However, by 1995-96, he had a very real and serious problem on his hands due to his fame. Plenty have wondered how much of that was authentic and how much was an act - an obligatory show of anti-commercialism that all Seattle bands seemingly had to display. He had always seemed uncomfortable in the spotlight and the band’s rapid ascent only compounded that. Meanwhile, Vedder was becoming disenchanted with fame. And when the band started work on No Code, they didn’t even bother telling Ament until a few days into the sessions - something that nearly caused the bassist to quit. Towards the end of the Vitalogy sessions, they made the decision to sack drummer Dave Abbruzzese ( reportedly, Abbruzzese didn’t get along with Vedder and disagreed with the band taking a lower-profile and fighting Ticketmaster, among other things). The band also engaged in what turned out to be a fruitless antitrust battle with Ticketmaster that had the effect of taking them off the road or forcing them to play small, remote venues. Lead guitarist Mike McCready was drinking heavily and would eventually go into rehab.
Band members weren’t getting along and Vedder was starting to assert control over the creative process, something that didn’t sit well with Gossard, who had been in charge up to that point. Tensions had reached their peak during the Vitalogy sessions. Few artists ever get so big that they almost single-handedly revive a dying form of media because people couldn’t wait two weeks to hear their music.īut behind the scenes, Pearl Jam were on the verge of implosion. The vinyl version ended up selling so well, it actually charted on the Billboard 200 and would hold the record for first-week vinyl sales until 2014. The following year, with record players more or less obsolete, they made the surprising decision to release their third album, Vitalogy, on vinyl two weeks before CDs and cassettes would hit the stores. That same year, they became one of the few musicians to ever grace the cover of Time. Their second album, 1993’s Vs., set a record for highest first-week sales with 950,000 - a mark that would stand for five years. Their first album, Ten, is one of the best-selling debut records of all time in the U.S. Looking back, it’s staggering to think just how big they were at the time.
That’s because, in the early 90s, they were on track to eclipse the likes of U2 and become the Led Zeppelin of their era. A band that celebrated its twentieth anniversary by commissioning its own theatrical film directed by Cameron Crowe, the guy that all bands go to when they want to look cool? How could they have killed their careers when it looks like they’re still doing pretty well? Pearl Jam? A band that still regularly sells out arenas and has a large legion of devoted fans (myself included - I’ve seen them in concert several times and own almost all of their albums). The more experimental, less mainstream and barely promoted album ended their run of commercial dominance and abruptly halted their seemingly inevitable march towards becoming the biggest band in the world. Pearl Jam would take a page from Young’s book for its fourth album, 1996’s No Code. His label then sued him for making music that was “not commercial” and “musically uncharacteristic” of his previous recordings. In fact, his label once pressured Young for a rock album and he delivered a collection of rockabilly songs (they didn’t specify what kind of rock they wanted). Long known as an artist who refused to play by anyone else’s rules, Young was famous, or perhaps infamous, for making music for artistic reasons without regard for commercial success.
Young even helped inspire the name “Pearl Jam.” According to Rolling Stone, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament were already considering using the word “Pearl” in their band’s name, and after attending a Young show in 1991 that featured several long instrumental jams, something clicked.īut it wasn’t just his music that was inspirational. Young would become a close collaborator and mentor to Pearl Jam, performing, working and touring together throughout the 90s and 00s. His 1979 album, Rust Never Sleeps, featured a highly distorted guitar sound that proved to be very influential with several major grunge musicians, including Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. There were several reasons why Neil Young got the moniker “ Godfather of Grunge.”
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