Best pearl jam biography

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Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder: None Too Fragile

July 28, 2014

I was excited to get this and start reading - hopefully find some insight into some things that I didn't previously know about one of my favorite bands. Unfortunately, however, this book was little more than regurgitated facts easily found on the internet and quotes from other articles. I picked up a few unknown tidbits here and there, but nothing extraordinary. The author took a rather detached stance and didn't really ever allow the reader to know whether or not he actually LIKED Pearl Jam. The drummer history and early band history were both fairly interesting, but you can find out everything in those sections over at lukin.com. The most fun part of reading the book was coming across references to specific shows, then running to my bootleg folder to listen to the show. It's always cool to have some background to put the thing you're listening to in perspective. Except that, even this, is easily available on the web at F

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Features

Steven Hyden Delivers A Comprehensive Career Overview Of Pearl Jam

by Benjamin Ray

For a long time, the most complete Pearl Jam biography available was Five Against One, Kim Neely’s book that was written in 1998 as Yield was being released and the band was continuing its fade out of the spotlight. But another 24 years has passed since then, and Pearl Jam is still thriving, releasing new albums and touring regularly, finding time for solo projects and worthwhile causes, and still putting on long, bravura live shows.

In short, they were due for a more comprehensive career overview, and Steven Hyden has delivered in spades with Long Road. A lifelong fan, Hyden writes in a casual, conversational tone but with the authority of a professional music journalist who knows his stuff. It’s that mix of enthusiasm and critical clearheaded-ness that makes this a quick read; longtime fans may learn things they didn’t know, casual fans will be able to trace the

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It’s been two years (“and counting”) since I fell down a Pearl Jam hole. I was watching something on YouTube, happened to glance at the suggestions down the side, and there was Pearl Jam’s performance of Oceans from Unplugged. I casually thought, “Oh I haven’t listened to Pearl Jam for a while” and clicked. Volume up. Jaw hit the floor.

How could I forget how brilliant they are? How could I forget how stunning Vedder’s voice is?

I’d more or less abandoned them post-Vitalogy, so I had a lot of catching up to do. The past two years have been a blur of obsession.

This is how I came to be reading Ronen Givony’s Not For You: Pearl smet and the Present Tense. inom devoured it, simultaneously trying keep up (folly!) with the accompanying Playlist. I now know more about Pearl Jam than inom ever thought I’d want to know; I’ve watched numerous concerts of varying quality; listened to/read transcripts of several Vedder rambles; heard Alive, Even Flow, and Jeremy more times than fryst vatten probably