Around 30 years ago, Seattle band Citizen Dick fired lead singer Matt Dillon and replaced him with a moody surfer who was almost as handsome and could actually sing. After their debut album went bugfuck up the charts, the band now known as Pearl Jam took a baffling but crucial step back from the spotlight. They fought Ticketmaster, refused to make videos, and released songs that wouldn’t sound out of place around a campfire. With 11 albums under their belts, they’ve outlived most of their peers and carefully cultivated a rabid fanbase who hopefully don’t look up the addresses of lowly album rankers.
11. No Code (1996)
Pearl Jam has a tendency to open their live shows with a softer song, which is a terrible thing to do. Even worse is to open a rock album with a song like “Sometimes,” a melancholy ode to some times. By the time “Hail, Hail” gets the party started you’ve probably gone home, and the record doesn’t ever bother to invite you back.
Play it again: “Hail, Hail”
Skip it: “I’m Open”
10. Gigaton (2020)
“Gigaton” is a Pearl Jam album the same way that Papa John’s is pizza – it technically is, but it sure as goddamn hell is not. Maybe that’s not fair, maybe having “Even Flow” floating in your head for most of your life causes a bias. You can’t fault them for seeming a little more somber in 2020, and Eddie Vedder sounds less like an Adam Sandler character than ever, but it would be easier to fuck to “Wind Beneath My Wings” than anything here.
Play it again: “Quick Escape”
Skip it: “Buckle Up”
9. Binaural (2000)
There’s a running gag in “This is Spinal Tap” where the band just keeps losing drummers, which was reportedly based on Pearl Jam’s real-life percussionist problems. Their fifth and apparently still-functioning drummer joined in 1998, and he’s a dead ringer for Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron. Shame that his first album with the band isn’t a dead ringer for “Badmotorfinger.”
Play it again: “Grievance”
Skip it: “Thin Air”
8. Lightning Bolt (2013)
There are many awesome things going on at this very moment within the cells of your body. The nucleus is protecting your personal DNA info, lysosomes are repairing and digesting, ribosomes are making proteins. None of this would be possible without an energy source – the mitochondria that contain, pound-for-pound, the same amount of energy as a bolt of lightning! There’s also a lot of goopy cytoplasm sitting around doing fucking nothing.
Play it again: “Mind Your Manners”
Skip it: “Let the Records Play”
7. Self-Titled (2006)
If you’re going to make a visual statement, your instinct is to go big. Lead single “Life Wasted” marks the return of Pearl Jam to the MTV world, and the resulting video is grosser than Tool’s old stop-motion disgustoramas. Seeing the band’s dismembered heads covered in ants or invaded by snakes or consumed in flames is much easier to take if you pretend they’re all human traffickers or terrorists or your landlord.
Play it again: “Comatose”
Skip it: “Gone”
6. Riot Act (2002)
Pearl Jam have reacted to loss and tragedy admirably, and they’ve had to face more than their fair share. The bursts of anger and love are welcome and appreciated, but these are five men at their sexual peak – they shouldn’t be lamenting or wailing, they should be singing about love in elevators and shaking someone all night long. In a perfect world, Pearl Jam would fucking suck.
Play it again: “Save You”
Skip it: “½ Full”
5. Backspacer (2009)
Post-Bush and pre-joyless hellhole full of Nazis, this could be the happiest Pearl Jam has ever sounded. Of course, there’s got to be a line in A.A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood stories which is the happiest Eeyore ever sounded. Framed that way, happiness doesn’t really mean anything, does it? Let’s just enjoy the brief burst of sun as PJ fully let out their inner Who for the first time.
Play it again: “The Fixer”
Skip it: “Just Breathe”
4. Ten (1991)
If you attended a public high school in 1992, you remember the unspoken but highly enforced rule that at least 30% of the student body must be wearing the Pearl Jam “Alive” t-shirt at all times. This particular album isn’t really what Pearl Jam sound like, and shows off hardly any of the range that will become a signature – those aren’t surprising notes for a band in its infancy – what’s surprising are the songs, massive songs that moved the earth.
Play it again: “Once”
Skip it: “Why Go”
3. Vs. (1993)
Funny how the untold number of Pearl Jam imitators always seemed to stop at “Ten.”
They would put on an affected baritone honk, throw it over a multi-pedaled riff and try to sound angry and sad at the same time, album after album. “Vs.” came out before any of them and negated them with such finality that the government should have to send us checks for ever hearing them. Those bands never tried to make an album like this, their one trick was lifting from the first one. They don’t compare.
Play it again: “Rearview Mirror”
Skip it: “Indifference”
2. Vitalogy (1994)
This is the band firing on all cylinders, and the fact that the cylinders are misshapen, rusted, cracking – that just makes it better, man. You won’t find better loud Pearl Jam than “Spin the Black Circle” or better quiet Pearl Jam than “Nothingman.” Producer Brendan O’Brien, who has spent more time with the band than most of their drummers, says that recording “Vitalogy” was tense. If tense sessions deliver albums like this, we urge each member of Pearl Jam to drop what they’re doing and start texting each others’ wives.
Play it again: “Spin the Black Circle”
Skip it: “Bugs”
1. Yield (1998)
Stock and stone, blood and bone. If “Vitalogy” was made of firing cylinders, what we have here is made of the very mountains and gorges from which the metal was mined. “Yield” is a physical experience, like a triathlon, only it’s better to start this with two drinks or an edible inside you. It also makes you feel like there’s a villain to defeat at the end. Maybe triathlons should end with mortal combat, to really separate the strong from the weak. It’s evolution, baby.
Play it again: “Do the Evolution”
Skip it: “The Color Red”
If you’re a fan of both the punk and un-punk sensibilities of Warped Tour and the pop vocal stylings of The Ting Tings, check out this twelve-track 2015 LP from the accurately and robustly named Beautiful Bodies. If not, the gone, gone, gone defunct band has an actual Harvard Law School professor that will literally school your lies and the war inside your heart. How many Harvard students does it take to screw in a lightbulb? You narcissists should know the answer to that one! Back to “Battles,” Beautiful Bodies released only one album that you likely missed due to repeated screenings of another 2015 competitor release known as “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2,” so capture, release, and stream the record now.
Unlike the band mentioned above, Greensboro, North Carolina’s Farewell released a total of two LPs, both of which unsuccessfully fed the fire of the world via Epitaph Records. The first of these, 2007’s “Isn’t This Supposed to be Fun?!” is a solid and successfully fun power-pop banger, and yes, we just said “banger”; sing, baby. We’re not sure why this album with a literally questionable album title didn’t resonate with the mainstream, but we posit, and yes, we just said “posit,” that its lack of mainstream attention was all about its poor timing: The record was a paradoxical combination of a tad too late AND a bit too early. If you wanted to, you could just start it up.
Remember the thankfully short and not-so-sweet dance wave during the late aughts that infiltrated the scene? Well we sure do, and our bright obnoxiously cringe neon clothes with kiddie monsters on ‘em now sit on the floor of someone else’s closet. We digress. This sincerely good 2007 album from Las Vegas’ The Higher unquestionably tops this awful trend’s list, while a bunch of schlocky uninspired shitbag toe-slamming-and-not-toe-tapping albums are dormantly buried below its fire’s dust. One might even say that it is (wait for it, wait for it) in fact much, much “lower.” Zing!
We know, we know: You hate the mix on this one, and you’re the primary authority on the painstaking process of optimizing and combining multi-track recordings. Blame us for that gaffe as said mix was our idea. Anyway, letlive’s third album “The Blackest Beautiful” was poised to assist in helping the incomparable band climb to the 21st-century aggressive music heights reached by platinum-selling post-hardcore peers The Used and Story of the Year, but that misguided thought is now a dreamer’s disease. Sadly the band broke up shortly after this album’s also underrated 2016 follow-up “If I’m The Devil…”. Whack. Preventdeath.
Now we’re at the two-part section of this article where the word “match” is prominently featured at the beginning of said band’s name, and that fact is going to make the forever unwell Matchbox Twenty seriously reconsider their not-so-smooth life choices. The Matches may be the real “one that got away” group mentioned here, as pretty much every label on earth tried to sign them, and they should’ve been huge AF, but it just didn’t happen for the four-piece, at least that’s what Katie said. Alas, the enigmatic group definitely didn’t recoup the label’s expansive budget, especially given the fact that SO many notable producers worked on the record, and “Decomposer” went far from platinum. Still, we love, love, love this album and truly revel in the fact that the band mentions the best social networking site “MySpace” in its quirky and fun single “Papercut Skins”. PUT SOME RESPECT ON TOM ANDERSON’S NAME!
Sometimes bands ahead of the curve fail to cash in on their eventual strong sonic influence. You may debate endlessly on whether or not Poughkeepsie is actually a part of Upstate New York, but there is no argument as to whether or not the band got a fair shake. Spoiler alert: They didn’t. Despite the group’s most superior single (and we aren’t taking any more questions on the matter) “Monsters” ending up streaming quite well after the fact, Matchbook (Chemical) Romance’s sophomore and final LP “Voices” didn’t get as much initial praise as it should’ve when it first came out, and the four-piece hung their hats just one year after the album was released. What a sight. The record was quite a departure for the band, but they certainly didn’t anticipate that it would cause an actual departure; woah. Believe in what you see, yeah.
First of all, why the hell does this band NOT have a Wikipedia page? Come on, dorks! Do your worst! Our step-cousin’s forever out-of-tune Menzingers cover band in Butte, Montana even has one! Nothing feels good anymore. Regarding the act’s actual music which is even better experienced live and in-person: Whittier (yes, Whittier), California’s pride and joy Plague Vendor made a hell of a sweaty garage rock album for your punk rock heads, and easily has the best and most universal album title on this sterling list of ten; who doesn’t like things that are free to eat? In closing, we love it when a band has a song named after its own band name. Respect.
Fans of ‘90s-grunge and the modern act that hearkens to that era known as Microwave should’ve flocked together and made plans to make Save Face huge, but despite this album meaning “thank you” in French, they just didn’t. No thank you. Bad. Still, this fourteen-song collection consisting of one-word titles from New Jersey’s Save Face deserves an abundance of public and private love, as it is filler and cavity free. Also, it’s very, very, very clever that an album called “Merci” has a song called “Mercy”. We see you, Save Face. Have merci beaucoup.
While we don’t have access to all of the nuts and bolts of Epitaph’s ledgers, we assume that this entry is the largest or among the closest to it in terms of actual record sales to be listed here. However, San Francisco’s Set Your Goals sadly walked so another polarizing NorCal band known as The Story So Far could run, and that a Philadelphia-based uber-literate act known as The Wonder Years could age gracefully album after album; we theorize that it was Set Your Goals’ meh and final follow-up LP to this one known as 2011’s “Burning at Both Ends” that did ‘em in, but that will be touched upon in our upcoming book “Suck It: Flawed Methods of Persecution & Punishment”. Sorry. Anyway, the band had a unique and diverse dual lead singer sound, and this undeniably is one of the best pop-punk albums to be released this century. That’s not a joke, but the word “easycore” sure is. What the hell is a gigawatt? Look closer.
We’re going to close this piece with a downer, but it would be quite an upper for us, the band, and the label if you listened to all of Too Close To Touch’s 2016 LP “Haven’t Been Myself” right now. We’ll pause. Did you make it through all forty-three minutes and twenty-one seconds of this incredible record? Don’t lie! Back to the written word, Lexington, Kentucky’s Too Close To Touch released the one of the most gut-wrenching songs in recent memory as this album’s closer known as “Eiley,” and said tune and the particular lyric “take me instead” are both even more poignant and tear-jerking given lead singer Keaton Pearce’s untimely death at 31 last year. What a shame; miss your face. Keaton’s legacy will forever live on through music.
Lubomir Karashenko was born on a desolate stretch of Ukrainian tundra known to the locals as “The Ice-Devil’s Shuffleboard Table.” He emigrated to the United States in a cheese cart, and later, a cheese canoe.
Born in San Antonio, Texas, Ms. Gainworth was raised by a nest of disorganized fire ants. A graduate of San Antonio High School, she was proudly illiterate until her dying day.
Transient scene staple known only by the moniker “Wrenchy” preferred life on the road. His arrival in a town could be predicted by the approaching cloud of toxic dust and constant industrial clanking noises which always preceded him.
As a human being, Steven Seagal is something of a hero of mine, but as an actor, I know I can do better.
I’m all for Russia invading the U.S., but things were different in 1985 I guess. Not only would I have made a better (okay hang on I gotta look it up on IMDb) “Matt Hunter” than Chuck Norris, I would have given the effects department invaluable suggestions for improvement. They actually blow up huge sections of a town in this movie that was scheduled for demolition. Why not use buildings that still have people in them?!
I actually did star in this movie. I was the invisible entity.
I was almost a cop once, and I’m a time traveler if you consider the nickel I did for aggravated assault to be time travel, which I do. Jean-Claude Van “Dancer” shows up a few times on this list, and I’m not impressed. Sure, doing splits is hard, but I don’t see how they help you stop Ron Silver from changing history. If anything, stopping to do them distracts from the task at hand.
Sorry Hollywood, but real guys who blow shit up and maul down anyone in their way don’t look like Arnold, they look like me.
When someone has a great ass it’s the first thing I tell them, and I tell them loud and proud. Just read one of the many, many HR reports that mention me and you’ll see I have what it takes to take Pacino’s role in “Heat.”
A guy with a shady military history and mental problems fighting cops in a small town? I should sue them for not putting me in this.
I’m pretty much exactly like Bodhi in this movie except for the surfing, sky diving, charisma, and eastern philosophy. I robbed a bank is what I’m saying.
If you’re looking for someone to paint their face and do something crazy, I’m your guy. Just don’t ask where I was on January 6th!
Much like Bruce Wayne, I tragically lost my parents at a young age, but I didn’t inherit billions of dollars for it. I just got sent to some weird hospital where they kept me until I could convince them I wouldn’t play with matches anymore. We all wear masks.
I really thought I had a shot at playing Bond. He’s already been played by a psychopath who never acted in a movie before, George Lazenby, and he did a surprisingly good job. I guess it’s because I’m an American. Man, when will racism stop ruining my life?
Shouldn’t this role have gone to someone who has actually escaped from New York before? Sure it was to dodge child support payments not rescue the president, but I’ve got the pedigree!
As an alpha smart enough to see society for the illusory house of cards it really is, I pretty much already am Mad Max. I’m a survivor who plays by his own rules. My court-appointed therapist calls it antisocial personality disorder, but when the big one drops he’ll be dead in the first wave.
A role that combines my two greatest passions — being a super macho badass, and reality television. I’ve auditioned for Survivor 20 times and never gotten on because I would so clearly win that the show would be boring.
This movie is pretty much my life story anyway, with a few exceptions. I never competed for the heavyweight title, I’ve never boxed before, I don’t have a best friend and I’ve never been in love. I did get hired as a leg breaker for a loan shark, and unlike the “Italian Stallion,” I never quit.
I would say my biggest leg up over Martin Riggs is that I don’t need the death of a loved one to turn me into a loose cannon. I would say my biggest leg up over Mel Gibson is my politics. I’m more conservative.
I know that movies of this era lacked representation for African Americans, especially in leading roles, but I would argue there was an even greater lack of representation for me specifically. That may be the musing of a manic narcissist, but it’s also a fact. Carl Weathers was in “Rocky” and “Predator,” I don’t see why this couldn’t have been my shot.
You’re wondering if I’m talking about replacing Tango or Cash. Trick question, I could play both. I argue with myself in the mirror every morning, so the chemistry is there.
Another Van “Dancer” flick, this one bogged down by too much story. My bloodsport will just be 90 minutes of me kicking the crap out of everyone I went to high school with and my dad.
Fun fact: I actually had a brother everyone called Goose and when he died it totally was my fault and I did not let it slow my roll for one second.
In 1991, Metallica released their behemoth self-titled classic (often colloquially referred to as The Black Album), which would become their best-selling. A little-known fact is that they also issued a collaboration with Pantera called “Contradictions Collapse by Meshuggah.” By no means is this a bad album, but you don’t listen to Meshuggah for mediocre thrash. On the bright side, a Swedish band got me to look up English words, so now I know what abnegating cecity is.
Finally, we can now start to split Fredrik Thordendal’s hairs and scrutinize the rest of this revolutionary band’s discography. For the shitload of Meshuggah copycats out there, “The Violent Sleep of Reason” would hands down be their best album. In fact, “Clockworks” earned a Grammy nomination. However, by my admittedly high standards for the rest of Meshuggah’s work, it is a slight step down (like many of their guitar tunings.) This album does boast their best cover, and I would somehow like to listen to it if it were at all possible by the laws of physics.
They followed this album title’s advice to a T. They Destroyed their generic sound, Erased their lack of innovation, and Improved to become leaders instead of followers. Meshuggah, which means “crazy” in Yiddish, began to make sense as their band name here.
The word “cohesive” comes to mind when it comes to this record. It’s a bit of an oddball – even by their specifications – but they make 0-0-0-0-0-0-0 actually sound interesting. This album is the one they would most likely play over the loudspeakers at Ikea, but what do I know? I barely have anything most people would call “furniture.”
This album took everything “Destroy Erase Improve” did right and kept it going. They finally sounded like they got their own instruments and gave their hand-me-downs to another struggling Swedish metal band. “Chaosphere” is so good that it almost got me to look up the difference between a polyrhythm and a polymeter.
After more than 30 years since their debut album, Meshuggah shows here that they haven’t lost a step – literally. Drummer Tomas Haake continues to do shit with his feet that only animals with more than two legs can dream of. Although the band is known for the high number of strings on their guitars, Haake’s gotta have at least 8 bass drums down there based on how much sound he generates. After “The Violent Sleep of Reason” hinted at a possible drop in quality in the future, “Immutable” put those doubts to bed.
For many Meshuggah fans, obZen is the group’s magnum opus – and for good reason. It’s smooth, funky, catastrophic, and enigmatic – sometimes all at once. Fellow Swedes ABBA have their warm, charming anthem “Dancing Queen.” Meshuggah is no different with their tender ballad “Bleed.” It may sound like a scary song, but it is actually a heartwarming tale about people living in developed countries where they can suffer brain hemorrhaging without having to worry about going bankrupt.
It’s ironic that this album’s title is “Nothing” when it was everything and more for them (I want to apologize for the opening line, I went to night school for Album Ranking and this sort of wordplay is the first thing they teach). It shares many qualities with obZen, both in sound and clout. The band demonstrated how they were ahead of the game in 2002 by pointing out that even shadows can be organic. When it comes to shadows, always buy organic! Non-organic shadows are definitely not as healthy for you.
Fans of their earlier material may not be thrilled with this choice. Come to think of it, fans of their middle period or even their latest efforts probably won’t like this choice. However, they are wrong. I have always wanted to hear what two galaxies colliding sounds like, and “Behind the Sun” gives me the opportunity to do just that. From the beginning, they were flexing on us, explaining to us rookies that “Koloss” and “Colossus” mean the same thing. However, I wouldn’t expect anything less from a Swedish band named in Yiddish screaming in English about a Greek wonder.
