Taylor Swift is at number one in the album charts. I’m sure it’s a great pop album and is very encouraging to many people. I didn’t listen to it. I can’t be coping with Taylor Swift. I would think that in a normal album chart week but I think it even more so this week because number 2 in the album chart is ‘Dark Matter’ by Pearl Jam.
I have mentioned Pearl Jam a few times on the blog most noteably here which was the first album a day blog. I mentioned I was listened to music by Savage Garden and Pearl Jam but was going through a phase of thinking only songs longer than 5 minutes were any good.
At the time, I was spending some of my lunch times in the technology rooms with computers so that I could do homework and revision – I was in my GCSE years. Some of the other people in the room where other super cool people like me – people also into Star Trek and Robot Wars. Many of these people were boys. There was Carl, Two Stevens (who were both only known by their last names – A and H), Mpambawashi (Known as Pamba) and maybe a Simon? Or at least one who in my memory looks like he should be called Simon. And some others. I think sometimes Andre hung out with us too. Andre was excellent and I haven’t found a time to chat about him on the blog before so I’ll throw him in here too. Anyways, this group had introduced me to Red Dwarf a few years earlier and it was during these lunch time study sessions that they introduced me to the music of Pearl Jam.
I was showing off my supercool collection of floppy disks – some of which held some songs by Savage Garden and one of the Stevens….or maybe Simon…was there a Luke? or a Ben maybe? There was one who in my memory looks a bit like Ben from A1. To be honest, in the late 90s/early 00s a lot of the boys at my school had the curtains hairstyle made popular by David Beckham and also sported by Ben from A1. The difference between someone looking like David Beckham or Ben from A1 may just be what colour hair they had. Blonde with curtains? Beckham. Dark hair with curtains? Ben.
Anyway… one of the boys with dark hair and curtains said that good music wasn’t 3 minutes long, it was 5 and pointed me to the music of Pearl Jam. I pointed out that some Savage Garden songs were 5 minutes long and then bought the album ‘Ten’ by Pearl Jam. Where 6 of 11 tracks are over 5 minutes long.
I’m going to be honest, I may be getting my timings mixed up because I was going to talk about my joy when the single ‘Do the Evolution’ came out and I could enjoying talking about a new song and listening to it at the same time as everyone else instead of playing catch up…but that song came out in 1998 and I wasn’t doing GCSEs then so why were were in the technology labs at lunch time? I wasn’t even in the same technology class as these guys so honestly who knows? I don’t know how much of what I’ve written today has been accurate! Maybe I’ve gotten all the names wrong too! Maybe there was no Ben! I mean, Beckham had curtains in 1993 but A1 didn’t release an album until 1999 so honestly, I’d ignore that whole section about names and hairstyles.
Anyway, theres a new Pearl Jam album and it’s currently number 2 in the charts – 11 tracks, about 50 minutes – 4 tracks over 5 minutes!
Pearl Jam! What are you doing to me?! You were my reason for 5 minuting?!
I guess it goes to show that not everything good needs to be 5 minutes….because this was an excellent album. I still love Pearl Jam!
Rubik Cube of Mim 