If you were born of a certain generation that, once upon a time, thought Whitesnake was bitchin’, Firebirds and Trans Ams were hot rides and the mullet was, well, it was just fine, you understood why Nirvana and Pearl Jam were so huge in the early 1990s. After all, we liked rock music, right? At the beginning of that next decade, we were still stuck with the same bad haircuts yowling about getting drunk/high/laid and wondering which planet they lived on. Nirvana, with their power punk roar, and Pearl Jam, with their neo-classic rock angst, proved to be a tonic for recovering rockers who just weren’t feeling too good anymore.

Cut to the latter half of the ’90s and traipsing into the 2000s, when we were all interested in feeling good again, Kurt Cobain was gone, and Pearl Jam was struggling. Positivity and happy, bouncy sing-alongs never were their forte, having proven their devotion to Neil Young, Crazy Horse and the Who again and again. About the best they could do in that arena was their live cover of the early ’60s Wayne Cochran tune “Last Kiss” even if it was an entry into the ‘dead girlfriend/boyfriend ballad’ canon. So we find ourselves approaching nearly two decades of Pearl Jam (yeah, you’re old, admit it) while the band starts its own label (albeit with Universal distributorship), calling their own shots with longtime producer Brendan O’Brien in tow, still feisty and sticking it to corporate America even though their latest, Backspacer, is a Target exclusive release.

Seeing as how this album has been a lot more heavily anticipated than your average piece of rock band product, several members of the Popdose staff have weighed in on Pearl Jam’s latest. As always, your opinion is welcomed in the comments section, so without further ado, let’s look at Backspacer. (more…)