Two weeks ago, Pearl Jam were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Famous for the carousel of drummers playing for them in the '90s before Matt Cameron solidified things, it's probably not surprising that they didn't get inducted with all those drummers in tow.
I am surprised, however, that one of the drummers excluded was Dave Abbruzzese, who played on two of the classic first three Pearl Jam albums, Vs. and Vitology. I don't care what personality conflicts there were; the drumming on Vs. especially is of such quality as to elevate what could have been an average album to something generational.
And as we know from the story of the Strokes and many other groups, if that second album disappoints, it doesn't matter how good the first one was. Reputation and future opportunities can suffer significantly. Instead, Vs. equaled its predecessor, largely on the strength, vitality, and inspiring creativity of Dave Abbruzzese's drums.
"Glorified G" is Exhibit A.
The song kicks off with a drum fill, leaning on that ringing snare. This is a drummer not scared to contribute a melodic drum fill special to order to lend the song identity from the first beat. This is more significant than you think, especially in a group that was so under Eddie Vedder's control and all other members already high on the ego of the previous generational album success. Abbruzzese, despite his junior tenure, was not just there to be a session musician. He wanted to shape the songs using the instrument with the most influence on a rock group's sound, the hallowed drums.
The plainness of the opening riff, which becomes the chorus riff, is kept in check by the plucky drum part with its syncopated kick drum. The canvas is established for the two compact guitars, the bass, and their interplay.
The drums again almost certainly inspired the ahead-of-the-beat attitude of the verses. That's not to take away from the guitar layering going on here, which is also so energetic and not bound by any generic, rote playing style. Guitar work that aspires to play melody rather than hitting chords and arpeggiations get a gold star from me. When in doubt, custom-make your guitar parts. Leave behind the public domain.
The middle bridge is where this song earns its long-term respectability. The guitar progression, for one, stretches across three chords that probably are a little too radically spaced from each other and is purely awesome for that. Vedder screams his scathing attack line against gun nuts everywhere: "Always keep it loaded." But the part really belongs to not-hall-of-fame drummer Dave Abbruzzese: taking those three strange chords and infusing those changes with inevitability. The rapid-fire triplet fill leading to the singing dropped my teenaged jaw, agape at how the drummer seemed to be careening out of the beat but managed to pull the flailing sticks around the kit to finish perfectly on time. Properly energized by this success, Abbruzzese keeps executing fill after fill to completely take over the song.
There are other amazing drumming songs on Vs. Go listen to the mega-hit from this career-defining album, "Daughter" and reflect on how imaginative and central the drum work is to that song too. But for my money, "Glorified G" is my jam, an underappreciated gem.
History will remember this snubbing harshly. The band even played an Abbruzzese-era song in its hall of fame induction concert ("Better Man"). They are lucky he helped them get to where they are now. He could come back to the group tomorrow and they'd have a chance for Album of the Year. And that's why Eddie Vedder can't let that happen.