This album was released around the time Pearl Jam were losing their court case with Ticketmaster. Alienated by people like aerrosmith, Madonna and the likes , the band were struggling to find backers to push ticketmaster into conceding that their cut in the sale of a ticket was far too high.
The band also seemed to be too preoccupied in fighting the mainstream , No videos., A lack of a truly good song , and a complete lack of any direction charecterize this album.
Having said that there are many fans who will tell u this is pearl jams finest because of the fact that they sound like they really didn’t have any boundaries on this one . There’s no real style of music on this album. Its absolute pearl jam. Which doesn’t make it the most listenable of albums.
Who we are is classic pearl jam trying to dabble in Indian music , while lukin and smile are good rockers with simple melodies that the band genrally come up with .
Lyrically Eddie vedder is all over th eplace here , confused , not really focused. There seems to be one thing and thats pain. Most pearl jam lyrics offer hope , this ones an example yes we’re all screwed up lets get everyone to join in .
Off he goes is beautiful, lyrically but far too labourious in its music. There is a short spoken word song at the end of this album, which had people runniing to fan forums and message boards to find the meaning of , but just like this album it doesnt really matter . This is deep , this is an example of a band just lettng it go .