Gemini Rising

1990's Sounds - Pearl Jam

Written for:

FORUM

The Soundtrack of Your Life  (18+) Every February, you're invited to chronicle the music that has influenced your life! #1970896 by Jeff

#27 - 1990's Sounds - Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam is another key band in the grunge movement of the 90's, though for me, their song lyrics are darker and more haunting. Pearl Jam put Generation X under a microscope to reveal the pain of a generation, and while I liked the beat, the rhythm of their songs, their lyrics haunted even me.

The most poignant song for me was Daughter. Vender has said it was about about disabilities, but that song really spoke to the emotional core of what it was like to be a daughter of Generation X. Maybe I wasn't the best or the brightest, but I was a daughter and craved that love on an emotional level.

Pearl Jam is still together to this day and was inaugurated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. According to their Wikipedia page, they were considered the most popular band of the 1990's.

Why?

Maybe because they weren't afraid about to talk about the darker things in life that Generation X had seen and locked away, and only now we decided to break the lock and were ready to talk about it. Jeremy was a heart breaking song of boy who "spoke in class today" inspired by a newspaper headline of a boy who had shot himself in front of his class.

Pearl Jam showed us a darker side of a generation. It hurt, but it was needed. Even today, Daughter and Jeremy give me chills.

DAUGHTER
Pearl Jam