By Billy Florio
It's hard to like Pearl Jam these days. The band was a favorite in the early and mid 90s, but now while hearing their sound in Eddie Vedder-worshiping Neo-grunge acts like Creed and Staind, hatred is a more common feeling than enjoyment. And who could blame you for feeling that way? Pearl Jam spawned the Neo-Grunge movement, and made us all want to strangle Vedder and company whenever we heard the painful music of "This Is How You Remind Me" or whatever that Nickleback song was...they're all exactly the same! But, our desire to stick Scott Stapp in "my own prison" and torture him constantly as a way of relieving all the anguish he's caused in our lives, needs to be overlooked when we listen to Pearl Jam's music. They didn't know whom they were inspiring, and they shouldn't be punished for it by hatred of their music as well...at least not their good songs.
Rearviewmirror is a nice compilation of Pearl Jam's greatest hits from their iconic Ten, through their questionable recent release Riot Act. The album is split up into an Up Side (The rockers) and a Down Side (the ballads), and just as the title suggests, the Down Side is kind of a downer, since most of Pearl Jam's later year garbage appears on it. The Down Side starts off well with the excellent "Black" (Which along with Ten songs "Once" and "Alive" have been remixed), and makes its way through the highlights of Pearl Jam's ballads, from the Indian feeling of "Who You Are" to the sing-a-long quality of "Betterman." Half way through it though you realize why Pearl Jam's later work was seen as such mundane trash when songs like "Given To Fly," "Nothing as it seems" and the horrible cover of J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers: "Last Kiss" appear. The side is only saved by the greatnessness of the final song, "Yellow Ledbetter," which if were the last song Pearl Jam ever recorded, it would be the strongest note they could ever go out on.
The Up Side is much stronger than its counterpart. Four songs from Ten as well as rockers "Dissident," "Do The Evolution" and "Hail Hail" all make the side much more enjoyable, and much less filled with Pearl Jam's weaker material.
Ok, so if Pearl Jam never existed we wouldn't have had Saliva or Three Days Grace or Candlebox or Staind. That's still no reason to ignore them. Remember, Elton John influenced Phil Collins and Rod Stewart influenced Michael Bolton. No one hates them for their followers-ok, bad examples.