Can you say yuck? Superman should bathe in Kryptonite before any self-respecting rock critic would cue up this nauseatingly popular fan favorite. Endless years of heavy MTV video rotation. Men at Work – Business as Usual (1981)įifteen weeks atop the US album chart. So, all you music zombies: Lock the door, turn out the lights, and watch us joyously set fire to whatever meager credibility we have left.Ħ. Seriously, some of these turkeys are egregious enough to end marriages. And a guilty pleasure nobody ever heard of, ain’t guilty at all. Some obvious choices are missing – Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, and the Carpenters were Gen-X rites of childhood, not a source of embarrassment. “Overplayed but respected” doesn’t count, while “Greatest Hits” compilations are fair game. So, after two decades in this racket, it’s time to bare my soul with self-immolating glee.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we want anyone else to know about it.įortunately, representing the Old Guard means never having to say you’re sorry. Well-known hit albums that, by all rights, should never soil our privileged speakers, yet somehow claw their way onto the rotation and linger there like mold for years in some cases. Put simply? While we may know a lot about music, we can also be a real pain in the ass.īut every rose has its thorn (sorry), and every pompous critic has a few rotting skeletons in their musical closet. Such fashionable disregard is the source of our priceless credibility, or so we tell ourselves. Our preferences nearly always align against the public and, therefore, the almighty dollar, setting us up for penury and much-deserved ridicule. We inveterate snobs sit perched on high, passing objective judgment on an industry that is, by definition, entirely subjective. Amazon U.K.Music “street cred” is a precious commodity for critics. MTV Unplugged (originally released as Epic/Legacy 19075 92159-1, 2019)Īmazon U.S. Faithful fans and soon-to-be-converts will not want to miss this one.

More than a decade after the set's first video release as part of a deluxe Ten box set, it's coming out in its widest audio release next month. Unplugged set the stage for even greater success for Pearl Jam in the decade ahead. On the contrary: during set closer 'Porch,' lead singer Eddie Vedder thrashes off his stool and scrawls 'PRO-CHOICE!!' on his arm in marker while bassist Jeff Ament climbs Dave Abbruzzese's drum riser and guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard trade furious strums and riffs. With all those factors at play, the stage was set for a scene like no other, as Pearl Jam transformed a half-dozen hard-driving songs from Ten like 'Oceans,' 'Alive,' 'Black,' 'Jeremy' and 'Even Flow' (plus the yet-to-be-released 'State of Love and Trust') into stripped-down performances that lost none of their power in acoustic form. 2 on the Billboard 200 - with 'Alive' and 'Even Flow' earning strong rock radio airplay. The seven-month-old Ten was steadily gaining in popularity - by year's end, it would peak at No. Three days before, the group arrived from a European tour nine days later, they'd embark on the second leg of a North America tour, headlining Lollapalooza and several European festivals before the summer's end. None of that was yet on display when the band arrived at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens (less than two miles from Second Disc HQ!) on March 16, 1992.

Though Nevermind was the symbolic avatar of grunge, famously knocking Michael Jackson's Dangerous from the top of the Billboard 200, Pearl Jam helped push the genre's narrative in visual ways, with members appearing in the cult film Singles (with two new Pearl Jam tracks, including the blistering 'State of Love and Trust,' featuring on the film's soundtrack) and Vedder starring in the arresting music video for Ten single 'Jeremy,' today considered one of the greatest of its era. Along with Alice In Chains' Facelift (released in 1990), Soundgarden's Badmotorfingerand Nirvana's Nevermind, Ten established Seattle as a hotbed of urgent, emotional rock and roll. Less than a year before, the quintet fired the first salvo in what would be considered rock's grunge explosion with the release of debut album Ten. The band announced yesterday that the seven-song 1992 broadcast will bow on CD and digital formats on October 22, almost a year after its vinyl debut for Record Store Day Black Friday. One of the first major live sets by Pearl Jam - a stunning, stripped-down session for MTV Unplugged - will get a wide release in October.

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