ItвЂ™s the album where Pearl Jam first indulged their more left-field impulses, the fever-dream discordance of вЂBugsвЂ™ and the dirge of вЂStupidmopвЂ™ a counter to the radio-friendly unit shifting вЂBetter ManвЂ™ and вЂCorduroyвЂ™. Characterised by darker themes and bleak restraint, its few moments of release seem overcompensatory, the rush of вЂSpin The Black CircleвЂ™ the frenzied motion of the manic depressive. Vitalogy was harder, more erratic, trading the clarity of Vs. Scaling back on the guitar breaks that so riled Cobain, the album retains a potency and focus throughout: harsher and more in thrall to bouts of noise, more open to experiment without sacrificing the warmth at its core. that made the mark, the opening stabs of вЂGoвЂ™ a clear rejoinder to the whispered introduction of their debut. Ten may have gotten the press but itвЂ™s Vs. and Vitalogy were, and remain, pretty landmark albums. Major label - to whom band is no longer signed - takes a few moments out from blankly staring into the abyss of their own increasing irrelevance to rape some last desperate pounds from a two-decades-old property? ItвЂ™s a deja vu thatвЂ™s become a tinnitus.ДЄnd yet itвЂ™s hard to deny that both Vs. ItвЂ™s the kind of release that should be caterwauled at with cynicism. For the lesser fans there are lesser options, the Super Deluxe Box Set giving way to the Deluxe Edition, the Legacy Edition and, for the proles, a simple Remastered LP. ItвЂ™s the turn of albums #2 and #3 this time: hauled from their beds and hosed down with pressure-cannons, force-fed bonus tracks and waterboarded with вЂmemorabiliaвЂ™. Eighteen years on and the band are widely accepted as pretty much the last of the grunge survivors, hailed by some as the greatest American rock band alive, and those kids - well, theyвЂ™ve all grown up. Shortly before 1993вЂ™s Vs, around the time Kurt Cobain was decrying the band as sell-outs, the NME accused Pearl Jam of вЂtrying to steal money from young alternative kidsвЂ™ pocketsвЂ™.

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