![]() ![]() ‘The Fixer’ offers a third track on the same theme once more, the name suggests something untoward or seedy, but the music's life-crackling surge and lines as blessedly optimistic as “If there's no love, I wanna try to love again” says otherwise. ‘Got Some’ cruises in on an ultra-tight new wave guitar figure, Vedder flipping his softened, almost adolescent voice through the catchiest vocal hook of his career – “every NIGHT with the light ON where you GONE? WHAT’s wrong?” The lyric would appear to be the flipside to ‘See My Friend’ – Vedder is the one dispensing the relief – but again, it doesn’t feel like there’s any darkness here, just a glorious burst of pop-rock, delightfully in love with its own momentum. I'm sick of everything, I'm gonna see my friend, make it go away” - his borderline ecstatic delivery is such that one can’t help but interpret the actual sentiment as “yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-haaaaaaaaw!” It's good, and the next three songs are frickin’ sublime. While Vedder’s lyrics would seem to be a fairly gloomy channelling of a junkie’s lusts – “I'm gonna see my friend for what I require. Fortunately, they're not the shabby kind.īackspacer commences with ‘Gonna See My Friend’s twangy rollick’n’roll, easily the giddiest opening track on any Pearl Jam record. In comes the first set of straight down the line pop songs Eddie Vedder and co have ever written. Out goes the seething emotion and hard-fought musical builds of yore. shame it’s not one of their best records. Sniffing the upbeat press and general goodwill around Backspacer and it would appear it's finally happening for real. ![]() But the fact is that general critical acceptance of the band has been on the cards for an age. Okay, it didn't really last, for which the agonised Riot Act and the distraction of the (ahem) New Rock Revolution can most likely be blamed. Once Britpop had finally sloped off (though not before taking the almighty shit in the bathroom that was the Stereophonics) we were all good to go: 2000’s Binaural was accompanied by glowing reviews, the band’s first full UK arena tour, and such articles as this excellent, thoughtful interview with NME’s John Mulvey. Though Ten’s naffer excesses were oft used as a stick with which to beat the band – generally to the flattery of Nirvana or the Britpop acts – the fact that exactly the same ‘throwback bores’ argument was trotted out in the face of the savage Vs and unhinged Vitalogy probably indicates that there was no real dislike for those records, more the actual idea of Pearl Jam. If they've never exactly been fashionable, Pearl Jam have always been on better terms with the UK than received wisdom would have it. ![]()
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