There’s a new Pearl Jam album out this week, and unless something has gone very wrong, by the time you see this I should be sitting in the dark with a bunch of other flannel-clad nineties dorks listening to it. They’re doing this limited-engagement one-night-only movie theater thing, where they play the album, which is called Dark Matter, in complete darkness, and then play it again with what they’re calling “mesmerizing visuals.” So by the time I get home, I’ll have heard it twice, and hopefully I won’t stink of weed or have a headache. We’ll see.

Pearl Jam has been my favorite band for a very, very long time. During that time I have formed Opinions. And I saw a Reddit thread the other day that was asking if you could only keep two tracks from each Pearl Jam album, which ones would they be?

None of you care, I know, and this will absolutely take longer to write than will be worth it– I’m starting it on Monday night– but it’ll be fun, and oh also I have no intention of sticking to two songs, so here we go:

TEN (1991)

Best Song: Black, my favorite song, period.
Indispensable Songs: Black, Jeremy, Alive, Release
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: This might be their only album I can name every song from.

Let’s be real: every song on Ten must be kept, but if you put a gun to my head, it’d have to be those four. I could maybe — maybe— do without Oceans. But I can’t.

Vs. (1993)

Best Song: Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town, my second-favorite song.
Indispensable Songs: EWBtCiaST, Animal, Daughter, WMA
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: Go, because Pearl Jam also has Why Go and it messes with my head.

Vs. is another album that is burned into my head forever and I need damn near every song. I mean, maybe I could lose Glorified G in a pinch, or maybe Leash, but that’s about it.

Vitalogy (1994)

Best Song: Better Man
Indispensable Songs: Better Man, Nothingman, Whipping, Corduroy, Bugs
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: Stupid Mop, which I swear to God and sunny Jesus was called Hey foxymophandlemama, it’s me on the original album release.

Fun fact: Vitalogy is actually my favorite Pearl Jam album. I walked across Bloomington at midnight to buy a copy of this album on release date and then stayed up to listen to it, pissing my roommate off to no end. I am literally the world’s biggest fan of the song Bugs. I love this album.

No Code (1996)

Best Song: In My Tree
Indispensable Songs: In My Tree, Red Mosquito, Off He Goes
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: Red Mosquito

I didn’t like No Code the first time I heard it. I’m not sure what the hell I was thinking. I have every word of Red Mosquito memorized and I have no idea why I can never remember the damn song’s name. It’s literally in the first line. I’m not very bright sometimes.

Yield (1998)

Best Song: Wishlist
Indispensable Songs: Wishlist, Given to Fly, Low Light, All Those Yesterdays, Faithful
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: Brain of J.

I was in the middle of a heavy hip-hop phase when Yield came out, so it’s one of the very few Pearl Jam albums I didn’t pick up immediately upon release. And it took a while for it to click, as did a lot of the middle-career Pearl Jam albums. But it’s got some amazing stuff on it, especially when played live and Eddie can never get the words to Wishlist right.

Binaural (2000)

Best Song: Nothing As It Seems
Indispensable Songs: Nothing As It Seems, Insignificance, Of the Girl, Parting Ways
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: n/a

Binaural is one of the few Pearl Jam albums where I’m known to skip tracks, mostly because most of my favorite songs on this one are better live so honestly I don’t listen to it very often. I think it might be my least favorite of their studio albums, which doesn’t mean I don’t like it (I listened to it today on the way home from work, in fact) but something has to be my least favorite album.

Riot Act (2002)

Best Song: Love Boat Captain
Indispensable Songs: Love Boat Captain, I am Mine, All or None, Cropduster
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: Absolutely fucking Cropduster.

Love Boat Captain was our song at our wedding, and was quoted in the program: Hold me, and make it the truth/ That when all is lost, there will be you. This entire album is indispensable.

Fun fact: I’ve spelled indispensable wrong every single time I’ve typed it in this post, including that time, where I accidentally put an “e” after the “d.”

Lost Dogs (2003)

Best Song: Down
Indispensable Songs: Down, Yellow Ledbetter, Hard to Imagine, Dead Man Walking, Last Kiss
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: Drifting, because they also have a song called Drifting Away

Technically a two-disc collection of rarities and b-sides and not a true studio album, Lost Dogs is still a fantastic collection even if the ludicrous Gremmie Out of Control and Dirty Frank are on it.

Pearl Jam (2006)

Best Song: Oh god this is hard World Wide Suicide
Indispensable Songs: World Wide Suicide, Life Wasted, Gone, Come Back, Inside Job
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: None on this one

My god, I love this album. Affectionately known as the Avocado Album, I saw them at Lollapalooza while they were touring for this release, and I love it. I love it all. Absolutely the best of their post-nineties releases.

Backspacer (2009)

Best Song: Just Breathe
Indispensable Songs: Just Breathe, Unthought Known, Amongst the Waves
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: Force of Nature

I also saw them on tour for this one, at Deer Creek. Backspacer has always felt like them stepping back and taking a breath after Avocado, but there’s definitely some good stuff on here. It’s super short at only 37 minutes, though, so there’s no way for it not to feel a little unimportant in comparison.

Lightning Bolt (2013)

Best Song: Sirens
Indispensable Songs: Sirens, Swallowed Whole, Sleeping By Myself, Yellow Moon, Future Days
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: Swallowed Whole

I don’t give Lightning Bolt enough credit, I think, because it’s organized so oddly– all of the best songs are in the back half of the album, and other than Sirens I don’t really love any of the first six or seven tracks. That last third or so, though, is phenomenal.

Gigaton (2020)

Best Song: Dance of the Clairvoyants
Indispensable Songs: Dance of the Clairvoyants, Seven O’Clock, Comes Then Goes, River Cross
Best Song I Can Never Remember The Name Of: Seven O’Clock

I really love Gigaton, although I admit I don’t know it nearly as well as many of their other albums– probably because I’m not buying the concert bootlegs as fanatically as I used to and so I don’t have live recordings of any of the songs on it. Every time I listen to it I’m surprised at how good it is, which you’d think I’d have gotten over after four years. It’s not as lopsided as Lightning Bolt, either, so I really don’t have an excuse.

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And there you have it. I’ll have heard Dark Matter by now, or at least be listening to it, and I am a big fan of the first two tracks, but we’ll see. The environment might have me come out raving about it or if it’s not as positive as I want it to be, it might hurt my opinion of the album. I can also imagine a world where I’m tired from work (ILEARN started today) and don’t really want to be out in public. I’m sure there will be a review of it soon one way or another.