The death of Kurt Cobain in 1994 either caused or coincided with the decline of the Seattle grunge movement. You can pick either, really. Plenty of spectators have discussed how the sobering loss of grunge's unlikely, charismatic leader effectively ended the marketability of the grunge product. But notice that it seemed Cobain himself wrestled with where to go next after the release of Nirvana's In Utero album, one of the most ambitiously honest works of art to be allowed to surface by American mass pop culture. Within months of each other, each core Seattle group released their magnum opus: In Utero, Soundgarden's Superunknown, and Pearl Jam's Vs. The wave was at its absolute crest. If there was confusion about how to progress following those landmarks of sound, then Cobain's death sent it to the maximum for those left.
The next albums by the surviving Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, which I consider the last of the Ur grunge albums, are dominated by that confusion. They are both filled with some absolutely brilliant music borne of the feelings and uncertainty of that time. But they are also both absolutely scattershot.
Soundgarden's Down On the Upside we can discuss at a later point. Here, we will take up Pearl Jam's Vitalogy...
In one sense, you could say Vitalogy completely jumped the grunge shark. Rushed out just a year after the Vs. album, it subjects you to a strange accordion comedy ballad about bugs, a faux-mosh song about spinning a black circle, interludes that fade in and go nowhere before fading out, songs with whip cracks in them, and a closing abstract piece that makes "Revolution 9" seem coherent.
But deeper than that, Vitalogy captures a band that is clearly imploding amongst its members while also searching for a concept through which to carry on, mosh pits understandably losing their allure. They are lucky to have survived this time; Soundgarden didn't. An album at a transitional juncture like this is not supposed to be pretty. Not all of it.
But one moment is especially, exceedingly pretty.
Out of the tumult arises "Immortality," the album's penultimate track.
Eddie Vedder insists the song is not about Kurt Cobain. But he is also quick to point out that he hates even talking about Cobain's death for fear of appearing exploitative. If that's his mindset, there is no way you will get him to admit a Cobain-related inspiration out loud.
But he wrote it in April of 1994, the month of Cobain's death. Much more recently, Vedder very tellingly performed it in response to death of one of my greatest heroes - Soundgarden's Chris Cornell.
The song is very important to him.
Its drama and beauty are self-evident, but when I was younger, I found myself annoyed with the song's comparatively slipshod acoustic guitar solo performed by Vedder himself. This was Pearl Jam, a group with multiple guitarists capable of something far more skilled and finished. However, if you see the song as a tribute to Cobain, influential practitioner of the sloppy, noisy guitar solo, the performance makes a hell of a lot more sense.
Whatever its background, the song shines: Mournful guitars, perceptive drums, and pained vocals and lyrics showing someone with the potential to write "Jeremy" suddenly having to apply those talents to his own circumstances, with no less power but a little less operatic grandeur due to that proximity.
The song makes the album, really. All the mess resolves there, gives you a true classic worthy of re-visits. And from that home base, you can explore the strangeness of the rest, over time discovering some unique delights. I'm still not a "Bugs" fan, but that whip song is so cool.
