LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-AUGUST 27, 2019-ON THIS DATE IN 1991 EDDIE VEDDER AND PEARL JAM RELEASED THEIR DEBUT STUDIO ALBUM ‘TEN’
HERE’S SOME TRIVIA SURROUNDING ‘TEN’
-THE ALBUM WAS MADE ON A LOW BUDGET. THE BAND ONLY SPENT $ 25,000
RECORDING THE RECORD
-THE TRACK ‘ALIVE’ WAS ACTUALLY A DEMO RECORDING THAT WAS JUICED UP A LITTLE BIT WITH A DIFFERENT GUITAR SOLO
– THE LYRICS FOR ‘ALIVE’ ARE ABOUT A BOY WHO FINDS OUT HIS FATHER IS REALLY HIS STEPFATHER. VEDDER LATER REVEALED THAT THE SONG WAS A WORK OF FICTION BASED ON REALITY WHEN HE DISCOVERED HIS STEPFATHER WASN’T REALLY HIS DAD, AND THAT HIS BIOLOGICAL FATHER HAD DIED.
-THE “PEARL JAM” LETTERING ON THE ALBUM COVER WAS ACTUALLY A LIFE SIZE CUT OUT MADE BY JEFF AMENT. THE BAND WAS NOT SUPERIMPOSED OVER LETTERS, THE BAND WAS ACTUALLY DOING AN ALL-FOR-ONE POSE IN FRONT OF A GIANT WOODEN CUTOUT.
-EDDIE VEDDER DIDN’T GET ALONG WITH HIS STEPFATHER AND TOOK OUT HIS WRATH ON HIS WITH THE SONG ‘BETTER MAN.’ WHEN EDDIE BECAME A FATHER HE SAID HE WOULD DO EVERYTHING HE COULD TO BREAK THE CYCLE OF FAMILY DYSFUNCTION
-MIKE MCCREADY’S ALIVE SOLO WAS INSPIRED BY ACE FREHLEY OF KISS.
HE TOLD ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE “He’s what took them over the top with the feel he put into his leads. I really gravitated towards his vibrato. My lead for ‘Alive’ is based on ‘She,’ and that’s based on ‘Five to One’ by the Doors. I remember we were [doing the final mix for Ten] in Surrey, England. I thought about it like, I’m going to approach this like Ace did on ‘She.’”
-‘EVEN FLOW’ TOOK FOREVER TO RECORD. THE BAND WAS NEVER HAPPY WITH IT AND RECORDED IT APPROXIMATELY 70 TIMES.
-THE BAND WAS AMAZED BY EDDIE VEDDER’S ABILITY TO COME UP WITH LYRICS INSTANTANEOUSLY. VEDDER WROTE THE LYRICS TO ‘OCEANS’ WHILE LOCKED OUT OF THE BAND’S REHEARSAL SPACE.
-PEARL JAM’S RECORD LABEL WANTED TO RELEASE THE SONG ‘BLACK’ AS A SINGLE, BUT PEARL JAM REFUSED, SAYING IT WAS TOO PERSONAL OF A SONG AND ACCORDING TO EDDIE VEDDER IN A ROLLING STONE INTERVIEW: “That’s not why we wrote songs. We didn’t write to make hits.”
RADIO STATIONS PLAYED THE SONG ANYWAY, AND IT ENDED UP BEING A TOP THREE ROCK HIT IN 1993
-‘TEN’ WASN’T RELEASE ON VINYL UNTIL MORE THAN 3 YEARS AFTER IT CAME OUT ON C.D. WHEN TEN CAME OUT, RECORD LABELS WERE PHASING OUT VINYL FOR THE CHEAPER TO MAKE COMPACT DISCS. ‘TEN’ SOLD 10 MILLION COPIES WHEN A GOOD MAJORITY OF PEOPLE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE C.D. PLAYERS. JEFF AMENT IN AN INTERVIEW IN 2009 SAID “They didn’t let us put it out on vinyl, and that was a rough blow to us at the time ’cause I don’t think I even had a CD player.”
-IT TOOK THREE YEARS FOR THE COMPANY TO RELEASE A VINYL PRESSING
TEN HAS BEEN CERTIFIED 13X PLATINUM. HERE’S ONE OF THE REASONS WHY
