The laughable Pearl Jam song Eddie Vedder called their best
After two standout records, by the time the mid-1990s rolled around, Pearl Jam had practically become too big to fail. However, the stinging death of Kurt Cobain would send shockwaves through the music community shortly before the release of their third outing, Vitalogy. Although Eddie Vedder may have loved what they had created on their third outing, not every song was designed to be radio-friendly.
Since their rise to fame, Vedder had difficulty adjusting to a celebrity’s life. Having been a somewhat insular person before Pearl Jam had started, being thrust into the limelight in such a short time made Vedder feel uncomfortable, refraining from doing many interviews and swearing off creating music videos after their landmark production of ‘Jeremy’ caused controversy amongst concerned parents.
Looking to strip the band’s sound down to an artsier production, most of what turns up on Vitalogy includes the most experimental music the band would ever create. Although there were still knockout singles across the record, like ‘Spin the Black Circle’ and ‘Better Man’, there were a handful of moments where the album gets too artsy for its own good.
Between the classic songs, tracks like ‘Pry To’ and ‘Aye Davanita’ serve as strange interludes, often having to do with the sudden rush of fame that the band were still experiencing. Coming from their constant exposure in the public eye, hearing Vedder singing lyrics about how privacy is priceless to him spoke volumes.
To break the winning streak, ‘Bugs’ turns up halfway through the record, sounding like a carnival ride from Hell. Created as a result of Vedder toying around with a broken accordion that he found, he creates a tune about having a thought experiment about bugs in his room. After noticing them crawling across the floor, Vedder attempts to become their friend, almost giving in to his animalistic instincts as the cacophonous noise surrounds him.
Regardless of the noncommercial potential of the song, Vedder remembers being excited about the song, recalling in Spin, “For a long time after recording it, I was playing it for friends saying it was the best thing we’d ever done [laughs]. We just decided to do something that was fun to listen to and wasn’t bombastic and wasn’t everything that the band had become”.
While Vedder kept his creative freedom throughout the record, the rest of the band were less enthused about the final product. When talking about the record after the fact, guitarist Mike McCready didn’t enjoy listening to it, thinking it didn’t represent what the band could do at their best.
Despite the many missteps taken in this track, ‘Bugs’ isn’t even the most experimental part of the project. Looking to create another strange track, the album closer ‘Stupid Mop’ is the product of Vedder making an avant-garde featuring the voices of people in mental institutions that were taped off of his television.
For all of the mistakes within Vitalogy, that creative tension helps shine more on the band-focused tracks, with songs like ‘Corduroy’ and ‘Nothingman’ sounding phenomenal next to the rougher moments. Pearl Jam was bound to go the distance as a rock band, but ‘Bugs’ marks one of the many twists and turns in their discography that aren’t for the uninitiated.
