When lead singer Andrew Wood would die from a heroin overdose before their debut LP could be released, Vedder joined in as a guest vocalist on a song from Chris Cornell titled ‘Hunger Strike’. Though Soundgarden and Pearl Jam would flourish in the nineties following the explosion of the Seattle sound, there was one band who had trodden the path to major label success first of all - Mother Love Bone. Unlike many acts before them, the group, with Vedder leading the charge, wrote songs deeply entrenched in his emotions and weren’t afraid to show it. Although certainly aligned with the grunge sound, Pearl Jam averted the ‘pop song in a brand new disguise’ motif that Nirvana found so much success with and instead managed to make the heartbeat of the band the most integral sound. Instead, Vedder and his band delivered emotional fraught pieces set to some abrasive guitar sounds. Pearl Jam, among a host of other bands, kicked back against that. Conversely, in America, established rock music had been given an electric shock of fame and fortune - hair metal was at the top of the agenda, and the only real qualifier for being a great band was the number of sexual conquests you could rack up.
In Britain, punk rock had turned into a dark and dangerous post-punk drone, endlessly languishing in the greys of English shores. Freedom and creativity reigned in pop music, but bands were generally going one of two ways within the rock sphere. The eighties had been a notoriously decadent time for music. Vedder, and the rest of Pearl Jam for that matter, were born in the underground Seattle music scene that would find favour during the early nineties with America’s disenfranchised youth. Naturally seen as one of the greatest lead singers of all time, his baritone voice has become a staple of the global rock scene, despite his localised beginnings. Not so for Eddie Vedder who, despite being the lead singer of one of the most important rock bands of modern times in Pearl Jam, has always managed to maintain his surfer dude image - a chilled guy who happens to write some of the most compelling songs we’ve ever heard.Īs a celebration of Vedder, we’re taking a look back at ten of his greatest songs both with and without Pearl Jam. Sometimes, avidly following a rock star from their first footsteps on to the music scene through a legendary career, soundtracking your own growth as you go, can usually end with a twist of conservatism that render your previous punk rock allegiances useless.
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