“Comic to look back on”: The music video Pearl Jam were too embarrassed to release
There was a moment back in the 1990s when the underground grunge movement of Seattle, Washington, broke into the mainstream. With its abrasive distortion and staunch DIY ethos, the movement was never particularly suited to widespread acclaim, and it led to some truly bizarre moments and multiple accusations that the scene, particularly groups like Pearl Jam, had ‘sold out’. While artists were often quick to refute those claims, Pearl Jam did not stick to their DIY punk origins for too long.
Admittedly, Pearl Jam were something of an outlier within the grunge movement. As opposed to other bands, like Mudhoney or even Nirvana, which were formed almost exclusively upon the influences of punk and hardcore, Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam drew upon a much broader range of influences, from heavy metal to classic rock. In terms of sound, therefore, Pearl Jam was always far closer to arena rock than the down-and-dirty grunge music that their contemporaries had pioneered.
Inevitably, when the musical mainstream became interested in grunge, this broader sound that Pearl Jam had created was quickly revered by music industry executives for its marketability. On one hand, this made the band one of America’s biggest rock outfits during the 1990s, but it also led to some fairly regrettable decisions. If we’re talking about the music industry and the 1990s, we are talking about music videos.
Music videos had first hit the scene during the 1980s, and were boosted by the success of MTV. Soon, virtually every song in the charts had an accompanying video, and record executives saw music videos as an essential part of creating a hit single. For many grunge bands, creating big-budget music videos for their work flew in the face of their grassroots, DIY origins; the focus was – and should always have been – on the music itself.
It did not take long for Pearl Jam to be strong-armed into creating music videos, either. For their defining single ‘Even Flow’, released in 1992, the group went for a fairly standard video, predominantly made up of footage from a concert at Seattle’s Moore Theatre from earlier that year. Originally, however, guitarist Stone Gossard had crafted a strange idea for the video that sought to capitalise on the heavy metal market.
“We thought metal was pretty much a joke at that point, but we also knew that it was an area where we could get some fans,” Gossard told Spin back in 2001. “Headbangers Ball and Rip Magazine, all that stuff. You’re going to do whatever you can to get it going.” This metal inspiration was where Gossard’s idea for the ‘Even Flow’ video came from. “We made an ‘Even Flow’ video that never came out that I’m sensitive about,” he said, “because it was my idea.”
Gossard’s idea was based around a zoo setting, where the band performed in cages interspersed with animal footage and, at one point, performed on the side of a cliff. “It ended up being totally rawk: lots of big lights, out on a cliff,” Gossard recalled, calling the idea: “Definitely comic to look back on now. Needless to say, the band were not happy with the final video, which took a lot of money and a lot of time to create, so it was scrapped in favour of the concert footage video.
“Hopefully, at some point, we’ll be able to laugh at ourselves enough to show that one,” Gossard shared. Since the guitarist gave that interview, the scrapped music video has made its way online, and it is just as bad as Gossard claims. The 1990s produced some truly terrible music videos, but the band’s decision to scrap that video and opt for a much more simple video idea was definitely the right decision.
