Wednesday, February 4, 1998
Refusing to ‘Yield,’ Pearl Jam struggles to regain
popularity
MUSIC: Grunge-rockers hope their fifth album re-establishes
band’s top spot in rock music
By Michael Nazarinia
Daily Bruin Contributor
The American Music Awards appropriately represented the current
state of commercial music last week with country and rap taking
most of the honors. Straight-up rock music took a back seat with
the exception of grunge standard-bearers Bush.
But it wasn’t long ago that grunge found itself in the center of
pop music. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden took the
pop music world by storm, replacing the glam rock and hair bands of
the late ’80s. That Seattle-led era has since ended.
Now, seven years after their first album, "Ten," Pearl Jam have
released their fifth studio album, "Yield," to a marketplace vastly
different from that of 1991. The biggest question now is whether
they are still relevant to modern rock music. Can "Yield," released
Tuesday, reestablish their foothold in rock music?
Based on Monday midnight and Tuesday morning sales, the band
seems to be on the right track.
"We sold over a couple hundred copies last night and gave away
limited edition lithographs," says Rich Zubrod, manager of Virgin
Megastore on Sunset Blvd.
"Its doing stronger than I thought it would and I am very
pleasantly surprised," Zubrod says. "Overall, it’s a great album.
‘Yield’ rocks a little bit harder than ‘No Code,’ which is good.
And if they get out there and tour and maybe do L.A., ‘Yield’ could
do well in the long run, because it definitely has some
singles."
The Tower Records location on Sunset also sold "Yield" Monday at
midnight, with about 120 copies leaving the store thanks to
promotional giveaways like that of Virgin Megastore’s. They
received calls and requests for it all week long.
All eyes are on Pearl Jam’s first-week sales numbers. To put it
in perspective, 1993’s "Vs." sold 951,000 copies in its first week,
the highest figure ever recorded for a single week. In 1994,
"Vitalogy" sold 877,000 copies to make it third all-time, while
1996’s "No Code" sold 363,000 in its first week.
No one expects numbers like that anymore, but in a market that
has been unfriendly to rock bands recently, "Yield" must do well at
first to better its chances of reaching the platinum status of the
preceding albums.
Based on the strength of the major singles from "Ten," "Vs." and
"Vitalogy," Pearl Jam managed to sell over 25 million records
worldwide.
But like all trends, the popularity of grunge started to fade
about four years ago when the genre started losing out to the
pop-punk rock of bands like Green Day and industrial-rock outfits
like Nine inch Nails. Britpop, the rise of ska and emergence of
electronic-based music followed those trends into 1997. Many others
of the grunge era either have morphed with the times or dropped out
of site altogether.
Pearl Jam, in the meantime, have shunned their fame in favor of
letting their music speak for itself. They refused to do videos for
MTV, while taking the almighty Ticketmaster to court with their
allegations of unfair trade practices and ticket-selling monopoly
over major concert venues.
Doing sporadic dates to support their previous three albums in
alternative venues, Pearl Jam and their label Epic saw the band’s
popularity start to erode as fans became disheartened with their
uncompromising position on the Ticketmaster issue. This, along with
the virtual "ban" on publicity, may have contributed to the demise
of their stature as one of rock music’s most bankable bands. Their
1996 release, "No Code," sold a disappointing 1.3 million copies
(certified).
Needless to say, Pearl Jam is facing a critical time in its
existence.
Strong promotion of the radio-friendly songs may be the key to
reestablishing Pearl Jam as the dominant rock band of the ’90s. As
of now, they seem to be content just to hold on to the market share
of loyal fans that will buy their albums regardless of
exposure.
"I think it’s important how they’re presented, as far as singles
go," says a programming assistant at KROQ known only as Sid,
regarding Pearl Jam’s chances with "Yield."
"I mean, the first single ‘Given To Fly’ is great," Sid adds.
"We’ve been getting a lot of requests for it. They just have to let
people hear their songs by touring and doing some promo work to
make this album as successful as their past ones."
According to Billboard Magazine, which tracks how well albums
and singles do, "Given To Fly" has been holding the No. 1 spot with
mainstream rock stations, getting the most number of plays, while
coming in third with modern rock stations such as KROQ.
Penny Lane employee Mike Tatum doesn’t think they are as
deserving of all the airplay.
"That single is a total rip off of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Going to
California,’ Tatum says. "I mean, they could have been not quite so
obvious. The last album was both a critical and commercial flop so
I don’t see why they deserve any hype."
On the surface, it appears as though Pearl Jam’s fan base has
diminished greatly. Industry expectations are seemingly far below
that of "Vitalogy." Student anticipation has been mixed at UCLA,
some are excited about the newest album’s release, and others are
just too busy to care.
"I saw them in 1992 with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana,
and I enjoyed them better then," says Anastasia Freeman, a
fifth-year psychology student. "They just don’t sound like that
anymore because they’re not into being commercialized, so they do
what they like by making their sound less accessible to most
people. I enjoyed their music back then more because it meant more
to me at that point in my life."
Fifth-year sociology student Jeff Padilla takes the opposite
position.
"I’ve really always enjoyed Eddie’s passion when he’s singing,"
Padilla says . "I mean, it’s always evident in his music, and the
band’s creativity is great because they tend to have original stuff
that you don’t always hear on the radio, which is great. They’ve
gone on to spacey, psychedelic guitar sounds while maintaining a
great sense of melody in ‘Yield.’ They’re always going to be
emotion-filled."