This is one of those posts where I don’t mean for it to be bait whatsoever, I am being totally genuine here, but with the reaction I’ve gotten for stating this opinion throughout my life, I figured I’d start with thatI do not like Pearl Jam at all, save for a song or two I think are good, I like the song Black quite a bit and I heard another song I can’t remember the name of once that I thought was alright. But every single time I try to listen to this band’s discography, I hate it. At one point, I wanted to like Pearl Jam and listened to Ten a ton to try to acclimate myself to the album like I’ve done with many others I had an initial sour taste to. I thought it was annoying. If every band from the 90s is Red Hot Chili Peppers but more or less annoying on a spectrum, Pearl Jam is on the lower end of that spectrum. However, I still find Pearl Jam to be annoying and uninspiring.

Am I just too young to understand them? There are a lot of vocalists I don’t understand that I like because of how they use their voice as an instrument, but I find how Vedder using his vocals absolutely indecipherable. Someone will hear some lyrics from him and be like “damn I felt that” when I didn’t understand a goddamn word Vedder had said. I’ve listened to a lot of grunge, really love The Smashing Pumpkins and Dinosaur Jr. the most because I’m also a lover of dream pop and shoegaze. I should be okay with Veddar having indecipherable vocals, it just seems like they way he does it is stupid.

If you guys have any suggestions for Pearl Jam songs you think I’ll like, feel free to comment them, I’m not going to just be a shithead. I’d also appreciate hearing what you guys specifically appreciate about the group or the song you comment. I feel like I’m missing so much context with how many people I like also being Pearl Jam fans, but maybe I’m not missing anything and other people also agree with how annoying they are?

help hexbear

  • gila@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    They did free concerts and actively organised against Ticketmaster’s efforts to suppress that, but yeah the music itself is reasonably trash. Silverchair did their sound better on Frogstomp, and they were still in high school at the time.

    • GVAGUY3 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      They are actually better than pretty much every other grunge bands when it came to Ticketmaster. No other grunge band backed them because they thought Pearl Jam were sellouts and posers.

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I feel you. I hate Steely Dan. I respect the musicianship, they wrote extremely memorable licks, and they get stuck in my head for weeks if I listen to like 5 seconds of a song off “Aja.” They’re good at what they do and I get why people like them. But I don’t. I hate having them stuck in my head. Be more forgettable, Steely Dan! You talented jazz-rock fuckers!

    Sometimes bands just don’t work for a person. Sometimes it’s an entire genre. Sometimes it’s just not the right time in your life and one day you’ll like it. It’s all valid, comrade. As a kid I hated opera and jazz. Now I love chilling out to some Miles Davis or cooking while listening to Pavarotti. party-parrot

    As for Pearl Jam they’re kinda grandfathered into my musical taste (older Millenial, Xennial, whatever you wanna call it) but basically just “Ten” as I sorta stopped listening to them as I got into the whole pop punk thing in the late 90s. Maybe I’ll check out some of the suggestions in this thread - I might dig it now that I’m older.

  • wtypstanaccount04 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Pearl Jam paved the way for Creed and I can never forgive Scott Stapp for putting out the lamest and most annoying songs of my childhood. Due to my hatred for Creed I must also sacrifice the yarls of Pearl Jam as well.

  • gramxi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I also tried to get into Pearl Jam in high school since they were part of the grunge canon or whatever but I could only stand 2 of their songs enough to keep in my library because I had this embarrassing recurring fantasy that my crush would wanna listen to my iPod and be impressed with my music taste so I wanted to cover all my bases

    Well that never happened and I don’t really listen to grunge anymore aside from Alice in Chains

  • rootsbreadandmakka [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I agree with you and I’ll take it one step further - I don’t like most grunge.

    I think the problem for me is grunge takes a lot of influence from hard rock and heavy metal, two genres I’ve never been big on. A lot of grunge bands are just too close to hard rock for me. I absolutely hear it in Eddie Vedder’s vocals. Maybe it’s something similar for you. You might try listening to some Pearl Jam precursors - Green River is a grunge band I really like. Temple of the Dog I never really listened to but they have that one cool song Hunger Strike. There’s also Mother Love Bone but I’ve never really listened to them.

    You may also be reacting to the slew of derivative Pearl Jam copycats that popped up in the wake of the grunge explosion. Post-grunge is a genre that’s generally looked down upon, and I think a lot of those guys copied a lot from Eddie Vedder’s vocal style. It might be a case of you being more familiar with the derivative knock-off bands that Pearl Jam spawned, and only being able to hear those bands when you listen to Pearl Jam.

    • wtypstanaccount04 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      It might be a case of you being more familiar with the derivative knock-off bands that Pearl Jam spawned, and only being able to hear those bands when you listen to Pearl Jam.

      This is my case, I can only ever hear Creed when I hear Pearl Jam

  • Magnolia_Marxist [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I grew up on grunge/90s alt and with Pearl Jam but after all that was already over. To me it was always part of one big sweet ass era of music. I get not being into the yarling, but to me its great. I don’t have to know what Veder is saying cause I can feel what he’s going for. They have so many good songs to me but one underrated one imo is Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.