(Credits: Far Out / Spotify)
Wed 13 August 2025 2:00, UK
Pearl Jam have something of an awkward reputation. Despite coming up in the 1990s, which arguably provided the blueprint for our irony-poisoned modern life, Pearl Jam did quite possibly the least cool thing you could possibly do.
Something that would have completely kneecapped lesser bands at worst and marked them out as hopelessly passé losers like Hootie & The Blowfish at best. What is this unforgivable crime, I hear you ask? Pearl Jam cared. A lot.
The fact that this made them stand out is one of the great ironies of alternative rock in the 1990s, especially the Seattle grunge scene. This was a scene that outright wouldn’t have existed without the hardcore punk scene of the 1980s. A scene where everything was about transcending your surroundings and becoming something bigger than yourself via rock ‘n’ roll. Not for nothing is the great rock tome depicting this period of time called Our Band Could Be Your LIfe. Very few groups seemed to take this attitude into the 1990s, when bands informed by this scene became the biggest bands in the world.
On the one hand, you had Nirvana, who played the dissaffected Gen-X mindset of fuck-the-world nihilism (despite Kurt Cobain being, in his way, just as driven to be a pop star as Sabrina Carpenter is today). On the other hand, you had The Smashing Pumpkins, whose music is insanely ambitious in scale (Mellon Collie is a double album, no less), but is informed by nothing more than the neuroses of Billy Corgan. Which admittedly could fill a Library of Alexandria and, if you give Ol’ Bill half a chance, I’m sure he’d be more than happy to.
Then you had Pearl Jam, who had this mothballed, weed-scented idea that rock music actually mattered. If informed with enough meaning and purpose, it could galvanise people to change the world, and they acted like this all the time. They made furiously passionate rock ‘n’ roll and took a political stand whenever they could, even standing up to Ticketmaster long before it was cool. All of this was met by the hipster rock kids of the 1990s with a resolute “Like, y’know, whatever, dude.”
What song did Pearl Jam find corny?
Fortunately, hipster kids make up a minority of every scene ever. Because outside of those insufferable Beavis and Butt-Heads, people absolutely loved Pearl Jam. Their popularity absolutely rivalled the aforementioned Nirvana, poster boys for cooler-than-thou disaffection, and when Cobain tragically died, Pearl Jam were the natural inheritors of their grunge crown. The one thing they didn’t have was Nirvana’s effortless cool, and while I’ve been down on that very idea for this article, Pearl Jam didn’t exactly make it easy on themselves.
As Pearl Jam continued to release albums, the fact that their passion and anger never really changed became less impressive and vital and more one-note. To those not on board with their sound and feel, they became not just uncool, but outright boring. 1970s throwbacks with all the wit and swagger of Al Gore talking about his favourite brand of slacks. By the time the 21st century came along, Pearl Jam themselves had realized this and were beginning to evolve their style themselves.
By their 2002 album Riot Act, Pearl Jam released songs like ‘Love Boat Captain’. A song that the Pearl Jam of even five years ago would have ditched for being too silly. However, with a bit more experience and maturity, the band realised that branching out and painting with a broader palette would be good for the band. ‘Love Boat Captain’ ended up becoming a song that the band held close to their hearts, as guitarist Mike McCready explained to Loudwire.
“It touched me immediately.” He said, paying particular mention to Eddie Vedder’s lyrics as more emotionally powerful than ones he’d written before. “It’s kind of a positive affirmation of what to do with one’s life. I’m born and I die, but in between that, I can do whatever I want or have an opinion about something. It seems very positive to me. It meant a lot to me and still does when I hear it.” Which is how Pearl Jam, despite still being pretty uncool, evolved past the need to be seen as cool, and became a better band because of it.
Related Topics