Unknown Soldier

The album is as good as I always remember it. The 4 stand out tracks for me have always been Once, Black, Jeremy and Porch, and the start of Garden is very special. The two weaker tracks for me have always been Even Flow and Alive, both good songs but if I had to choose the weaker tracks they would be my choices.

Now I'm not sure I agree with the groupings and have never really seen Pearl Jam as arty, experimental yes but not arty. In fact Ten is probably their most straight forward album and their least experimental, the album plays in a somewhat predictable fashion and follows a standard pattern of combining slow start/powerful ending songs, to more subdued efforts, but all are highlighted and given life to by Eddie Vedder' s voice and outstanding backing by the rest of the band. I agree with what Janszoon said earlier, that if there was an alt rock band around at that time that were arty, it was probably Jane's Addiction. Pearl Jam were really just heirs to the classic hard rock bands of the 1970's such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and UFO etc.

What's so great about Ten, is that they offered nothing new to the hard rock genre, but did it as great as any of the classic hard rock bands that I mentioned above and Pearl Jam rank right up in there with the cream of hard rock, because they have the credentials, which are great albums, classic songs, a touch of variety, great musicians, fantastic vocalist and they can make your temperature rise with their power when they turn it up.

Eddie Vedder follows in the tradition of one of the true great vocalists in the history of hard rock and ranks right up there with Chris Cornell and Ian Astbury as probably the best hard rock vocalist of his generation. Eddie Vedder is so distinctive and along with the likes of Bobby Kimball and Steve Perry for example, I can spot his distinctive voice in a second.

Pearl Jam are basically what hard rock are all about, but do things their way.