaped by pearl jam’s music, so while his approach may be somewhat unorthodox compared to other books in the genre, long road is all the better for it... and will for sure have you digging out old tapes, bootleg CDs, and/or youtubing far too many concert videos.
October 15, 2022
This book does a great job telling the story of Pearl Jam through a pop culture lens. You do not get a complete Pearl Jam biography, but Hyden covers every part of their career. You get a great sense of who Pearl Jam are as a band and why they are important.
The book goes chronologically through Pearl Jam’s career with the author expanding on favorite songs are moments. My favorite parts of the book are the Pop Culture side bars. Some of my favorite parts of the book include the creation of the song “Hunger Strike” and later analogies of the careers of Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder, the comparison of Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam and their career trajectories and shared personnel, detailed descriptions of Pearl Jams attempt to tour without Ticketmaster, and the “Jeremy” video and its impact on Pearl Jams career.
I enjoyed reading the book and found myself frequently searching Youtube or online articles to get more information on what I had read. I am not sure if this is mostly common knowledge to Pearl Jam fans , but it was new information to me.
I will agree with some other readers that it felt like some of the passion of the first half of the book lost momentum when discussing Pearl Jams later career. I was a fan of “Ten” like most teenagers in the early 90’s but had not listened to a full Pearl Jam album since “Vs.” when I picked up the self titled 2006 album and kept up with their career from there. I did not feel the same passion reading about the later albums as the earlier albums, which probably speaks more to the cultural impact than the writing
If you are a fan of music or reads about a bands pop culture impact, you will enjoy this book. Recommended.
I received an advance reader copy from Netgalley for an honest review.
The book goes chronologically through Pearl Jam’s career with the author expanding on favorite songs are moments. My favorite parts of the book are the Pop Culture side bars. Some of my favorite parts of the book include the creation of the song “Hunger Strike” and later analogies of the careers of Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder, the comparison of Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam and their career trajectories and shared personnel, detailed descriptions of Pearl Jams attempt to tour without Ticketmaster, and the “Jeremy” video and its impact on Pearl Jams career.
I enjoyed reading the book and found myself frequently searching Youtube or online articles to get more information on what I had read. I am not sure if this is mostly common knowledge to Pearl Jam fans , but it was new information to me.
I will agree with some other readers that it felt like some of the passion of the first half of the book lost momentum when discussing Pearl Jams later career. I was a fan of “Ten” like most teenagers in the early 90’s but had not listened to a full Pearl Jam album since “Vs.” when I picked up the self titled 2006 album and kept up with their career from there. I did not feel the same passion reading about the later albums as the earlier albums, which probably speaks more to the cultural impact than the writing
If you are a fan of music or reads about a bands pop culture impact, you will enjoy this book. Recommended.
I received an advance reader copy from Netgalley for an honest review.
June 3, 2023
My rating may be more personal affection for the subject matter, I’ve loved Pearl Jam for decades now, but Hyden does a masterful job expanding the perspective on them. Through this book I really became aware of how captured in amber most of the music of my youth is to me. Pearl Jam was the albums Ten, Vs., and the singles I heard on rock radio. There is more to them as a band and it was great nostalgia to see the trajectory from grunge superstars to legacy band. I’ll probably look up more of Steven Hayden’s work from this.
May 8, 2023
In 2011, Cameron Crowe made a documentary titled, PJ 20 in celebration of the band's 20th anniversary since its inception. Prophetically, he said, "The guys in Pearl Jam really did study their heroes. They didn't just listen to the music -- they studied interviews, the way bands fell apart, the way bands stayed together. Pearl Jam was built for the long run."
And honestly, I concur.
I'm not even sure if this is a memoir. I supposed it's a study that aims to dissect Pearl Jam and their staying power. How their influence goes beyond music. It's a culture; a state of mind. One of the grandfathers of grunge -- right up there with Nirvana and Soundgarden. The only difference is, Nirvana's and Soundgarden's front men has been dead. While they were running away from their own demons, Eddie Vedder was going about his life and finding solace outside of the drugs and rock roll scenes.
In the 90s, you're either listening to alternative grunge or bobbing your head to hip hop/gangsta rap. I was a fan of both. I met my husband in 1993 right around the rise of grunge. He used to drive a 1979 Firebird that had a cassette deck. It had its share of mix tapes blasting music from both genres. But since he's more of a rocker himself, Pearl Jam's songs has been a part of our core memories.
Steven Hyden picked 18 songs from PJ's library then goes into a deep dive into the genesis of each song. It's enlightening to see the behind-the-scenes and the psyche of the band in general as they navigate their instant popularity. Unsurprisingly, Eddie was not into all the pomp and circumstance. A shy, surfer dude from San Diego, Eddie was an introvert who didn't embrace the life of a rock star.
They are one of those bands who follow their identity to the letter. Devoted fans will get what they've come to know and love from the band year in and year out. Regardless of the ebb and flow of the music industry, they remain to this day, devoted to their craft.
This book was such an easy read in way that the narrative flows so smoothly. And if you're a fan of the band, it's like a walk down the memory lane. It will trigger happy memories that are nostalgic at times. My favourite part is learning about the history of each songs and how relatable they are to this day.
And honestly, I concur.
I'm not even sure if this is a memoir. I supposed it's a study that aims to dissect Pearl Jam and their staying power. How their influence goes beyond music. It's a culture; a state of mind. One of the grandfathers of grunge -- right up there with Nirvana and Soundgarden. The only difference is, Nirvana's and Soundgarden's front men has been dead. While they were running away from their own demons, Eddie Vedder was going about his life and finding solace outside of the drugs and rock roll scenes.
In the 90s, you're either listening to alternative grunge or bobbing your head to hip hop/gangsta rap. I was a fan of both. I met my husband in 1993 right around the rise of grunge. He used to drive a 1979 Firebird that had a cassette deck. It had its share of mix tapes blasting music from both genres. But since he's more of a rocker himself, Pearl Jam's songs has been a part of our core memories.
Steven Hyden picked 18 songs from PJ's library then goes into a deep dive into the genesis of each song. It's enlightening to see the behind-the-scenes and the psyche of the band in general as they navigate their instant popularity. Unsurprisingly, Eddie was not into all the pomp and circumstance. A shy, surfer dude from San Diego, Eddie was an introvert who didn't embrace the life of a rock star.
They are one of those bands who follow their identity to the letter. Devoted fans will get what they've come to know and love from the band year in and year out. Regardless of the ebb and flow of the music industry, they remain to this day, devoted to their craft.
This book was such an easy read in way that the narrative flows so smoothly. And if you're a fan of the band, it's like a walk down the memory lane. It will trigger happy memories that are nostalgic at times. My favourite part is learning about the history of each songs and how relatable they are to this day.
October 23, 2022
There are good stretches where I loved this book. Hyden is a very engaging writer, with the right mix of formal and informal voice that makes a nice mixture of a fan guide and a critical guide at PJ's work. There is absolutely no doubt that he is an excellent guide to the 90s and afterwards musical scene of the "Grunge" era (a misnomer of the entire movement that he effectually deconstructs in this book). This is a book by a Pearl Jam fan for Pearl Jam fans that is not in any way a money grab but a passion project that seeks to write the definitive encapsulation of what makes this band durable beyond their era.
It succeeds nearly the entire time. Divided into Side A and Side B, Side A covers the Ascendance and Side B the Transcendence of the band (my terms). Side A, like most albums, is superior to Side B. The alchemy that brought his band together and transformed 90s rock is superbly rendered, particularly because Hyden places them into context alongside their contemporaries, with many witty asides and comparisons that are accurate and excavatory to my own recollections in memory. He never denigrates less successful contemporaries and "imitators" of Eddie Vedder, fairly defending bands like Stone Temple Pilots who weren't really trying to imitate PJ but got placed in that category anyways. He's not easy on Pearl Jam either, and certainly picks apart fair criticism of the unevenness of most of their studio albums. However, he overcomes the rough years - the "crater" years of the late 90s through mid 2000's - by giving credit where it is rarely received but also explaining PJ's relentless drive NOT to be commercial: the transcendence of the 1993 MTV Awards, when they refused to play songs from Ten and brought out Neil Young to establish their rock bona fides, taking on Ticketmaster in a quixotic effort to bring fairness to concert prices, making records that defied the expectations of critics and fans, pissing off fans by making overt political statements that divided some, but ultimately becoming rock survivors by overcoming the tragedies of Kurt Cobain, the Roskilde festival (9 fans were trampled to death right in front of them), and Chris Cornell.
I agreed with him through the analysis of the latest records. I prefer the "rockier" tracks off of the albums since the self titled "Avocado" covered album in 2006, and aren't as dismissive as he is. That's not a major criticism, just a statement of difference. This is really a 4.5 review because of it. Honestly, if you're a fan of PJ and the 90's alternative rock scene, this book most definitely is FOR you and much better written than most rock bios. You'll rediscover elements of the band and the time that may have faded with time, as I did. We need more books about current music that are written as this one is, and that is the highest praise I can give Hyden to keep writing them.
It succeeds nearly the entire time. Divided into Side A and Side B, Side A covers the Ascendance and Side B the Transcendence of the band (my terms). Side A, like most albums, is superior to Side B. The alchemy that brought his band together and transformed 90s rock is superbly rendered, particularly because Hyden places them into context alongside their contemporaries, with many witty asides and comparisons that are accurate and excavatory to my own recollections in memory. He never denigrates less successful contemporaries and "imitators" of Eddie Vedder, fairly defending bands like Stone Temple Pilots who weren't really trying to imitate PJ but got placed in that category anyways. He's not easy on Pearl Jam either, and certainly picks apart fair criticism of the unevenness of most of their studio albums. However, he overcomes the rough years - the "crater" years of the late 90s through mid 2000's - by giving credit where it is rarely received but also explaining PJ's relentless drive NOT to be commercial: the transcendence of the 1993 MTV Awards, when they refused to play songs from Ten and brought out Neil Young to establish their rock bona fides, taking on Ticketmaster in a quixotic effort to bring fairness to concert prices, making records that defied the expectations of critics and fans, pissing off fans by making overt political statements that divided some, but ultimately becoming rock survivors by overcoming the tragedies of Kurt Cobain, the Roskilde festival (9 fans were trampled to death right in front of them), and Chris Cornell.
I agreed with him through the analysis of the latest records. I prefer the "rockier" tracks off of the albums since the self titled "Avocado" covered album in 2006, and aren't as dismissive as he is. That's not a major criticism, just a statement of difference. This is really a 4.5 review because of it. Honestly, if you're a fan of PJ and the 90's alternative rock scene, this book most definitely is FOR you and much better written than most rock bios. You'll rediscover elements of the band and the time that may have faded with time, as I did. We need more books about current music that are written as this one is, and that is the highest praise I can give Hyden to keep writing them.
January 16, 2023
Being from the same era as this guy, most of the musical and cultural reference points certainly hit home. Though with this being an American author chatting about an American band, there is a heavy American emphasis on content. I remember being a huge fan of Pearl Jam...for the first three albums, like most people, before they petered out into the largely mediocre outfit they have been since "No Code".
I enjoyed this enough, and the author's love of his "deep listening" of countless P-J bootlegs etc, but there were also times when I found him irritating and mis-informed. I mean what sort of music journalist would say something as silly as "In 1980 people had never seen thirty-something year old rock stars before." So what about every member of the Beatles, the Stones and David Bowie?...and that's just starting on the bigger ones from England...
I did learn some interesting background on the many songs and of the lives of those involved, but often he got a little too carried away with the description and reading all sorts of intense and outlandish meaning into many of the songs, which probably exist mostly inside in his own head, but hey, at least he's enjoying himself!
March 12, 2023
An interesting look at an important band. Though the book ultimately failed at convincing me why Pearl Jam is the soundtrack of Gen X. The first half of the book, Side A, tracks the first decade or so of Pearl Jam’s career. Hyden captures this period magnificently - from what is was like for midwestern kids (like myself) to discover them, the period surrounding Cobain’s death, their failed campaign against Ticketmaster, and their receding from the public eye post Vitalogy (which was right around the time I stopped paying attention). The second half, Side B, is uneven. This is where Hyden’s thesis ultimately fails. Can any one band be the soundtrack of a generation. Probably not. Pearl Jam’s generational importance was largely left behind in the 90s. Despite the authors attempt to paint them
as something more than a touring nostalgia act they actually don’t strike me as much more than that. Sadly, pop music has moved so far away from rock as relevant I’m not even sure Pearl Jam is all that important as a contemporary music influence and that’s kind of a bummer.
as something more than a touring nostalgia act they actually don’t strike me as much more than that. Sadly, pop music has moved so far away from rock as relevant I’m not even sure Pearl Jam is all that important as a contemporary music influence and that’s kind of a bummer.
February 10, 2024
I found this book while listening to Rob Harvilla's podcast. Having been a teenager in the 90s who enjoyed Pearl Jam, I was curious about the band as a lens 1990-2020. The book surprised be with well crafted chapters, clever word play, and humility. I kept listening to specific songs as I read to hear his evidence. The critical theory made me think and the humor made me smile. I learned a great deal, and as always, feel sad about how the public clings to simple spurious narratives. I also wonder if someone who grew up in a different decade would enjoy the book as much I did. Lovely ending.
February 26, 2023
5 stars from this grunge kid. A must read for any Pearl Jam fans out there. Have your phone handy if you aren't good with song names. Well actually, even if you it's fun to play the songs as he's talking bout them.
I can't express how good it was to read this. Like a little spot of therapy, taking me back to some really good times. And then bringing it all back full circle.
Very happy to have read this. 🤘
I can't express how good it was to read this. Like a little spot of therapy, taking me back to some really good times. And then bringing it all back full circle.
Very happy to have read this. 🤘
November 18, 2022
A deep dive into my favorite band - but this isn't another boring biography rehashing old tropes from the 90s. This book takes a different approach to telling the Pearl Jam story. Long Road is criticism - half music criticism, half cultural criticism. Looking at Pearl Jam's career and impact on their world via these lenses keeps their music and mission fresh, even as the band enters its third decade and their legacy already firmly secure. While unapologetically biased, Hyden gives the band their due, and made this obsessed fan tip his hat to another.
January 13, 2023
Don’t be fooled by the title, this book is not just a historical text of a great band’s career. It is a historical text of the state of the world through the 90’s and 2000’s, that uses Pearl Jam’s career as a vessel to carry it forward. I loved Hyden’s casual and friendly tone throughout, it felt like you were speaking to an older friend about their favorite band and what life was like while they were popular. Fantastic book!
January 1, 2024
This book took me at least 3x longer to read than it should have because I kept having to pause and listen/watch the PJ song/performance being described. I’m not mad.
October 13, 2022
I remember the first time I heard "Ten" by Pearl Jam. It was such an amazing recording, but my college boyfriend refused to lend it to me because he felt that it was an underground, indie album that wouldn't be readily available. Months later, when we were no longer together, I laughed at the monster hit it became, and I have been a fan ever since.
In Steven Hyden's latest book, Long Road, he takes a look at the long and sometimes challenging journey Pearl Jam has taken to solidify their longevity in the world of music. I've read many of the author's books. In fact, one awaits me on my tablet. I'm a committed fan of his as well as Pearl Jam, so I was thrilled to receive a copy of the book. This did not disappoint.
Although I consider myself a Pearl Jam fan, I fell out of listening to anything beyond Yield. We own all their subsequent albums, but we never really listened to them more than once. I've never seen them in concert, and when I did hear live material on SiriusXM, for example, I wasn't wowed. But Hyden makes those concerts come alive, and now I feel like, what have I been missing.
I love that Hyden wove his own feelings and opinions about the genre that Pearl Jam originated from and his experiences as a fan of the band. He tells his own stories while relating the events that started the band and ushered them through the tumultuous years of stardom and notoriety. Some years maybe would be their last, but they continued to persevere despite the critics and naysayers.
And I like that this only loosely goes in a linear, chronological order. News events and life events, both on the front page of the news and involving the band, make up the chapters. I really loved that, but, I suspect, that some readers may prefer a solid route to Pearl Jam's status today.
I also felt blindsided that I never knew the whole "Momma-Son" theme from Ten. I had absolutely no idea, I just knew that I loved the album. It was enlightening and somewhat disturbing to find out, but the songs stick with you and now offer more than just a story. Like the song, "Alive," which has taken on a completely different context because it's a bonding event at concerts.
I really enjoyed this book, and it made me want to crank up Pearl Jam and relive the amazement I felt when I first heard their seminal album. If you're a Pearl Jam fan, read this book.
Thank you, Hachette Books, for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! It was a pleasure!
In Steven Hyden's latest book, Long Road, he takes a look at the long and sometimes challenging journey Pearl Jam has taken to solidify their longevity in the world of music. I've read many of the author's books. In fact, one awaits me on my tablet. I'm a committed fan of his as well as Pearl Jam, so I was thrilled to receive a copy of the book. This did not disappoint.
Although I consider myself a Pearl Jam fan, I fell out of listening to anything beyond Yield. We own all their subsequent albums, but we never really listened to them more than once. I've never seen them in concert, and when I did hear live material on SiriusXM, for example, I wasn't wowed. But Hyden makes those concerts come alive, and now I feel like, what have I been missing.
I love that Hyden wove his own feelings and opinions about the genre that Pearl Jam originated from and his experiences as a fan of the band. He tells his own stories while relating the events that started the band and ushered them through the tumultuous years of stardom and notoriety. Some years maybe would be their last, but they continued to persevere despite the critics and naysayers.
And I like that this only loosely goes in a linear, chronological order. News events and life events, both on the front page of the news and involving the band, make up the chapters. I really loved that, but, I suspect, that some readers may prefer a solid route to Pearl Jam's status today.
I also felt blindsided that I never knew the whole "Momma-Son" theme from Ten. I had absolutely no idea, I just knew that I loved the album. It was enlightening and somewhat disturbing to find out, but the songs stick with you and now offer more than just a story. Like the song, "Alive," which has taken on a completely different context because it's a bonding event at concerts.
I really enjoyed this book, and it made me want to crank up Pearl Jam and relive the amazement I felt when I first heard their seminal album. If you're a Pearl Jam fan, read this book.
Thank you, Hachette Books, for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! It was a pleasure!
January 21, 2023
I really loved this. (Yikes, now that I’m done typing, I see how stream-of-conscious and all-over-the-place this is… It’s more of “my response after reading” and not really a review, so I guess don’t read this if you’re just looking for a review….) Obviously, Pearl Jam fans are the people who will be buying this, and there’s really nothing to dislike. It’s always significant to note who’s writing and what agenda they might have. Kim Neely’s book is often referenced, but that was back in ’97; Pearl Jam 20 covered a lot of the history and involved the band, in their own words, and Hyden makes a point of saying that he’s going to do something different, that those things have been done and so he’s NOT interviewing the band and getting their take on certain moments. I think the biggest thing to say about it is that it’s not just a biography of the band, and the author makes no claims of being neutral and just writing an extended profile. So much involving this band has been reported before, so many stories are well known, so Hyden takes the stance of writing almost an extended personal narrative about how the band affected him as he came of age right at this time. He writes as an observer, analyzing key moments throughout the band’s career that he thinks are turning points, major points of impact, writing about how he as well as the masses viewed such moments.
There’s so many things I could say about this book, but I think it’s pretty impossible to cover everything here. He makes a number of claims and comparisons that insightful, fair, and obviously debatable, and many fans could find things to argue with or comment upon with nearly every paragraph, but it was very enjoyable and interesting to read. He writes a lot about Gen X and tries to applies the ethos of the time toward the band and analyzing the decision making process as they evolved, grew, and survived, contrasting that ethos with the Boomers before us and the Millennials after us, tying it in with all sorts of notions the PJ displayed involving their tone, their irony, and maybe contributing towards a bit of why other bands may have found a bit to scoff at with PJ as everyone debated over true cred, what’s true grunge, are people Nirvana fans or PJ fans – discussing how Eddie and co actually wanted to make a difference and try to change things, give hope, maybe be a little uplifting (illustrated by taking on Ticketmaster, in another well-documented episode, but also citing moments in songs, the “rise above” line in Daughter, the “take my hand and walk beside me” focus of leaving the Porch versus the mocking of such ethos/emotions as Kris Noveselik mock-singing the Youngblood’s “Get Together,” or analyzing how the members of Green River went and saw Jane’s Addiction in ’90 and half the band loved them and half the band didn’t, interestingly splitting along those lines with Mark Arm founding Mudhoney – “true grunge?” – and Jeff and Stone forming MLB “a bit too glam?”)
There were so many interesting tidbits like that that could be analyzed and debated at length, and I just found it really interesting to think about all that stuff, stuff that I had maybe known and maybe not, but to revisit it and ponder. I knew the Unplugged episode, but it was interesting to hear Hyden contextualize it in terms of the early ‘90’s, the pre-internet age, MTV’s effect on people (like me) who were in the Midwest and had no way of hearing about new things, not being part of any music scene, so when the perfect storm of the Hunger Strike video and Jeremy and Lollapalooza and the SNL performances all hit, and Unplugged hit and Vedder and co were everywhere, and people weren’t just seeing a spectacle of glitter and hair and spandex and sequins, for the first time people were seeing almost a reflection of themselves, passion anger, wanting… I thought it was interesting to hear how the Jeremy video (something I’ve seen a million times) was analyzed, explaining something I hadn’t heard a million times before, how the final scene of the gun in Jeremy’s mouth was edited out, contributing to a massive misunderstanding (one I had as well way back) that Jeremy shot everything ELSE and not himself. (I spent a lot of time in the first half of the book looking stuff up on Youtube, even things I thought I had seen a thousand times. I wanted to see the Hunger Strike video again, I wanted to see the SNL performances and the promo with Emilio Estefz that Hyden was talking about. But by far the coolest things was the ’95 Red Rocks concert that he writes about in the first chapter. I wanted to see the unknown song they performed that isn’t captured anywhere else – Falling Down--, but then I ended up getting sucked in to the low-key nature of their 7-song opening, playing Long Road, reworking Jeremy, abandoning a Nick Cave cover, playing Footsteps, then ultimately exploding into the rage of Versus and Vitalogy, but then ending with an incredible string of Black/Porch/Immortality/Indifference, songs we all know, but seeing the concert as a reflection of their growth, a pivotal moment in their career as they shifted, took control, explored new themes, and did what they wanted.)
Every grunge fan knows all about Nirvana, Kurt’s struggles, drugs, his suicide, but I thought it was interesting the way Hyden broke down “the worst month of Pearl Jam’s career” with a day by day examination of that April, PJ playing in Atlanta, noting in concert that Kurt was missing and saying from the stage “I hope he’s Ok,” the day they found out he was not, the day that they first played Immortality, then examining how that song isn’t really about Kurt but Eddie examining himself and imagining himself AS Kurt… I thought it was interesting how Hyden developed a whole chapter to comparing PJ/Eddie with Stone Temple Pilots and Weiland, delving into the criticism of who’s a poseur and who’s not, how/why people label others as such, how it wasn’t really STP’s fault that they came out at the exact same time, how they recorded/released material at the same time or before PJ blew up, but because of the coincidence and timing of the airplay audiences just grasped on to this notion of copying. Hyden writes a lot about (again, well-documented) Weiland’s issues, bi-polar disorder, drug use, but tying it into this idea of him being judged as “fake” – the guy DIED and lived all these struggles he was singing about, and people still judge him as a poseur? And Hyden breaks down how after the success of Ten/Vs compared to Core/Purple, Weiland coped with this pressure with something offering him heroin, whereas Eddie coped with the pressure when Neil Young and Pete Townshed reached out. Imagine that moment of where each of their path’s diverged, where each could have gone the other way. And then following this, Hyden writes about the VMA’s where PJ stood with Neil Young, playing Animal Rocking in the Free World (a song we’ve all heard live multiple times from them, but people seeing that maybe for the first time), PJ symbolically saying “We don’t need your validation” and “I don’t know what this ‘award’ even means, but we’re standing with Neil and his ethos more than we are you and your holding us up.”
Well, I’m doing what I said I wasn’t going to do. That’s the thing. Each chapter, each comparison, it’s interesting, it’s thought-provoking, it’s something that even if you think you knew, Hyden kind of puts it in a way that expounds and makes you rethink. I’ve heard Versus and Vitalogy and Yield and No Code countless times, but it was interesting to hear his anaylsis of how each of those reflects the times, the band’s psychology. I knew all the songs on Versus, obviously, but maybe I wasn’t always cognizant of how each song was literally taking a stance and fighting some HUGE theme (Animalsexual assault, Daughter neglect, learning disabilities, Glorified guns, WMA police, writing from women’s point of view Dissent, Elderly Woman, Leash, Daughter, in a way that other bands never really did), or breaking down songs on Vitalogy not just to remark that Eddie was asserting more control (he was) and Stone had to cede his own (he did, unhappily, almost breaking up the band), but how Vitalogy (the study of life!) reflects Eddie losing his mind with his art so he didn’t have to in his real life, how everyone knows Corduroy as a concert staple, but the weirdness of Bugs and Mophandlemam and Satan’s Bed and the rejection of everyone and everything with Corduroy (a song Eddie thought too obvious so he put a picture of his teeth X-rayed in the liner notes, reflection the “not good” state of his mind, another thing I always knew and saw but never really appreciated or realized) and Not For You and Whipping. Moving to No Code, they stepped back, matured, found a bit of Zen, the line in Present Tense almost standing as a watershed moment, “You can spend your time alone redigesting past regrets oh... Or you can come to terms and realize, you're the only one who can forgive yourself oh yeah... Makes much more sense to live in the present tense..” as Eddie moved on, leading into Yield as they all learned to give in a little, they/he can’t be in the Versus mode and fighting on all fronts non-stop and not go crazy.
I could go on and on. Even as someone who knows a lot about Pearl Jam, it was interesting, it was a great take on a great band, it was thought-provoking, and I haven’t even gotten into the second half of the book, take issue with Hyden’s treatment of later albums or comparison to the Grateful Dead with their career model based on touring and performing all songs, not just the hits, so that people are excited to travel with them and see them multiple times, see what they do each night, the bootlegs, the political stance they took with the Avocado album (and the attention/rejection with the Bushleaguer song, tying in the cross-generational notions of treatment/attitude towards war comparing the 60’s and spitting on soldiers with the “Support the Troops” movement of the 90’s and then the Gen X influence with their attitudes, just a really interesting cross-examination of a moment with potential causes and effects).
I’m gonna stop now. I thought it was a great book, a great look at the moments behind what we think we’ve all known. It’s a great contextualization of how the band fits into the times, and speaking as someone who grew up with them, I’ve always felt they kind of paralleled my worldview, angry in 9th grade, rejecting things and drawing inward in 10th , finding Zen and yielding in 11th and 12th, looking more outward in college, finding acceptance and riding the waves, even now, as they matured and recognized when’s the time to admit “I’m not trying to make a difference” and when’s the time to admit it’s ok to look back and be grateful while still examine things around us that need to be addressed and improved upon. Yikes, this is why I put off writing about this for a week. Every sentence in the book just made me think about life, my own thoughts at the time, culture, growing up, psychology… Like in Indifference, simultaneously asking “How much different can it make” while admitting “I will scream my lungs out until it fills this room,” questioning but also vowing to fight on. I’ll end with that.
There’s so many things I could say about this book, but I think it’s pretty impossible to cover everything here. He makes a number of claims and comparisons that insightful, fair, and obviously debatable, and many fans could find things to argue with or comment upon with nearly every paragraph, but it was very enjoyable and interesting to read. He writes a lot about Gen X and tries to applies the ethos of the time toward the band and analyzing the decision making process as they evolved, grew, and survived, contrasting that ethos with the Boomers before us and the Millennials after us, tying it in with all sorts of notions the PJ displayed involving their tone, their irony, and maybe contributing towards a bit of why other bands may have found a bit to scoff at with PJ as everyone debated over true cred, what’s true grunge, are people Nirvana fans or PJ fans – discussing how Eddie and co actually wanted to make a difference and try to change things, give hope, maybe be a little uplifting (illustrated by taking on Ticketmaster, in another well-documented episode, but also citing moments in songs, the “rise above” line in Daughter, the “take my hand and walk beside me” focus of leaving the Porch versus the mocking of such ethos/emotions as Kris Noveselik mock-singing the Youngblood’s “Get Together,” or analyzing how the members of Green River went and saw Jane’s Addiction in ’90 and half the band loved them and half the band didn’t, interestingly splitting along those lines with Mark Arm founding Mudhoney – “true grunge?” – and Jeff and Stone forming MLB “a bit too glam?”)
There were so many interesting tidbits like that that could be analyzed and debated at length, and I just found it really interesting to think about all that stuff, stuff that I had maybe known and maybe not, but to revisit it and ponder. I knew the Unplugged episode, but it was interesting to hear Hyden contextualize it in terms of the early ‘90’s, the pre-internet age, MTV’s effect on people (like me) who were in the Midwest and had no way of hearing about new things, not being part of any music scene, so when the perfect storm of the Hunger Strike video and Jeremy and Lollapalooza and the SNL performances all hit, and Unplugged hit and Vedder and co were everywhere, and people weren’t just seeing a spectacle of glitter and hair and spandex and sequins, for the first time people were seeing almost a reflection of themselves, passion anger, wanting… I thought it was interesting to hear how the Jeremy video (something I’ve seen a million times) was analyzed, explaining something I hadn’t heard a million times before, how the final scene of the gun in Jeremy’s mouth was edited out, contributing to a massive misunderstanding (one I had as well way back) that Jeremy shot everything ELSE and not himself. (I spent a lot of time in the first half of the book looking stuff up on Youtube, even things I thought I had seen a thousand times. I wanted to see the Hunger Strike video again, I wanted to see the SNL performances and the promo with Emilio Estefz that Hyden was talking about. But by far the coolest things was the ’95 Red Rocks concert that he writes about in the first chapter. I wanted to see the unknown song they performed that isn’t captured anywhere else – Falling Down--, but then I ended up getting sucked in to the low-key nature of their 7-song opening, playing Long Road, reworking Jeremy, abandoning a Nick Cave cover, playing Footsteps, then ultimately exploding into the rage of Versus and Vitalogy, but then ending with an incredible string of Black/Porch/Immortality/Indifference, songs we all know, but seeing the concert as a reflection of their growth, a pivotal moment in their career as they shifted, took control, explored new themes, and did what they wanted.)
Every grunge fan knows all about Nirvana, Kurt’s struggles, drugs, his suicide, but I thought it was interesting the way Hyden broke down “the worst month of Pearl Jam’s career” with a day by day examination of that April, PJ playing in Atlanta, noting in concert that Kurt was missing and saying from the stage “I hope he’s Ok,” the day they found out he was not, the day that they first played Immortality, then examining how that song isn’t really about Kurt but Eddie examining himself and imagining himself AS Kurt… I thought it was interesting how Hyden developed a whole chapter to comparing PJ/Eddie with Stone Temple Pilots and Weiland, delving into the criticism of who’s a poseur and who’s not, how/why people label others as such, how it wasn’t really STP’s fault that they came out at the exact same time, how they recorded/released material at the same time or before PJ blew up, but because of the coincidence and timing of the airplay audiences just grasped on to this notion of copying. Hyden writes a lot about (again, well-documented) Weiland’s issues, bi-polar disorder, drug use, but tying it into this idea of him being judged as “fake” – the guy DIED and lived all these struggles he was singing about, and people still judge him as a poseur? And Hyden breaks down how after the success of Ten/Vs compared to Core/Purple, Weiland coped with this pressure with something offering him heroin, whereas Eddie coped with the pressure when Neil Young and Pete Townshed reached out. Imagine that moment of where each of their path’s diverged, where each could have gone the other way. And then following this, Hyden writes about the VMA’s where PJ stood with Neil Young, playing Animal Rocking in the Free World (a song we’ve all heard live multiple times from them, but people seeing that maybe for the first time), PJ symbolically saying “We don’t need your validation” and “I don’t know what this ‘award’ even means, but we’re standing with Neil and his ethos more than we are you and your holding us up.”
Well, I’m doing what I said I wasn’t going to do. That’s the thing. Each chapter, each comparison, it’s interesting, it’s thought-provoking, it’s something that even if you think you knew, Hyden kind of puts it in a way that expounds and makes you rethink. I’ve heard Versus and Vitalogy and Yield and No Code countless times, but it was interesting to hear his anaylsis of how each of those reflects the times, the band’s psychology. I knew all the songs on Versus, obviously, but maybe I wasn’t always cognizant of how each song was literally taking a stance and fighting some HUGE theme (Animalsexual assault, Daughter neglect, learning disabilities, Glorified guns, WMA police, writing from women’s point of view Dissent, Elderly Woman, Leash, Daughter, in a way that other bands never really did), or breaking down songs on Vitalogy not just to remark that Eddie was asserting more control (he was) and Stone had to cede his own (he did, unhappily, almost breaking up the band), but how Vitalogy (the study of life!) reflects Eddie losing his mind with his art so he didn’t have to in his real life, how everyone knows Corduroy as a concert staple, but the weirdness of Bugs and Mophandlemam and Satan’s Bed and the rejection of everyone and everything with Corduroy (a song Eddie thought too obvious so he put a picture of his teeth X-rayed in the liner notes, reflection the “not good” state of his mind, another thing I always knew and saw but never really appreciated or realized) and Not For You and Whipping. Moving to No Code, they stepped back, matured, found a bit of Zen, the line in Present Tense almost standing as a watershed moment, “You can spend your time alone redigesting past regrets oh... Or you can come to terms and realize, you're the only one who can forgive yourself oh yeah... Makes much more sense to live in the present tense..” as Eddie moved on, leading into Yield as they all learned to give in a little, they/he can’t be in the Versus mode and fighting on all fronts non-stop and not go crazy.
I could go on and on. Even as someone who knows a lot about Pearl Jam, it was interesting, it was a great take on a great band, it was thought-provoking, and I haven’t even gotten into the second half of the book, take issue with Hyden’s treatment of later albums or comparison to the Grateful Dead with their career model based on touring and performing all songs, not just the hits, so that people are excited to travel with them and see them multiple times, see what they do each night, the bootlegs, the political stance they took with the Avocado album (and the attention/rejection with the Bushleaguer song, tying in the cross-generational notions of treatment/attitude towards war comparing the 60’s and spitting on soldiers with the “Support the Troops” movement of the 90’s and then the Gen X influence with their attitudes, just a really interesting cross-examination of a moment with potential causes and effects).
I’m gonna stop now. I thought it was a great book, a great look at the moments behind what we think we’ve all known. It’s a great contextualization of how the band fits into the times, and speaking as someone who grew up with them, I’ve always felt they kind of paralleled my worldview, angry in 9th grade, rejecting things and drawing inward in 10th , finding Zen and yielding in 11th and 12th, looking more outward in college, finding acceptance and riding the waves, even now, as they matured and recognized when’s the time to admit “I’m not trying to make a difference” and when’s the time to admit it’s ok to look back and be grateful while still examine things around us that need to be addressed and improved upon. Yikes, this is why I put off writing about this for a week. Every sentence in the book just made me think about life, my own thoughts at the time, culture, growing up, psychology… Like in Indifference, simultaneously asking “How much different can it make” while admitting “I will scream my lungs out until it fills this room,” questioning but also vowing to fight on. I’ll end with that.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 166 reviews