pearljamtenI was at the local food market today.  I was getting some ice cream and soda for a pizza dinner later on that night.  While walking through the store finding what it is I need – I feel my heart slow down.  I feel a little more eased into the moment which naturally makes me feel uneasy and agitated.  They are playing some shlock easy listening R&B bullshit from the early 2000’s.  This is all scientifically designed to make you feel at ease and walk the aisles more slowly.  The longer you are at the store, the more likely it is you will buy more items.  This is not the horror, the horror is what happened next.

As I said, they were playing some R&B loved lost song.  Then as I reached for the Sierra Mist (they were out of Vernors) the song “Alive” by none other than the once legendary Pearl Jam began to play.  From the heroes of my youth to the mid-range spike of the mysterious mono-speakers that came out of the drop ceiling above.  The feeling became worse as the song played as it began to sound like all other songs computer-picked to play in the supermarket aisles.  The rage, the pain, the fire of the song had somehow been removed and replaced with ease, with peace, with commerce.

Pearl Jam’s ‘Ten’ album is not only one of my all-time favorite albums, it was the first compact disc I purchased for myself the very year it came out.  Of course they were already were quickly becoming the legends  of Seattle, but here in the Michigan, the heart of the mid-west, we didn’t get that sort of word until six months after it happened.  It was the first time I was ahead of the curve – and not because it was the popular thing to do – but because it said something to me.  It helped me vocalize my inner angst, my suppressed emotions, and helped me to give wings to those demons trapped inside.  It taught me to not bottle up my emotions, but to express it out and lash back unto the world that had wroth me.  For better or for worse, it helped keep me from imploding upon myself.

The world continues to change and so do I.  I have not listened to the album ‘Ten’ for quite some time.  I have moved on to different emotions, different personalities, different tastes.  Yet it still remains as one of personal greats.  I had not realized that the world has changed quite so much in 18 years from something to be subversive to quaint.  Much can be said with popularization, or maybe it’s just old hat.  Maybe once the shock value wears off it is all light rock, but I do not hold to that account.  When the hell has someone gotten angry at a band for a song that they sung and not for what they had done?  Have we become so numb that the power of the words, the rhythm of the guitar, and the beat of drum have lost their true meaning?  Has iTunes made music so saturated that we cannot see the drops of water from the ocean?  So many questions, so many possibilities, and all of them very disturbing and depressing.

I realize now that I am talking about a song that was made 18 years ago in a garage in Seattle.  Hell, it probably even qualifies as a type of classic rock.  Is this what it means when we used to say, “Parents just don’t understand”?  No, it isn’t.  There isn’t any protest in music anymore except for the ones to have been protesting for the last 30 years like Bruce Springsteen.  Where’s the cults, the trend makers, the anti-conformists?  Ah, that’s right – being an anti-conformist puts you into another group of conformity.  There is nowhere in music for you to think for yourself.  They are all trendlines and graphs and popular this week.  And now the trendlines say it is quite alright to bludgeon  one of best albums to come out of the last decade and have people shop for Pampers diapers, Monster energy drink, and tampons whilst listening to Pearl Jam washed out.

If it had even been converted to Muzak I would have been alright with that – even chuckled at that version, but they had to take out the base and make it a treble monster like an old Ford radio.  The error in our ways is clear.  The end is nigh.  Judge at your free will, please – and take your ears back and give that music you listen to passion once again.