Pearl Jam's follow-up to Ten, their multiplatinum 1991 debut, is so stylistically varied that it renders moot the esoteric quibbling about which balkanized subgenre the Seattle band belongs to. (Alternative? Grunge? Metal?)
Reluctant rock-messiah-of-the-week Eddie Vedder solidifies the reputation he earned with Ten's Oprahtic tales of childhood trauma ("Alive," "Jeremy") as rock's most therapeutic singer-lyricist. Pearl Jam continues to reach for the heroic gesture, be it a swooping Mike McCready guitar break, a cathartic Vedder screamer or an open-veined, candid story (singing of the bitter end of a relationship in "Rearviewmirror" or the haunting effects of time and memory in "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town").
Vedder, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament work together like fingers on the same musician's hand, and drummer Dave Abbruzzese adds inventive rhythmic variety to the bubbling cauldron.
Vedder's demon-exorcising baritone resonates with inner children by the millions, but he's not bereft of humor or irony. He rails against gun proliferation ("Glorified G") and white-male privilege ("W.M.A.") in a sardonic voice that suggests he knows how futile his protestations are. In "Rats" he even makes a jokey allusion to Michael Jackson's "Ben."
Even the album title seems ironic, since Pearl Jam has few enemies—they've won over multitudes of listeners, charmed the media and buried the hatchet with crosstown rival Nirvana. Now they're defeating sophomore-slump syndrome as well. (Epic)
Dave Alvin
From founding the Blasters in the early 1980s to playing with the punk group X to sojourns in country (with the Knitters) and "Psycho-Vegas-billy-R&B-lounge" music (with Mojo Nixon, as the Pleasure Barons), Dave Alvin's résumé as a guitarist and songwriter is never less than adventurous. On his third solo album, Alvin plays short-order cook, combining R&B and rockabilly, flavoring with blues and adding a pinch of surf guitar. Add lyrics that make up a collection of vignettes about life's down-and-outers that would make, say, barfly poet Charles Bukowski jealous, and what have you? A disc that's like dinner at your favorite dive—tasty stuff. (High Tone Records)
Shelby Lynne
While Lynne's new look makes her resemble a truckstop Piaf, her new sound evokes the Big Band era—and suggests that she would have made a splendid Western Swing band singer. From "Temptation," the sensuous title tune, to the more romantic "I Need a Heart to Come Home To," Lynne, producer Brent Maher and horn arranger Buddy Skipper generate a fluid sound. Pianist Bobby Ogdin and steel guitarist Paul Franklin merit assists too.
There are no excursions into Ellington, which Lynne has made on past albums, and the song selection could have used some spice. Nepotism might be a factor. Maher himself has a writing credit on eight of 10 tracks. This isn't necessarily bad, since he and his usual writing partners, including Mike Reid and Don Schlitz, have turned out a lot of listenable as well as marketable country music. In this case, though, there's a dulling sameness to many of the tunes (three of the titles are an identical eight syllables long). Look and material aside, Lynne is in terrific voice and remains a bright spot among the youngest generation of country singers. All four of her albums have been fun and surprising. (Mercury)
Concrete Blonde
There can be no denying the power and the glory of a full-throttled voice let loose, and Johnette Napolitano knows it. Over the course of four albums (this is the fifth), her band, Concrete Blonde, has made forceful, adult rock and roll that demands attention. Napalitano has a voice that pulls no punches; it is alternately passionate, tough, playful and aggressive, but always womanly.
For close to a decade now, Concrete Blonde has languished around the cult-band hinterlands. In a perfect cosmos their dramatic, gothic, guitar-laden, guts-and-soul music would dominate the music charts. Perhaps Concrete Blonde's intensity is just a little bit too real for a generation that was weaned on facade, for there is nothing phony or cute on this disc. The proof of that can be heard in songs like the cascading "Heal It Up" and a faithful cover of Roxy Music's "End of the Line." Even in its quieter moments, Mexican Moon seethes with emotion. (Capitol)
Heart
It has been nearly 20 years since Heart's Ann and Nancy Wilson came out of Seattle with their brand of folk-tinged, Led Zeppelin-influenced rock and roll. The sisters hit the Top 40 in the late '70s with such hit tunes as "Barracuda" and "Magic Man" and got hotter in the '80s after transforming themselves into a pseudo-metal powerhouse.
Now the Wilsons have mixed arena bombast with the acoustic sound of their earlier work and come up with an album that both rocks and strolls. Ann's voice, which has always been Heart's strength, can still tear a song to bits. She howls, more than sings, on "Rage," working into a fist-pumping climax. On the softer "Ring Them Bells," an ecclesiastical lullaby, she joins Nancy and Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, singing to heaven in a tone both sweet and soulful.
Whether rocking fast or strumming slow, this pre-grunge sister act reminds us that Seattle was making big noise long before we'd ever heard of Eddie Vedder. (Capitol)
>Ann and Nancy Wilson
HEART TO HEART
"WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN, SUNDAY morning around the Wilson pad was pancakes and Madame Butterfly," says Nancy Wilson, 39, the blond half of Heart. "Music was a big part of our growing up. Our parents would take us to the opera, and at home we'd listen to Ray Charles, Peggy Lee, Judy Garland—all kinds of great stuff." Before they were in their teens, Nancy and Ann, now 42, were banging around in the basement of their Seattle home, learning to make music.
In the mid-'70s the sisters got their big break when, after a scheduled act pulled out, they opened for Rod Stewart in Montreal. Since then, they have played stadium-size shows that rock with intensity but make little personal connection with the audience. Their 12-city tour, kicking off in Buffalo this week, is different. Heart will now play in the more intimate realm of theaters. "It's something we've wanted to do for a long time," says Ann, "to present a very strange, beautiful, musical evening—something you can't do in a hockey arena."
The Wilsons' new album has a more intimate feel as well, in part because it was recorded at their Bad Animal Studio in Seattle, where they live (Ann is unmarried and the mother of one adopted daughter; Nancy and her husband, director Cameron Crowe, have no children). The CD was created with "no one breathing down our necks," says Ann. "It was very private, just the producers and ourselves, and we made the record exactly how we wanted to, using mostly our own songs. It was all very relaxed."
- Contributors:
- Gary Susman,
- Todd Gold,
- Ralph Novak,
- Amy Linden,
- Brian Carmody.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
