For the record, I used that word (grunge) while grinding my teeth. I generally dislike it, and use it more to describe a time period and geographic rock movement (RE: Seattle) than I do an actual musical genre. If Alice in Chains became popular 3 years earlier before the mainstream media coined that term they would have been a metal group. If Nirvana became popular two years earlier we’d refer to them as a punk group. If Pearl Jam became popular earlier we’d be talking about their similarity with The Who and a splash of Neil Young rather than lumping them in with Nirvana. Grunge was always a media buzz-word to create hype about the Seattle movement.

(That’s not to take anything away from what grew up out of the underground Seattle scene at that time, I just don’t consider it a musical genre).

That being said, those bands comprise some of my absolute favorite, and certainly my favorite “contemporary” (can they even be called that anymore?!) music.

Anyway, Alice in Chains (or, at least as much as you can call it Alice in Chains without Layne Staley) released an album last fall, as did Pearl Jam (and it was actually a Pearl Jam release that, months later, I still enjoy. That hasn’t really been the case since Yield over a decade ago). STP has re-united, with a new release expected this year. And the big news? On New Years Day Soundgarden has announced they will be re-uniting.

Soundgarden is, perhaps, my second favorite group from my the early 90’s, someone that perhaps didn’t affect my childhood as much as Pearl Jam or Nirvana (but they’ve age better than Nirvana has for me), but who really grew on me on high school and college. Unfortunately, by the time I had come to fully appreciate the group they had disbanded, and I never got the chance to see them live. Now hopefully that will change. The chance to see Jesus Christ Pose live is a great thing. A little worried about Chris Cornell’s vocals? Yeah, I wasn’t all that thrilled with Audioslave, and I have no idea what was up with his solo stuff, but he’s sounded good the few times I’ve heard him recently (mostly re-doing Temple of the Dog tracks with Pearl Jam).

How will Matt Cameron (original drummer of Soundgarden who has been with Pearl Jam the past 12 years)? Guess that’s a minor concern, but a small price to pay to see this group re-unite.

We need a Soundgarden/Pearl Jam combined tour. You can then throw in Temple of the Dog songs. Ask Mudhoney to open and you have a full fledged Seattle invasion.

As is probably obvious, I picked up the new Pearl Jam album (Backspacer) on September 20th, the day it came out. I withheld writing about it for a solid two+ weeks so I could get the requisite listens in, as Pearl Jam albums, particularly after Yield, have gotten progressively better the more I listen to them.

It has become en vogue for die-hard Pearl Jam fans to list some of their newer compilations as the best the band has to offer. Whether this is because of the commercial (and popular) success of Ten and Vs. or just their musical taste I’m not sure (and, for the record, I don’t generally believe there can be a “right” opinion on which is the best. Music is about taste, preference, and the emotions it invokes as much as anything). But, for me, Pearl Jam is at their best with hard, fast, Zeppelin-inspired Arena rock or when channeling their inner Neil Young with acoustic, almost folksy ballads. That’s not to say some of their more experimental efforts weren’t good, but in the end I find these two types to be Pearl Jam’s most consistently enjoyable works.

Backspacer, to me, does that. And does it well.

My opinion of Backspacer was generally favorable right from the beginning, in fact on first listen it’s probably been my favorite Pearl Jam album of the last 10 years (since 1998’s Yield).

The disc opens up with “Gonna See My Friend”, “Got Some”, and “The Fixer”, perhaps the three songs that have been pushed the hardest commercially so far (“The Fixer” being the albums first single and the basis for the Target commercial that is seemingly everywhere). None of these songs are bad, in fact they’re all quite listen-able, but none of them really hold my attention and resonate (either instrumentally or lyrically) either.

The album really picks up, for me, beginning on track 5. In fact, “Just Breathe”, “Amongst the Waves” and “Unthought Known” might be my favorite 3 consecutive song sequence since Vs. came out in 1993. This is where the diversity in Pearl Jams talent begins to shine. Of the album, these were the three that stuck out to me on first listen, and two weeks later these are the three that have been added to my all-time favorite playlist of Pearl Jam songs (“Force of Nature” may make it there as well).

Backspacer may have been more conservative than some of their previous efforts, but for the most part works, and works very well. The album has produced three songs that I’m ready to throw up against the best of the Pearl Jam library, a handful of other very good songs, and hardly a bad track in the album (“Johnny Guitar” is the only one I really skip).

Is it Ten or Vs.? No, I can’t say that it is. Then again, I don’t expect them to ever produce another album as good as those two, for a number of reasons (including Eddie Vedders voice, which whether due to age, 17+ years of heavy touring, or smoking, or any combination, I don’t think can keep tune on some of the faster songs of early Pearl Jam the way he could in his mid-twenties). Ten, Vs. (and to a lesser extent Vitalogy, which while some of the experiments didn’t work, had 5-6 of PJ’s best songs in my opinion) are two of my favorite albums of all time, from any artist. From the nostalgia factor, even if they released an album as technically wonderful as those two it might not have the same hold over me. That being said, in the second tier of Pearl Jam albums, I hold Backspacer right up there with Yield as the best of the non Ten/Vs/Vitalogy efforts. Saying an album might be the 4th/5th best a band has produced might not sound like high praise, but coming from me about Pearl Jam it is.

For the past two weeks I’ve enjoyed listening to a heck of a lot of Pearl Jam and bringing back the memories and feelings of my youth. This is perhaps the most I’ve liked Pearl Jam since my high school days, and Backspacer has added a great new piece to the collections.