Man Of The Hour (track) by Pearl Jam

I've never much cared for Pearl Jam and I don't claim to know their catalogue at all except for those songs that almost everyone can recognize.

Back in the day people automagically saw Nirvana and Pearl Jam as some competitors. Don't know why though cause the way I (still) see it they seem to be almost diametrically opposed. Nirvana's songs tend to be exceedingly simple and straightforward whereas Pearl Jam's songwriting is - I'm assuming here - more crafted and tends to be much more guitar oriented with the usual emphasis on traditional guitar soloing which was just about the exact opposite what Kurt wanted his music to be remembered by.

And of course Vedder is much more of a singer than Kurt ever was. He was after all a hired gun first and foremost who was to become their singer but not necessarily their primary songwriter.

Kurt did vocally (and guitar chop wise) what he could (and for me that really was enough) where as Vedder uses his voice as yet another instrument in the mix because he can - or at least that seems to be the general consensus here.

Let's just say that I've never been a huge fan of hearing a singer sing at every chance s/he can get. For me that tends to get really tiresome really fast. And on that note I don't much want to hear a guitar wailing in a song just because someone can play it - or thinks s/he can.

I guess I'm trying to say that I don't much appreciate listening to music that seems to have too much going on at the same time. Sonically "airy" tunes are music to my ears and "stuffy" songs give me a headache. Literally.

Compared to the likes of Nirvana, Metallica, Megadeth and Paradise Lost, Pearl Jam managed to sound more like AOR rock to me. It didn't really feel "grungy", it definitely wasn't the kind of a metal I appreciated, and it didn't quite seem to fit in the GN´R-esque hard rock slot either.

So, I didn't know and honestly didn't care what the f*ck Pearl Jam was all about, and why I should even bother getting interested in it in the first place. I just figured, based on what little I had even heard of them, that it didn't seem to offer me anything that I wasn't already getting from other bands' output in a much more satisfying package.

Never owned a single Pearl Jam record and more pressingly I was never even tempted to own one. In a word Pearl Jam was irrelevant to me.

I never really liked Vedder's voice much. For one, it sounded somehow false. And thanks to Axl I was basically sick of hearing singers yodeling every f*cking chance they got like it was against the law to not let the last note ring for a little lifetime if you knew how.

The novelty of hearing a singer carry those last notes for longer than necessary wears of rather quickly. Less is more.

I mean here we have a young(ish) man who wants to sing in this overly melodramatic trembly world-weary way. I'm sorry but why and with what credibility?

At least my impression of Vedder was that he had little reason to bitch about anything basically: the records were selling themselves so he had already had it made, he wasn't strung out on drugs like Kurt and the rest (don't know if he even drank then) and generally he just wasn't this moody loner who hadn't yet quite come to terms with his childhood traumas and whatnots who might off him self tomorrow or possible the week after this one for all we knew.

How can an angsty teenager honestly relate to someone like Vedder? He seemed to be the exact opposite of a loser who doesn't quite know how to go from here to there. You don't root for winners, you wanna root for the underdogs.

I know a lot of folks think very highly of Vedder as a singer but for me personally his vibrato just doesn't cut it. It feels forced and thus weak.

But when I heard this eerily familiar voice sing during the end credits to Big Fish in 2003 that was quite possibly the first time that I actually liked the way the man sounded without any effort on my part.

Looking forward to hearing more stuff like "Man of the Hour" by Vedder. Either his voice suits much better to such bare bones man-and-a-guitar style performances, or he had just got old enough to finally match that world-weary voice of his (even if it comes naturally now).

My two cents.