This is not a "hipster chick with ukulele" YouTube post

May 26, 2011 5:02 PM

What do you do if you're the lead singer of one of the biggest rock bands in the world releasing your second solo album? If you're Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, you record 16 songs, originals and covers, spanning a short 35 minutes... accompanying yourself with your ukulele. The entire album, Ukulele Songs, is available for a free First Listen now, thanks to NPR.

Bonus: Eddie Vedder: Longing To Belong (video)

More Bonus: Eddie and his ukulele with Pearl Jam -- Soon Forget

More More bonus: original Pearl Jam track for Can't Keep

posted by hippybear (40 comments total)

Damn ukulele hipsters.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:09 PM on May 26, 2011

Wow, NPR sure loves them ukeleles.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:09 PM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

In case you're wondering, it sounds pretty much like Eddie Vedder playing the ukulele.
posted by unSane at 5:10 PM on May 26, 2011 [12 favorites]

Thanks Ed!
posted by brando_calrissian at 5:10 PM on May 26, 2011

He's no Brudda Iz.
posted by jonmc at 5:11 PM on May 26, 2011 [3 favorites]

He's all like: You gonna rock my flannels? I'll rock your ukelele.
posted by defenestration at 5:17 PM on May 26, 2011

This is not a "hipster chick with ukulele" YouTube post

Sure it is. Have you seen Vedder recently?
posted by clvrmnky at 5:19 PM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also available for streaming via the NPR Music app for iPhone, for you iOSers. Let's do this, Ed.
posted by secret about box at 5:21 PM on May 26, 2011

I like Eddie Vedder and ukeleles, so I approve of this message.
posted by and miles to go before I sleep at 5:53 PM on May 26, 2011

I tend to like Ukuleles, so I'll check it out, but as for Vedder... well, anything aside from Pearl Jam's Ten is painful bad. Hopefully this'll be the turn for the better that he needs.
posted by blaneyphoto at 5:57 PM on May 26, 2011

I apologize to the PJ-kids, but I gotta say, with the exception of Elderly Woman..., I rue the day Stone and the guys stopped saying "Eddie, the mic is over there. That's your instrument, k?"

I hear this, and I hear a guy who wrote some Freshman-in-college-in-the-summer-after-he-learned-by-tab caliber, said "man, there's a certain degree of expectation here, seeing as I'm a part of popular music history," and he knew well enough not to try to quirk it up with a mandolin since that's so 1995.

I'm not going to go so far as call it "poor", but I wouldn't pay a dime for it.

Just my opinion. Sorry to shit on Eddie.
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 6:04 PM on May 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

We're listening to this right now. I've been feeling very "over" guitar-based rock (synths and cellos are what are doing it for me this month), and I'm generally way over guy-with-guitar singer-songwriter stuff, so I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I'm enjoying this record.
posted by immlass at 6:06 PM on May 26, 2011

A few years ago my wife went to a fish market to get us ingredients for dinner. They told her that representatives from Pearl Jam - who were performing in town - had called them to ask if they had any sea bass. The market had mistakenly told them: No. So now, thanks to the goof, they could sell the sea bass to her.

This is what she explained to me when I got home. As she and I are both big Seinfeld fans, I wondered aloud if this was a case of "Jon Voight's car". But we were both hungry - so we didn't concern ourselves with it for too long.

And it turned out to be as succulent a piece of fish as I've ever had. Melt-in-your-mouth stuff. "Better luck next time, Eddie!" I crowed with satisfaction - addressing Mr. Vedder in my imagination. "Maybe you can write a song about it!"

But in my piscatorial triumph, I failed to notice one of my dogs inching up to the coffee table to steal a lick of the buttery platter. "No!" I cried in a panic. "Not the Pearl Jam fish!"

True story.
posted by Trurl at 6:09 PM on May 26, 2011 [19 favorites]

My world really changed in a bad way when Pearl Jam started contemplating its collective navel around about 1994.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:15 PM on May 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

Rats, I was really hoping for Eddie van Halen on the ukulele.
posted by bwg at 6:17 PM on May 26, 2011 [5 favorites]

Cool Papa Bell: "My world really changed in a bad way when Pearl Jam started contemplating its collective navel around about 1994."

By the time I became aware of them they were wailing that stupid "Oh Where Oh Where Can My Baby Be" song. God damn, grunge got stabbed in the back. Hard.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:37 PM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

Eddie Vedder ... ukulele ... WAVES ... Hawai'i ... >> S I G H << ... and, apologies to bitter old men ... Eddie's voice still makes my toes curl. ;-)
posted by Surfurrus at 7:50 PM on May 26, 2011

and have been doing really excellent rock music for decades

yeah. no.
posted by unSane at 7:56 PM on May 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

wow so much PJ/eddie hate.

Been a fan since 91 and have seen them about 15 times. Listened to this this afternoon. It was pretty good (LOVED LOVED the In The Wild Soundtrack he did much more) but I have a feeling it will grow on me.
posted by ShawnString at 8:12 PM on May 26, 2011

2005 Pearl Jam concert in Ottawa. Best damn concert I've ever been to. EV sang for three frickin hours. Holy crap. I bought the recording and it's amazing just how good the live performance is.

The thing is, PJ is coming to town once again and i'm wondering whether to go, because it's going to be hard to beat the last time.
posted by storybored at 8:17 PM on May 26, 2011

I saw one of Vedder's solo shows in Melbourne in March. When he pulled out his ukulele, he went into the opening of Lukin, but stopped before the verse.

Now I really, really, really want to hear him play Lukin on his ukulele.

PS, we get it, our favourite band sucks and you're, like, way cooler than us.
posted by robcorr at 8:24 PM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

and have been doing really excellent rock music for decades.

Seeing as how they've been around since 1990, you're saying they've been making excellent rock music since essentially day 1. And that is so, so not true. ;-)

Said it before, say it again: Pearl Jam didn't just "go downhill," but fell off the table since they fired Dave Abbruzzese. He wanted to be a musician that made people happy. The other guys wanted something else.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:55 PM on May 26, 2011

Yeah Abbruzzese really rocked those skins, he was aces. And you're right that everything after Vitalogy has suffered badly for his loss. Flat, powerless, heartless soft rock, when it used to be spiky, energetic, forceful.
posted by tumid dahlia at 9:18 PM on May 26, 2011

Is that what you say about a drummer, that they "rock the skins"?
posted by tumid dahlia at 9:18 PM on May 26, 2011

I rue the day Stone and the guys stopped saying "Eddie, the mic is over there. That's your instrument, k?"

But, like, that's what this whole album is about! Eddie singing, with minimal accompaniment!
posted by inparticularity at 9:30 PM on May 26, 2011

Though their music is dissimilar and not comparable, Pearl Jam reminds me of the Meat Puppets: mediocre and not very interesting records (Meat Puppets II excepted), but live? Amazing.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:31 PM on May 26, 2011

1991: Drove up to DC with some friends to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers at American University. None of us had heard of either of the opening bands, so we weren't in a hurry. Missed the first one (Smashing Pumpkins) and got there halfway through the second one (Pearl Jam).

True story.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:43 PM on May 26, 2011

What do you do if you're the lead singer of one of the biggest rock bands in the world releasing your second solo album?

Wonder what it's like to be Eddie Vedder?
posted by dubold at 3:12 AM on May 27, 2011

But there are legions who have been along for the entire ride who really appreciated the turn PJ took starting with No Code.

Hippybear? I think I love you. ;)
No Code is my absolutely favorite album of all time.

There I said it.
posted by ShawnString at 5:10 AM on May 27, 2011

Its funny, after I posted that, I had to head to work. and the album on my ride in? No Code.

In My Tree...perfection.
posted by ShawnString at 6:00 AM on May 27, 2011

Eddie is hitting the road this summer to support this record, with Glen Hansard opening.
posted by shannonm at 7:36 AM on May 27, 2011

Is that what you say about a drummer, that they "rock the skins"?

Not with a straight face.
posted by unSane at 12:47 PM on May 27, 2011

I've never really given Pearl Jam much thought. I don't own any of their records but I also don't think their music is all that bad. What caught my eye was the word "ukulele". Damn fine instrument! No less a musician than George Harrison thought the uke was WAY under appreciated. Not knowing squat about Mr. Vedder, I gave the record a listen and thought he did a very nice job. He mentions that the vinyl version will come with a book including charts for the uke. I may have to pick that up.
posted by TDavis at 1:40 PM on May 27, 2011

Every time you see The Dead is the best time you've seen The Dead. And each show doesn't supplant the previous. They are each singular experiences, entirely the best each unto itself.

Eponhysterical
posted by mr.marx at 5:06 PM on May 27, 2011

Not with a straight face.

I thought you could say pretty much anything about drummers?
posted by tumid dahlia at 7:50 PM on May 28, 2011

All the drummers I've ever played with have been more or less anally retentive neat freaks, including the current one. The exact opposite of the stereotype in that respect, although generally completely incapable of listening to the rest of the band or knowing where we are in the song if we miss a bar or a section or something. Guitarists on the other hand, yeah, the stereotypes apply.
posted by unSane at 7:55 PM on May 28, 2011

Why are we typing so quietly?
posted by tumid dahlia at 11:20 PM on May 28, 2011

it could get even quieter...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:33 AM on May 29, 2011

when drums stop, very bad
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:16 AM on May 29, 2011

I love that the NPR piece talks about Pearl Jam as a "noisy" band. I haven't listened to their latest albums with any degree of attention, but I felt like they got real navel-gazey, Neil-Young-y after the first couple albums. Noisy is definitely not the word I would have used to describe them.

Having said that - Eddie Vedder with a ukelele? Yes please!
posted by antifuse at 1:07 PM on June 1, 2011