The success of Nevermind and the buzz around Nirvana created ample opportunities for similarly dishevelled and disgruntled guitar acts to reclaim the upper reaches of the charts from the strutting sirens of 80s synth pop. Far from recognising kindred spirits and potential allies, though, the newly anointed King Kurt imperiously impugned their motives, insinuating in several interviews that bands like Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains were, in fact, classic rock or glam metal acts that had moved to Seattle and rubbed some grime under their fingernails in an attempt to exploit the emergence of the new scene.
Worst of all, Kurt was partly correct. The early Alice in Chains promotional photos look like Mötley Crüe, all leather jackets and fluorescent hairstyles, while Eddie Vedder grew up in California, where he apparently dreamed up malcontented grunge songs while surfing on the idyllic waves of the Pacific. Yes, Ten was released a month before Nevermind, but by this point it was clear that something special was brewing in Seattle, that the “next big thing in rock” would emerge from this city, and that the movement would likely be spearheaded by a gaggle of unwashed stoners in flannel shirts. The riffs were getting doomier, the lyrics moodier, and the bandwagon that had been parked on the Sunset Strip for much of the preceding decade was beginning to roll north.
Which is not to deny that Eddie Vedder, like Cobain and Staley, came from a troubled background. But whereas both Kurt and Layne descended into heroin addiction and ultimately, in their own different ways, did themselves in, Edward seems to have proved more resistant to the temptations of fame, and somewhat less self-destructive. Tellingly, he is the only one of the “big four” frontmen who is still alive as of 2024.
All of this is reflected in the fact that Ten is a more conventional – a cynic would say more pedestrian – record than either Nevermind or Dirt; more classic rock than the demented-but-accessible punk of Nirvana, or the menacing, confrontational metal of Alice in Chains. At times, in fact, it borders on Springsteen-esque heartland rock, with the key difference being that it thematises the lives of freaks and outcasts rather than sweaty blue-collar men “working on the highway”. And yet, as we shall presently see, the underlying messages remain comparable.
We are introduced to Ten’s rogue’s gallery of social outcasts on the first song, “Once”, which is apparently about a latent psychopath’s transition into full-blown serial killing (“I got a bomb in my temple that’s gonna explode”). The album’s third song, “Alive”, tells the sad and disturbing tale of a teenage boy who is informed by his mother that his father is not really his biological father, but that his biological father is, in fact, dead. Broadly speaking, this is what actually happened to Vedder. However, “Alive” then takes an unexpected (and hopefully fictional) oedipal turn, as the mother seduces her son in an attempt to reconnect with her deceased former husband. Gulp.
According to some kind of shadowy online legend, there’s a link between “Once” and “Alive”, whereby the traumatic incident described in the latter was intended to provide the psychological backdrop to the killing spree thematised on the former. This strikes me as very believable, precisely because it’s so convoluted and pretentious, which are two words that readily spring to mind when I think of Eddie Vedder, the Californian security guard turned tortured grunge demigod. Most unfortunate of all is that both “Once” and “Alive” are great songs – “Once” works well not just as a murderous ballad in the tradition of the Rolling Stones’ “Midnight Rambler” or U2’s “Exit”, but as a general document of psychological unravelling (“once there was a time I could control myself”). Similarly, if we look past the tiresomely “twisted” incest subplot of “Alive”, then the song is positively anthemic, the tragic childhood of the verses juxtaposed against rousing choruses which gratefully declare “I’m alive”. But they had to go and ruin two bangers with some precious, proggy, concept album bullshit.
Oh well. Anyway, Pearl Jam crack on with songs about social outcasts, as is their wont. “Even Flow”, which was the second single from Ten, is a rollicking, tuneful rocker with lyrics about a mentally ill homeless man who “rests his head on a pillow made of concrete”, sports a “dark grin”, and prays to “something that never showed him anything”. This is the first of many channellings of Vedder’s godless belief system, which is also touched on by the album’s third single, “Jeremy”, another hymn to a poor unfortunate soul, in this case a disturbed schoolboy who shot himself in front of his classmates and teacher. Vedder’s own analysis of the song once again points to the secular, but also slyly optimistic, character of his worldview; he was apparently struck by how the enormity of the boy’s death warranted nothing more than a brief paragraph in a local newspaper, leading him to the conclusion that suicide
“…does nothing … nothing changes. The world goes on and you’re gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself. Be stronger than those people. And then you can come back.”
And so, though we live in a godless world, it’s reassuring to know that hard work, powered by an individualistic aggression and desire to ‘prove yourself’, can win out in the end.
Granted, there are many moments on Ten where Pearl Jam go full-on grunge, such as the speedy punk of “Porch”, which narrates the breakneck madness of modern life, or “Deep”, which presents us with a litany of heroin addicts, murderers, and prostitutes. And yet, with remarkable constancy, given that this is supposed to be a grunge album, Pearl Jam’s songs carry a can-do message, even when Edward is singing about social outcasts. “Why Go”, for example, narrates the experience of a young girl whose parents place her in a mental institution against her will, but it’s ultimately about the triumph of individuality in the face of coldly institutionalised adversity (“She seems to be stronger but what they want her to be is weak”).
This is very different to the fatalistic, though irony-laced, defeatism of Kurt Cobain, or Layne Staley’s flagrant and morbid fascination with death. In fact, it’s closer to Springsteen or the Eagles than nihilistic grunge, which is what renders Pearl Jam as underhanded proponents of the American Dream, rather than a reaction against it or an expression of its dark side. Vedder’s philosophy of secular self-sufficiency is most starkly articulated on “Garden”, which is surely about facing the prospect of death from the comfortless perspective of an atheist, about walking “with my hands bound” and “my face blood” into “your garden of stone” – that is, into a cemetery – and nonetheless insisting that “I don’t need you (i.e. god) for me to live”.
Miserable outsiderdom, but always with the promise of redemption through the Triumph of the Will: this is the ideological backbone of Ten. With that said, some of the album’s best songs are essentially about grief. “Oceans” is a downbeat, but rather effecting, ballad which sees Vedder standing on the beach and missing someone as the waves lap against his feet, while “Release”, the album’s closer, is a poignant meditation on his troubled relationship with the father he never knew – a refreshingly unaffected contrast to the juvenile incest subplot of “Alive”. The highlight of the entire record is arguably “Black”, an initially quite languid but quietly devastating breakup ballad. According to Edward, it’s about losing your first love, and recognising that you will never experience anything so pure or overwhelming again – that the rest of your life will be forever “tattooed in black”. It’s a great song, so I will resist the temptation to point out that, at certain moments, it sounds uncomfortably reminiscent of Jon Secada.
Or maybe I won’t resist that temptation, because, in my opinion, Pearl Jam frequently balance rather uncertainly on the tightrope between emotionally affecting and naff. I’m not the biggest fan of Nirvana but they were never, ever naff; the sense of self-irony is too keen, the vitriol too visceral. By contrast, a Pearl Jam song could conceivably be used as the backing music for a military recruitment commercial, or a movie montage of an underdog boxer preparing for his big fight. The inescapable fact remains that it was possible for a band like Creed to appropriate Pearl Jam’s sound and put it in service to po faced, half-witted Christian rock music with ‘soaring choruses’ and ‘overpowering vocals.’ For all his faults, and despite the proliferation of bargain basement Nirvana knockoffs in the years after his death, this appalling fate, this Creedification, could never have befallen Kurt Cobain. I’m being too hard on Pearl Jam because Ten is a very good album but, as a cultural phenomenon, they were no match for the real masters of grunge.
7/10
Highlights: “Even Flow”, “Jeremy”, “Black”