I think history has somewhat undermined the importance of this record; the tagline for Vs. reads something along the lines of "sold a million copies in one week to set a record that stood for years", painting a picture of grand success. While not entirely false, it's also not really an accurate portrayal of Vs.
About a month ago when I talked about Nirvana's In Utero, I stressed how important it was for the survival of the band that it be kind of contrary to what fans and label alike may expect. Like In Utero (though admittedly not quite as harsh), Vs. rails against the fairweather fans and greedy label execs looking for a Ten II. Its manifesto is clear from the drop; Go and Animal aren't pop songs and, no matter what the sales figures tell you, Vs. is not a pop record.
The problems with Ten (if we must nitpick) are its pacing and its production. The glut of slow-to-mid tempo tunes, combined with the studio sheen heaped on like cheap eyeliner make Ten an album very much aimed at the masses and very much stuck in its time (although the production issues were addressed with the 20th anniversary reissue, which you should check out for a fairer representation of the band at the time). Vs. is sometimes guilty of going too far the other way, throwing tantrums seemingly for the sake of difficulty (see Blood); but I'm not about to complain too much about ferocity, even if it is just a bit contrived.
The bulk of Vs. finds Pearl Jam a band figuring out where they want to go sonically while trying desperately to pull away from the template of Ten. Hallmarks of future albums are all here; the tribal rhythms that dominated No Code are present on W.M.A., the laid back grooves of Yield show up on Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town (a hilariously titled response to criticism of Ten's short song titles), and the whole album pulses with the playfulness and sense of discovery that they'd flesh out on their very next album, the brilliant and polarizing Vitalogy.
Even Vs.' weaker moments (Glorified G, Leash) have at least a little merit; Glorified G's message was more important than its music, and Leash has Eddie yelling a bunch of F-bombs. But the album's strongest moments are absolute perfection. Daughter, a fragile acoustic rocker about family violence, strikes such a chord with listeners that it hasn't left their setlist yet. Dissident ventures just about as close as a song dares to Ten territory, has one of the most soaring choruses they've ever penned. Rearviewmirror picks up steam as it goes, and its payoff is cathartic; it's regularly used as the closing song of the band's main set.
Then, there's Indifference, the very song that taught me the power of music. It may be a quiet, plaintive tune, but it packs the power of a tsunami; suffice it to say that, as unbelievable as it sounds to anyone who hasn't experienced the healing that music is capable of, Indifference saved my life. It's a potent combination of melody, message and emotion, and brings every twist and turn over the previous 44 minutes into frightening perspective. At the end of an album tirelessly designed to reign in fame and temper expectations, Vedder moans, "how much difference does it make?" For at least a week in October of 1993 as it sold in record setting numbers, it seemed to make none at all. And yet, it showed the band they didn't have to be pigeonholed and freed them up to get as experimental as they wanted to, which they most certainly did on Vitalogy and No Code. Eventually the masses backed off, leaving Pearl Jam with a smaller but more devoted fan base and the comfort and confidence to do ease up a little on the oddities.
Though they're more renowned now for their live show than their studio output, Pearl Jam are still putting out quality product on record, as evidenced by this week's release of Lightning Bolt. Why don't we take a break from that record for an hour and pay homage to the record that ultimately made it possible?
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