Why I Find Pearl Jam's 'Ten' the Most Timeless Album Now but Not Then?

LOOKING BACK 30 YEARS LATER AT THE RELEASES OF THE THREE PARAMOUNT ALBUMS OF THE NINETIES WITHIN ONE MONTH

Looking back it's hardly imaginable that the three best albums of the 1990's decennium were issued all three within a time period of one month. When estimating now I think the first was also the best but I can live with the other choices and I probably wouldn't have said the same twenty-five years ago. Also in my imagination I can't rhyme Blood Sugar Sex Magik being as old as Nirvana's seminal Nevermind.

                © Warner Bros.

Still it is, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers were already an established band, that's why I always thought their superb album much older.

August of 1991

So the first that got out that late holiday 27th of August 1991 was Pearl Jam's Ten. The other two babies were born on the 24th of September. What a wealth that late summer of 1991! While Nirvana made the biggest revolution in music since long, their Seattle counterparts were very different of approach: musically speaking with much more guitar soloing and lyrically with glinsters of hope while Cobain was more cynical textually and in behaviour.

© Jabarratt/Zuma

But both frontmen were wounded deer, that's for sure, the difference lay in how they dealt with that. The one - Vedder - being reckless, the other - Cobain - self hating and fatalistic.

Deep emotions

At the time of release I surely would've chosen Nirvana as best album with RHCP as second best. Nirvana had the most punk intensity of the three bands and the Chili Peppers undeniably the most funky style maybe standing more distant from the other two. The singers of Pearl Jam and Nirvana all felt a pain but they expressed it totally different. Now we're more than thirty (oh my gosh!) years later, I know Ten is the most timeless of them all with deep emotions, the opening of Eddie's soul and the guitars surrounding them.

 

"Ten touches you at a deeper level with its more universal sound still being heavily personal"

It begins already with the very intense 'Once'. That intensity is being maintained in the first five songs which are of high quality. 'Black' is the top song on this album telling us what to do when the sun goes down on our soul. Vedder's clearly been there enough times but he sees why that is so. He sees that black is not a period in time, he sees that the tattoos are painful memories of lover's breath gone cold. That's why he just let it rest in the hands of the Lord.

© Epic Records

There is not one weak song on this whole album but that could be said of the other two bands' albums too, it's simply why they're all outstanding.

Versatile band

Don't think Pearl Jam is not a versatile band. They prove this with the European bonus track 'Dirty Frank', you only don't expect this sheer funkness from them, competing here with the best RCHP. It's just that the song is not really at place in the concept of Ten which is a very serious album digging deep in the worlds of their band members for inspiration. So you don't expect this genre from Pearl Jam and - besides from the quality of the song in itself - for a part that's what makes it so good. There's obvious a lot of fun in the surfer's world Vedder belonged to, and the young adolescent Vedder was able to conquer his growing pains also in such a way. But playfulness was in the heart of Cobain or Nirvana too. Only it didn't stay there...

----------

☆ Pearl Jam - Ten, Epic Records, 27 August 1991

☆ Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Warner Bros. Records, 24 September 1991

☆ Nirvana - Nevermind, DGC Records, 24 September 1991