Hey there. I'm poor Howard, and I know less about music than anyone on this blog. Really. I'm just some guy. Usually when I'm listening to music it's while I'm doing something else. But I'm operating under the assumption that---even though Boomer has the power to communicate with humbucker pickups and the Nudge could probably list the entire discographies of Creepwood and Stinky Creek and other patchouli-scented jam bands I've never even heard of---I'm still entitled to my opinions. For me, talking about music is fun for the same reason talking about sports is fun: there are nearly as many opinions as there are people, and very few of those opinions are flat-out wrong.
Here's a not-quite-flat-out-wrong opinion of mine: Pearl Jam is better than Nirvana. Ten is better than Nevermind.
When I say this to people who know more about music than I do, one of two things always happens: (a) their heads explode, or (b) they spend the rest of the conversation treating me like Forrest Gump ("Really," they whisper to their friends, "as damaged as he is, the fact that he can hold an opinion at all is a triumph of the human spirit"). But I don't care. For a host of personal reasons that maybe I'll get into in a future post, I prefer Pearl Jam.
Meanwhile, feel free to write a long comment telling me how I made your head explode or how I'm a Faulknerian idiot man-child. But if you do, take a moment to stop typing at some point and listen carefully---that sucking sound you hear is your free time circling the drain.
Besides, all I'm really saying is that if Eddie Vedder had choked to death on his own vomit before polluting the radio waves with "Last Kiss," Pearl Jam might be bigger than Satan right now.
So, what might I blog about in the future? Expect more half-baked opinions, maybe some anecdotes about living with music, and definitely some questions for you, Loyal Reader. I suspect a lot of people out there are like me and mostly listen to music while doing something else---waiting for the bus or folding laundry or having sex. But just because you giggle at the word "humbucker," that doesn't mean music isn't important to you. Music can still enhance moments in your life. You don't have to be an expert to know that the right song at the right moment can charge your perceptions with its own valence. And that's my angle. Consider me this blog's resident non-expert.
By the by, some of my favorite music to listen to while I'm doing other things comes from Dylan, Bowie, the Stones, Derek and the Dominos, The Band, R.E.M., Camper Van Beethoven, and The National.
Yours, until next time, in gleefully opinionated ignorance,
PH
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The Poor man cometh! Welcome to the blog, PH.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I wanted to let you know that you did, in fact, make my head explode with you assertion that Pearl Jam & "Ten" are better then Nirvana and "Nevermind." The cranial burst occurred when I realized just how ridiculous a notion it is that some people might actually disagree with you on this.
While I try to collect my scattered skull fragments I will say that, in my mind, there's no question that PJ is the far superior group. If we are to judge a band on their music (and I think that's probably what we should do), then the music PJ produced was (and is) simply on higher plane than Cobain and the Mumblemouth Care-Me-Nots.
I will say, however, that I do respect Kurt Cobain for what he represented. To many, he symbolized the collective voice of a new, hard rock generation; a rebellious group of fans and artists who were, in the late 80's and very early 90's, looking for something more than the utter banality of lip liner, arena metal and hair bands.
In that respect, Kurt Cobain was very "rock and roll" -- an artist who rebels against the status quo, and is brave enough to put an origianl product out there. But guess what? Pearl Jam represents the exact same thing to me. Had we ever heard anything like "Ten" or "Vs" before? Nope.
The thing that separates PJ and Nirvana in my mind is quite simply the quality of the music. From "Ten" to "Vs." to "Vitalogy" and "No Code," PJ continously put out creative, interesting, thought provoking, and damn good tunes. I just can't say the same for Nirvana. Just ask yourself would you rather hear "Alive" or "Rape Me?" End of discussion.
We all know that the real reason Nirvana and "Nevermind" are held in such high esteem by the industry is thanks to Cobain's suicide, as you alluded to PH. It's the James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, or Janis Joplin effect (or how about the River Phoenix effect): burst onto the scene, die young, live forever. We shouldn't make the mistake of faulting Pearl Jam simply because they were lucky enough to avoid crippling depression and/or drug use, and stay alive through it all.
So the next time someone gives you the Gump treatment when you bring this opinion up just elbow drop their collar bone while yelling, "Eat it, Cobainiac!"
PH - glad to see someone here mention The National. Even though Boomer makes fun of me for it, I like them a lot. Too 'new' for him I guess....
ReplyDeleteThanks for the welcome, Boomer. You've said almost everything I could've said on the subject of Pearl Jam v. Nirvana, and said it better.
ReplyDeleteFor me, one of the troubling things about Nirvana was how quickly their stance against glam-rock poseurdom ossified into poseurdom itself. Compare, for example, the music videos for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Pearl Jam's "Jeremy": Nirvana seems as concerned as any hip-hop artist with using its music to assert a kind of image-control; Pearl Jam seems more concerned with (gasp!) the music itself.
The problem with being anti-establishment is that as soon as you become popular, you ARE the establishment. Once successful, Nirvana and its rebelliousness became simply self-parodic (the new status quo advocating rebellion against an old status quo that no longer existed); ultimately, the band succumbed to the very rock-and-roll excesses of which they were supposed to represent a rejection. Cobain, to his credit, at least seemed aware of these dangers as they mounted, but he never figured out how to reinvent himself the way Vedder and McCready, et al, did.
(The part of me that doesn't really know much about music wonders whether Pearl Jam's ability to reinvent itself when Nirvana couldn't isn't at least in part due to the fact that Pearl Jam, by and large, contained more highly skilled musicians---they simply had more artistic tools at their disposal to help them break out of the box they'd been put in. Opinions, experts?)
Of course, if Nirvana had survived to reinvent themselves, it would have been at the cost of some of their fanbase and their legend.
Anna: The National is one of the most distinctive-sounding, intelligent, and emotionally evocative bands out there today. In a decade where so many otherwise-excellent groups limit themselves by becoming emotional ironists (see the Decemberists), The National feel importantly different. (I saw them in Detroit last year and can say that they also give a great, high-energy live show.)
If Boomer can sit down and listen to Alligator all the way through and still not admit that there's something interesting going on here, then yes, he's just biased.