21st Century Pearl Jam (5/7)
Released between 2009’s Backspacer and 2020’s Gigaton, Pearl Jam’s sole studio album in the 2010s is 2013’s Lightning Bolt. I love all the songs on this album, but as a 10th album that’s kind of floating untethered in its own decade, it can sometimes be tricky to remember that it’s there. But it is there, and it was there for me, personally, in a time of my life when I had a toddler and was staying up late each night trying to finish up a dissertation, so it’ll always have a place in my heart.
Speaking of parenthood and music,1Great segue green it’s time for me to go on tangent about the term dad rock. I’ve seen Lightning Bolt (and Backspacer before it) classified as dad rock, a term that I personally am not fond of, since I’m one of those—whachamacallit—lady-dads, and I like this music too and don’t like feeling left out.
It’s part of a larger pattern in rock punditry—that female rock fans are some kind of an afterthought (or, at best, squeeing fangirls).2There are other demographics of rock fans that feel left out sometimes too I’m sure. Solidarity! So somewhere in between getting yet another Spotify ad that starts As a busy working dad, you just can’t seem to find the time to finish that deck… and reading the chapter of Steven Hyden’s book on Pearl Jam in which he explains to me, a woman, why women like Pearl Jam, (a) I realized that a lot of takes on rock music that I automatically assumed were more authoritative than mine in my teens and twenties were just dudes stating vibes in an authoritative fashion, and (b) I decided maybe I would talk about the music I like a little more often. So here we are. Thanks for putting up with me.3Hyden himself is very well-intentioned, and his book is nice; this particular instance is just symptomatic of a larger issue. Also that Spotify ad thing happens no matter how many female artists I listen to, as long as they’re vaguely in the rock genre. I usually have to listen to a bunch of Broadway to make it go away.
Anyway, long story short, yes, let’s have a term for rock music that is written by people who are middle-aged that is particularly meaningful to people who are also middle aged (and maybe a little tired). But on behalf of me and all the other lady-dads out there (and all the nb-dads and childfree-dads-of-all-genders) maybe let’s come up with a better word for it 🤷♀️4Is ending my conclusion with a shruggy emoji the most middle-aged lady-dad thing I could possibly do right now? Maybe 🤷♀️
Here is “Getaway,” the opening track of Lightning Bolt, which, along with the following track “Mind Your Manners” might be my favorite one-two opening on a Pearl Jam album after No Code. I like “Getaway” because it’s about how we’re all here and have no idea why we’re all here and maybe we should just try to accept that and move on, and that is my favorite type of theme for a song probably. And then “Mind Your Manners” is the same thing but louder. Which helped keep me up late at night when I was working on that dissertation. So thanks, guys, it was a nice 2013.5Hey look I accidentally copied the link for the whole live album instead of the individual song link, so the video below will go right into “Mind Your Manners” as if to demonstrate my point, let’s pretend I did that on purpose for effect 🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️
Bonus Track: “Sirens” is the song that perhaps most strongly contributes to the album’s classification as non-gender-specific-middle-aged-person rock, and you know what? It is a great song! You can probably enjoy it even if you’re not a non-gender-specific-middle-aged person.
Happy Day Threading!6🤷♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️