Earlier this week, I saw Pearl Jam at New York’s Madison Square Garden. As always, they killed it. And when I say “As always,” I mean that I have been attending this band’s performances for a long time. My first Pearl Jam show was at a New York club called the Limelight on April 12, 1992. The cost: $12.00… plus a $2.75 service fee.

Brian Ives

(Actually, this should have been my second Pearl Jam show: I had a ticket to see them as the opening act in November of 1991 on a bill that included the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Smashing Pumpkins. I couldn’t get out of work, so I missed the show!)

But I remember how exciting it was to be a Pearl Jam fan in 1991 and 1992: it was clear from the first listen that their debut, Ten, was an absolute classic. Radio took to the singles really quickly: “Alive,” “Jeremy,” and “Evenflow.” But the album is flawless from start to finish. One of the best songs on the album was “Black” – a gorgeous ballad that wasn’t released as a single, but I recall hearing it on the radio anyway.

Pearl Jam on MTV Unplugged

I remember being surprised to learn that Pearl Jam was being featured on MTV Unplugged in March of 1992. At the time, that franchise generally featured massive stars and legends, and Pearl Jam was neither (yet). Some of the episodes leading up to Pearl Jam featured Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, Paul Simon, Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, R.E.M., and Sting. Clearly, someone at MTV had high expectations for Pearl Jam.

And the performance made it clear that they belonged in the company of those legends. The set featured their three singles. But two of the highlights were the album tracks. “Porch” was a furious jam, during which singer Eddie Vedder scrawled “pro-choice” on his arm with a magic marker, letting fans know that the band and their politics would always be intertwined.

But while “Porch” was a song powered by punk rock rage, “Black” showed a bit more range and even, dare I say it, maturity. It’s a song about a sad breakup, but the narrator isn’t angry. He’s just remorseful. When Eddie Vedder sang, “I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life/I know you’ll be a star in somebody else’s sky/But why, why, why can’t it be/Oh, can’t it be mine?” you really felt that.

This week, at Madison Square Garden when Pearl Jam played ‘Black,” people were still really feeling it. The song has lost none of its power. Those of us who have lived with the song for three decades still love it. Unlike some of the other Ten tracks, it never felt overplayed.

But what might it be like to hear the song for the first time? Those of us who are intense music fans bring so much context to everything. And that’s great: we love the music and we love to learn about the musicians, how the songs were created, and the scenes which spawned them. But there’s something beautiful about watching people hear a song with no context at all.

Some People Have Never Heard Pearl Jam!

A lot of people who know little (or nothing) about Pearl Jam have taken to YouTube to share their reactions to “Black.” Some of them reacted to the studio version, and some reacted to the MTV Unplugged version. I thought I’d share some of my favorites. Check them out below.

• 'Ay, his voice is so good!'

  Nathan Brown says that he’s an actor, streamer, and “music reactor.” Like many of these content creators, he says that his YouTube page is dedicated to sharing his reactions to music he’s never heard before. “Pearl Jam!” he says. “And I was jammin’ to that pearl!” Brown seems instantly obsessed with the chorus, “Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo!” “That guy’s voice!” he exclaims. “Who’s that? Who is the singer for Pearl Jam, ’cause he’s got a good voice, you know! That felt good, man!” To those of us in the rock world, it’s wild that someone is totally unaware of Pearl Jam. But on the other hand, I feel a bit jealous of him and the other creators. I would love the feeling of hearing this for the first time again.

• 'This is when the panties get thrown on the stage!'

  Note that this video is a bit NSFW.

  “Lost In Vegas” is an account I’ve been following since the pandemic. I love watching co-hosts Ryan and George react to artists that they are unfamiliar with; these are generally rock and country groups. Although after doing this for years, they’re kind of experts. In this video, the guys noted that they’d been exploring the ’90s Seattle bands and had already listened to Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. They were familiar with one Pearl Jam song, “Even Flow.” They noted that “Black” was a big request from their fans. After about a minute George quotes the song: “‘Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay were laid out before me, as her body once did. All five horizons revolved arond her soul?’ Damn, dog! This is when the panties get thrown on the stage! Do they do that in metal and rock? Do they throw panties on stage?” The guys noted the “garglieness” of Eddie Vedder’s voice, pointing out that that was “the sound” at the time. While Ryan wasn’t sold on Vedder’s voice here (he said he preferred his performance on “Even Flow”) George felt that the technical perfection wasn’t the point, and that the singer was pouring out his heart on the track (which pretty well describes the ethos of most of the alterantive rock bands of that era).

• 'I'm in complete awe!'

  Aileen Senpai is a metal fan who is also a Twitch streamer. She went with the MTV Unplugged version of “Black.” She says that Eddie Vedder is “very soulful.” “Yeah, he has power. That [performance] got me a bit emotional, honestly. Wow! It’s so damn magical, I’m in complete awe!” She teared up as Vedder sang “I know you’ll be a star in somebody else’s sky.” “I was not expecting to feel everything that I just felt… I just felt like crying, but it was like a beautiful cry.”

• 'Mournfully beautiful'

  “RogueRxyce” also listens to the Unplugged version; early on, she says “I really like the tone of his voice. I feel like I’m sitting at a campfire… It sounds like he’s pleading with this person to come back to his life. She must have dipped on him! He sounds heartbroken.”

  When Vedder starts adlibbing towards the end, singing “We belong together,” she was clearly moved. “Relatable pain,” she noted. “Breakups are never fun, but the music about them: there’s something so mournfully beautiful about them. [I] Loved the lead singer’s voice, loved the accompanying vocals towards the end,” she said, referring to guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament. “Loved that drummer,” she said, giving former drummer Dave Abbruzzese his props. “[They’re] Just the full package!”

• 'Unstable... but in a good way!'

  Bethany Hickman, aka “The Vocalyst,” is a vocal teacher, and says that she isn’t sure whether or not she’s ever heard Pearl Jam’s music, but she has heard of them. She also went with the Unplugged version of “Black.”

  “He has such a unique tone.” She noted that Vedder’s first wordless vocals at the beginning of the song were “Instantly captivating. He’s got a beautiful present sound.” She noted that at the beginning of the song, he sounds “Unstable… but in a good way!” She gets very technical at times — she is a vocal coach, after all — but she’s also able to appreciate it as a fan of music. “What a voice!” she concluded. “I will be listening to more!”

• 'This is so very powerful'

  Elizabeth Zharoff, aka “The Charismatic Voice,” has multiple degrees in music and voice from the Curtis Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, and Berklee College of Music, according to her YouTube page. She first heard Eddie Vedder (and likely, the other members of Pearl Jam) on the Temple of the Dog song, “Hunger Strike,” and wanted to hear more. She notes his “delicious” sounds and gets very technical about how he sings vowels and consonants.

  But she’s not just technical. She notes of Vedder’s performance: “It’s honoring the emotion that he had at this point in his life. When you pour that kind of memory [into a song], it makes it fresh in a lot of ways, and each time you sing it, you let go a little more.” She adds, “I think it’s just amazing how much emotion he’s pouring into this.” She also seems stunned by the end of the song when Vedder is adlibbing. “Wow! This is so very powerful!” Although she’s an opera singer, she notes that the emotion of his performance is more important than whether he is perfectly on pitch or not. She concludes, “That performance blew me away. It was so much more than I was expecting. Everything about it was jaw-dropping.”

• 'This guy's voice is incredible!'

  “Sincerely, Shiiloh” is a beauty influencer who wasn’t very familiar with Pearl Jam, but was watching the video by request of one of her viewers (this is how most of these creatores decide what videos to watch and discuss). She also went with the MTV Unplugged version. “This guy’s voice was incredible, wow! I was super taken aback. He literally killed that performance; his voice was amazing, and he sang that song!”

• 'This is so bloody real!'

  Lolli, aka “The Fairy Voice Mother” is also a voice teacher; she notes that she hasn’t heard Pearl Jam before. Like the other vocal coaches, she can really break down what is going on, going so far as to show a diagram of the tongue and larynx to describe what Eddie Vedder is doing. She also compares what he does to Jeff Buckley, Whitney Houston and even Celine Dion.

  “This is so bloody real!” she says. “He’s singing the blues!” She noted that his Eddie Vedder’s singing, and the song itself, is “raw.” “It’s wonderful that someone with the capacity to feel these emotions as intensely as he does, also has so many vocal skills to portray them. It is the ultimate perfect storm.”

• 'I get goosebumps!'

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsHdRLTms0w “Sing with Emma Today” is a vocal coach who hadn’t heard Pearl Jam before this video. She’s listening to the MTV Unplugged version; she’s also very technical in her observations. About a minute in, she starts laughing and fanning herself. “It’s touching my heart! I get goosebumps! I’m so surprised! I’m so impressed!” “That was a full body experience, bloody hell!”

• 'That last part got me emotional!'

  Rebecca Ray, aka “Rebecca Vocal Athlete,” is a singer and — you guessed it — vocal coach. It’s interesting watching people react to Pearl Jam with no real context beyond the music: she compares Eddie Vedder to the singer from the Crash Test Dummies. It makes sense, but it is not a comparison that many Americans (or Canadians) would make. “Amazing, amazing, he’s just blowing me away.” She also noted the intensity of the rest of the band (something that most of these creators don’t really focus on too much). “I don’t believe it’s a perfect vocal,” she says. “But I don’t believe in perfection when it comes to singing.” “My God, that last bit! That last part got me emotional!”

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