Vitalogy - Pearl Jam (CD 1994)

Writing this review - or, more appropriately, _not_ writing it - has convinced me that Pearl Jam's Vitalogy may well be my favorite album from my favorite band.

As a writer, and as any writer here will tell you, the inherent value of a solid opening line cannot be underrated. Opening lines are difficult - often the most difficult part of a review, tied with the title, body, and conclusion - but Vitalogy has presented me with a particularly puzzling stumbling block. For an hour and change now, I've been here at my computer, trying over and over again to compose a solid opening paragraph, knowing that I'll be unable to get the rest of the review flowing if this opener isn't a grabber, my back stiffening and cracking with every shift, the seat of my chair forming a deep groove that sculpts itself to my buttocks because I haven't stood up in 90 minutes, which perturbs me, because, rationally, I should have been able to finish the review in scarcely more than that ..

Will you look at me? I'm cracking up. Vitalogy does that to me.

I've broken the ice, but I'm not sure where to start - Vitalogy and I have a long, prosperous history with one another. I've retained memories of my early days with Vitalogy, of picking it up in 1995 or so, an after-Christmas gift to myself; of poring over the utterly fascinating packaging, modeled after an archaic medical book; of listening to it, alone, by the soft glow of post-yuletide electric candles; of being fascinated, and excited; of feeling haunted, like I'd dredged up the Necronomicon and summoned all sorts of ghastly phantasms to soar on down to New Jersey and listen to Vitalogy with me.

It's like an urban legend, an ancient, mystic thriller whenever I pull out Vitalogy, carefully extracting the battered digipak from my enormous CD rack, shrouded in mysticism like an old, yellowed book of spells. I refuse to listen to it during the daytime, first of all - quite possibly because I'm afraid that a sunny day will forever numb the impact of Vitalogy. Vitalogy is a dark album, often angry, often ghostly, largely obsessed with life and death and the nature of fame. It's a sprawling mess of an album, sequenced jumpily; it's a reactionary lashing-out; it's an exorcism of singer-songwriter Eddie Vedder's demons. It's also a masterpiece.

Sure, perhaps it's _technically_ flawed. To this day, a cluster of Vitalogy's fourteen tracks are largely regarded, by PJ fans and otherwise, as superfluous, pretentious, and just plain weird - crass, self-serving experimentation for the sake of itself. This may be true - I can see the unsubtle point Vedder drives home with a song that chants "P-R-I-V-A-C-Y is priceless to me" over and over, but a goofy little dance track called "Aye Davanita" might not technically have a place on this album. But I say that the weird tracks give Vitalogy part of its character, that Vitalogy would not be the same without them - that, in fact, it is _better_ in its own skewed little way for their inclusion.

Vitalogy is a difficult album to describe.

It's difficult for _me_ to describe, and I've listened to it so much that I know it like the back of my hand.

Nah, I take that back. I don't know the back of my hand all that well.

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I wouldn't even know where to _begin_ a Vitalogy review. The album itself seems to ease into its momentum - fading in on a dischordant tune-up session before launching into the crisp drumbeat of opener "Last Exit". It's one of a handful of songs on Vitalogy that can be considered .. not punk, but vaguely punk-ish - and not only in spirit, for punk-ish in spirit if not in execution has long been a staple of Pearl Jam's repertoire, but punk-ish in spirit _and_ execution. "Spin the Black Circle," a vinyl ode commonly assumed to be a drug ode, is the most overtly punk number on the record - a flurry of rapidly stabbed chords, a yowling Vedder vocal - but the spectre of punk looms over this album, even with a song like "Not For You," which is not punk in execution but minimalist riff-rock at best, deliberate in pacing but absolutely ruthless in message.

"Not For You" is essentially the crux of the record, and probably the finest total song on here - it delivers a clear, resounding message to record execs and frustratingly fairweather Pearl Jam fans alike.

small my table, fits just two
got so crowded, i can't make room
oh, where did they come from? stormed my room
and you dare say it belongs to you .. to you ..
this is not for you

This is probably the most telling verse of the entire song, illustrating Vedder's frustration at his newfound lack of privacy, and the offense he takes to everyone trying to own and control his music - "this is not for you," he says, and the way he seethes this repeated line in the chorus we're almost frightened to _not_ believe it.

As the album progresses, it gets spookier, deeper - and weirder. "Whipping" is a rant, a half-formed song idea that somehow - like later track "Lukin" - works in context; "Pry, To" and "Aye Davanita" are mere space-fillers, little musical bits that defy the perameters of the song format, but that, again, work in context and towards the overall creepy charm of Vitalogy. "Bugs" is a full-formed song, and either the funniest or the most frightening thing I've ever heard in my life - Vedder's moaning accompanied by a creaky, out-of-tune accordian, croaking lines like "tickle my nausea" and "I've got bugs in my head" - depending on the atmosphere this is either creepy or hilarious.

What's startling, given the bleak, dark nature of this album, is how well many of the catchier tracks fare towards the overall synergy of the album. "Betterman" was a commercial and artistic hit for the band back in '94, bouncy melody and optimistic chord progression suggesting something far less sinister than the sordid tale of domestic abuse Vedder weaves. Couples that adopted the chorus as their staying-together mantra - "can't find a better man" - conveniently ignored the line that immediately proceeds the catchphrase, "she lies and says she's in love with him," choosing not to recognize it as a cautionary morality tale despite some of the lines it prominently features:

waiting, watching the clock
it's four o'clock it's got to stop
tell him, take no more
she practices her speeches
he opens the door, she rolls over
pretends to sleep as he looks her over

Lines like these allude to a depressing, harsh reality, despite their upbeat, major-chord musical context. But then, Pearl Jam constructed those first few albums on their ability to fuse sobering, crushing reality with bombastic arena-rock uplift - akin to how "Alive," a big PJ hit in '92, wove a disturbing tale of incest and familial discomfort despite sporting as triumphant a chorus as any one of us are ever likely to hear again. Again, it ties Vedder back to a less-than-overt Elvis Costello influence, recalling Costello's marriage of biting, literate social commentary and the catchiest melodies and arrangements ever made.

"Immortality" and "Nothingman" are slow songs - the former often described as a covert Kurt Cobain reference and toted by many PJ fans as the finest song on this disc, the latter a ballad of raw, heartbreaking beauty, and my personal pick for the finest musical moment of Vitalogy. For my money, nothing in Pearl Jam's discography - which sports innumerable songs that move me more than any other band's songs ever have - is as affecting and heart-piercing as the "into the sun .. burn, burn, burn" part of the "Nothingman" bridge. The wordless denouments of "Black" and "Jeremy" and the whole of "Off He Goes" come close, but still do not best the emotional resonance of "Nothingman".

And then there's "Corduroy" - long a live staple, it, combined with "Not For You," probably forms the emotional and thematic core of Vitalogy. It too is a plea for privacy, for lost innocense (regained in the next album's "In My Tree"), and for less damning judgement. It too rages against those who have taken all this from Vedder - "i don't want to take what you can't give/ i would rather starve than eat your bread" reads the chorus, which is an impossibly angry bit of reactionary venom spewed at the culprits. Vedder ends the song - again, like "Betterman," a catchy bit of music coupled with blistering lyrical content, although more of a rock counterpart to "Betterman"'s bubbly pop motif - on a bit of a downbeat note, on a statement of weary resignation:

ain't it supposed to be just fun?
oh, to live and die, let it be done
i figure i'll be damned
all alone like i began

The album concludes on "Hey Foxymophandlemama, That's Me" - abbreviated "Stupid Mop" - a dark, disturbing sound collage that pieces together bits of an interview conducted by a psychiatrist of a disturbed young girl. PJ fans seem to universally loathe this track, and I, like the rest of them, never voluntarily give it a spin, but it works in the album's context, with the peculiar magic of these songs' dichotomy. Just like "Pry, To" and "Aye Davanita" - which would have sounded _ridiculous_ on any other album - "Stupid Mop" works solely as a footnote to Vitalogy, and not as a piece of music in its own right. It matches the twisted mood perfectly.

To accurately relay Vitalogy's magic is not to write you a review of it, but to visit each reader personally and play it for them. Unfortunately, this is not a possibility, nor is it even very practical - think of the travel mileage alone - so in lieu of this strategy, writing a review is the second-best thing I can do. On this particular day of the week, I consider Vitalogy to be Pearl Jam's biggest masterpiece - from a band which, in my view, has made more masterpieces than any other band could begin to aspire to - vital* to any Pearl Jam listening experience, and a titanic, pitch-black masterpiece more harrowing than Nevermind and Ten combined.



* No - I did not recognize this unintentional pun until post-review editing. Ha.

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This is Part 3 in my "Make My Jam the P.Jam, I Want My Jam Uncut" Rewrite-off. It was intended as nothing more than a venue for me to update some crappy reviews of some great albums, but if anyone wants to get in the spirit and re-do your old Pearl Jam reviews, well, I'd just love to read 'em. Next up: No Code.