Not the best audio quality...

a few thoughts about pearl jam...

-one of the first things i thought when i first heard them way back when was that they reminded me of bad company. take that for it's worth.

-when they played at axis in boston (not a huge club) back when "ten" was out, i went with someone from the club to the supermarket to fill their rider. holy crap did we pick up a lot of stuff. and that show was pretty awesome, i think i stood in the men's room for most of it cuz the club was so packed and there was no room.

-mike mccready is a damn good guitar player, very underrated as far as "guitar heroes" go. dude can play his ass off.

other than that, i'm not really a huge fan. i own "vs." and "vitalogy" and listen to them every so often. they're a good band with a great drummer, but i'm not really into them anymore. more power to 'em though, they've lasted a lot longer than i bet most people thought.

I like that "Elderly Woman" song, and the Temple of the Dog album. Not really a fan otherwise, but they get way more hate than they deserve--they've become, like the Beatles, "cool" to hate on. They'd have way more fans here if they were five fat bearded guys who couldn't sell out a living room.

This "I'd like to see YOU sell this many records!!" shit never gets old, neither does "You just hate them because______"

I don't believe I wrote or implied either of those things--simply pointing out that their style isn't far off from the type of bands that many around here enjoy. There are legitimate reasons to dislike any band, but some posters in this thread are clearly very anxious about the fact that OTHERS like them.

I think Ten is a classic.

The rest of their catalog is a huge let down after that. I like some of their other stuff, VS/ST/Backspacer, but if it wasn't for Ten I'd have stopped paying attention to them looong ago. I can't listen to them just on any given day, I'd say maybe once a year or so I get an itch to throw them on and listen to them for a few days and then move on until the following year.

Pearl Jam prove that you can be both a good band and really overrated. Not a fan myself, but not really offended by them either.

Not a huge fan, but for some reason I have every album, right up to the present. Probably because of their staying power and their seeming integrity and sincerity.
You could make a 2-CD comp that would be extremely listenable.
Also, as stated, the live albums/boots whatever you want to call them are killer because McCready goes OFF.

Around 1994 or so I was workin' at an independent record store. At the time there was a loophole in Italian copyright law that created a huge bootleg industry. There were multiple live shows of just about all the major rock bands of the era on the market. One of my jobs at the time was to listen to the boots and help decided which ones were high quality enough to restock. I heard something like 2 dozen different shows from Pearl Jam's first two tours. Hands down they were the most consistently excellent major band of the era (Smashing Pumpkins were the worst). Every damn one of the shows was "on". They did everything you'd want your favorite band to do: long shows, changed things up regularly, well chosen covers played one or two times out of nowhere, committed passionate performances every night. I've been a fan ever since.

First album is solid, second is an improvement, 3rd and 4th are the high points, fifth is still solid, everything since is solid with a real standout track or two.

I don't, and never have understood the hate. I get that not everybody's gonna love 'em. That's true with any band. I just don't get why they are probably the most hated band of the 90's.

they're no Creed. fuck.

I loved PJ back in the day, but they had to grow on me at first when they hit MTV. broken leg, hot summer, stuck at home, the Jeremy video premiered and sealed the deal for sure and I bought their shit along with everyone else. I'd love to have their first 3 albums back, don't think I ever had the 3rd, and I do believe their new cleaner style fucking owns all, something I felt most of you stonerrockers wouldn't know much about until someone here told you it was cool first. so there you have it, I'm telling you.

plus if you still love them, I wouldn't expect them to answer back to you any time soon, buddy.