In London in 1995, it was not cool to be a Pearl Jam fan, but it wasn’t uncool either. Hardly any of my friends had heard of them. They were all too busy slugging pints over Chumbawumba and lusting after the Spice Girls. So I quietly built my CD collection of American alternative music and only shared it with a few of my friends, not knowing that a few years later I was going to move to the States and my taste in music was not as alternative as I thought. Eddie Vedder’s notoriety in the UK was so poor that in 1996 I was able to talk to him for 10 minutes on a subway platform without anyone interrupting.
Their new album is pretty good and seems to show some return to the form of the early days. The first single to be released – The Fixer – is a solid Pearl Jam song that I think slips immediately into the classic playlist. I know that it’s not cool of me to have 2 of their albums on my desert island records but I likes what I likes.
Pearl Jam – The Fixer from João Barreiros on Vimeo.
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