| Krusen left the band
shortly after the release of Ten; he was replaced by Dave Abbruzzese. Pearl Jam's
audience continued to grow during 1992, thanks to a series of radio and MTV hits,
as well as successful appearances on the second Lollapalooza tour and the Singles
soundtrack (Stone Gossard also embarked on a side project called Brad, which released
the album Shame in early 1993). Despite their status as rock & roll superstars,
the band refused to succumb to the accepted conventions of the music industry.
The group refused to release any videos or singles from their second album, 1993's
Vs. Nevertheless, it was another multi-platinum success, debuting at number one
and selling nearly a million copies in its first week of release. On their spring
1994 American tour, the band decided not to play the conventional stadiums, choosing
to play smaller arenas, including several shows on college campuses. Pearl Jam
cancelled their 1994 summer tour, claiming they could not keep ticket prices below
20 dollars because Ticketmaster was pressuring promoters to charge a higher price.
The band took Ticketmaster to the Justice Department for unfair business practices;
while fighting Ticketmaster, they recorded a new album during the spring and summer
of 1994. After the record was completed, the group fired Dave Abbruzzese, replacing
him with former Red Hot Chili Peppers and Eleven drummer Jack Irons. Vitalogy,
the band's third album, appeared at the end of 1994. For the first two weeks,
the album was only available as a limited vinyl release, but the record charted
in the Top 60. Once Vitalogy was available on CD and cassette, the album shot
to the top of the charts and quickly went multi-platinum. Pearl Jam continued
to battle Ticketmaster in 1995, but the Justice Department eventually ruled in
favor of the ticket agency. In early 1995, the band recorded an album with Neil
Young. Meanwhile, Vedder toured with his wife Beth's experimental band Hovercraft
in the spring of 1994 as Stone Gossard founded an independent record company;
Mad Season, Mike McCready's side project with Layne Staley of Alice in Chains,
released their first album, Above, in the spring of 1995. Comprised entirely of
Neil Young songs, Mirror Ball appeared in the summer under Young's name; although
the individual members of the band were credited, the name Pearl Jam did not appear
on the cover due to legal complications. Pearl Jam released a single culled from
the sessions, titled Merkin Ball and featuring the songs "I Got Id"
and "Long Road," in the fall of 1995. In late summer of 1996,
Pearl Jam released their fourth album, No Code. Although the album was greeted
with fairly positive reviews and debuted at number one, its weird amalgam of rock,
worldbeat, and experimentalism dissatisfied a large portion of their fan base,
and it quickly fell down the charts. The record's performance was also hurt by
Pearl Jam's inability to launch a full-scale tour, due both to their battle with
Ticketmaster and a reluctance to spend months on the road. The band spent most
of 1997 out of the spotlight, working on new material; Gossard also released a
second album with his side project Brad, titled Interiors. By the end of the year,
Pearl Jam had completed a new, harder-rocking record entitled Yield. The album
was greeted with enthusiastic reviews upon its February 1998 release, but its
commercial fortunes weren't quite as clear cut. While their sizable cult embraced
the album, sending it to number two its first week of release, Yield quickly slipped
down the charts. Pearl Jam supported the record with a full-scale arena tour in
the summer of 1998, issuing the concert LP Live on Two Legs at the end of the
year; Jack Irons did not participate due to poor health, and was replaced by ex-Soundgarden
drummer Matt Cameron. In 1999, Pearl Jam scored an unlikely pop radio smash with
their cover of the J. Frank Wilson oldie "Last Kiss," originally released
as the seventh in a series of fan-club-only singles which had also featured several
incongruous covers in the past. Demand from fans and radio programmers resulted
in the nationwide release of "Last Kiss," and it eventually became the
band's highest-charting pop hit to date, peaking at number two and going gold.
The group returned in 2000 with the Tchad Blake-produced Binaural. In order to
circumvent bootleggers, their subsequent European and American tours were recorded
in full and released in an unprecedented series of double-CD sets, each of the
72 volumes featuring a complete concert. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music
Guide |
![Pearl Jam Photo Gallery Link]](images/buttons/photogallery.jpg){kind=small}
