*Technically, this should have dropped yesterday, but I didn't finish in time.

October 19, 1993:  A follow-up to their debut album Ten, Pearl Jam releases the hotly anticipated Vs and avoids the 'sophomore slump' with it becoming one of the most successful second albums in rock history.

• The Release 

Vs debuted at the top of the Billboard charts and remined there for five weeks.  The album sold an unprecedented 950,000+ copies in it's first five days of release - setting a record of most copies sold of an album in it's first week of release (later broken by Garth Brooks in 1998).  Vs went on to be certified Platinum 7x.

The albums cover art was a black and white picture of an Angora Goat taken by bass player Jeff Ament while in Montana.  It was meant to reflect how the band felt at the time of recording, according to Ament  "we were slaves." Also included in the booklet was several drawing and writings from Vedder. 

Vs was a last minute change to the album title.  Meant to represent the theme of conflict in most of the albums songs and how writers were constantly comparing Pearl Jam to 'other' bands.  Said Vedder 

"They were writing all these articles ... Our band against somebody else's band. What the hell are they talking about? You know, don't try to separate the powers that be. We're all in this together."

And Stone Gossard reflected as much

"For me, that title represented a lot of the struggles that you go through to make a record," "Your own independence — your own soul — versus everybody else's. In this band, and I think in rock in general, the art of compromise is almost as important as the art of individual expression. You might have five great artists in the band, but if they can't compromise and work together, you don't have a great band.
 

Originally, the album was to be named Five Against One, based off the lyrics from Animal. Because of the late change, there are several cassettes with the original title. 

"One, two, three, four, five against one ..."

• The Recording

Coming off the success of their breakout album, there was a certain amount of pressure on the band.  PJ was deeply uncomfortable with the demands of stardom and the accusations of being 'sellouts' by musicians and critics in the alt-music world. But they established themselves quickly as a band that does thing their own way.  Enter Brendan O'Brien, who handled production and mixing and drummer Dave Abbruzzese, who we covered in my last episode of PJ's Ten (he's on Vs and Vitalogy before being replaced). O'Brien would go on to oversee many of the bands future albums. 

The album was recorded one song at a time and could be compared to a long 'jam session'.  Said Gossard:

"I think we allowed things to develop in a more natural, band-oriented sort of way, rather than me bringing in a bunch of stuff that was already arranged."

Most of the songs started to take shape once Vedder started singing.  Stone went on to say the music would change just based on the way Eddie wanted to sing it.  They would change and evolve along the way.

The first week of recording produce 'Go', 'Rats' and 'Leash'.  Then the band hit a wall.  Eddie left the studio in Nicasio, CA and headed to nearby San Francisco, sleeping in his truck. He was having difficulty finishing up the songs.  “I fucking hate it here,” said Vedder.  Complaining the studio was too 'nice' and 'comfortable'.  Eventually, the band made it more uncomfortable for Eddie, who didn't like the tranquil 'paradise' of Nicasio, and got back on track. The album finished in May 1993.

• The Tracks

Looser, heavier and angrier than their debut, Vs. found the band exploring new sounds and dynamics.  Raw, funky feeling tracks like 'Rats' and 'Animal' and acoustic-driven sounds highlighted by 'Daughter' and 'Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town'. 
From Ament:

 "When we made Vs., our second record, I remember thinking, 'Man, I wish our first record sounded like this.' I thought it was more direct, more powerful."

The album would produce six singles.  But the band refused to do videos for any of them, stating they felt antagonized and misunderstood by their label. Some place the blame on the video for 'Jeremy' off Ten where it's been stated the video ruined the vision of the song. While everyone wasn't initially on the 'no video' train, they all agree that in retrospect, it was the right decision at the time.  McCready said

“I was a bit bummed out, because I wanted to keep doing it, keep doing videos. We had this chance, let’s take it, you know? Let’s not blow it. Luckily, it turned out we didn’t blow it, because we’re still around. And maybe we had alienated some fans throughout the years, which I feel bad for. But it made us survive as a band.”

'Go'- the first single was originated by drummer Abbruzzese who actually cut the track on an acoustic guitar without a pick while sitting around a campfire with the band. As he started playing, the group latched on immediately. 

Gossard said: 

"That song went through a cool evolution that goes back to what we were saying about creative input. Dave played us the two main parts, that BAM-BAM-BAM groovy chordal riff bit and then the main ascending riff in more of an acoustic vein. Then, when he got behind the drums, everyone turned up real loud and it evolved into something else, a little more hardcore."

 

'Daughter', the second single from the album, would end up being the albums biggest hit and spoke on the topic of child abuse.  According to Vedder:

"The child in that song obviously has a learning difficulty. And it's only in the last few years that they've actually been able to diagnose these learning disabilities that before were looked at as misbehavior, as just outright rebelliousness. But no one knew what it was. And these kids, because they seemed unable or reluctant to learn, they'd end up getting the shit beaten outta them. The song ends, you know, with this idea of the shades going down — so that the neighbors can't see what happens next. What hurts about shit like that is that it ends up defining people's lives. They have to live with that abuse for the rest of their lives. Good, creative people are just fucking destroyed."
 

'Animal', the second track on the album was meant to be a change of pace single.  It was a holdover from Gossard's initial ideas from the start of the band, formed as an instrumental called 'Weird A'.  

McCready said of the track:

"I like the lead on that. George Webb, a guy who takes care of all our guitars and amps, was sitting there and I told him I'd do a solo for him. It ended up being the one we used on the record. I did it on a Gibson 335, too. That's a fun song to play."
 

 Vedder later confirmed he wrote the lyrics in a moment of anger.  He never would reveal who he was angry with, but he did say it wasn't personal and more directed at the record label. 

The last single released off Vs was 'Dissident'.  The song is about a man on the run from authorities, due to political reasons, and the woman who offers him refuge. When she realizes she can't handle the responsibility, she turns him in and has to live with the guilt of betrayal.  She couldn't hold on. She folded. The tragedy of the song. 

Not officially released as singles, several other tracks on Vs have gone on to be fan favorites and requested and played live quite often.  

'Glorified G' was inspired by Abbruzzese's guns. Eddie, obviously upset,  had asked 'You bought a gun?' and Abbruzzese defending himself said 'In fact, I bought two'.  He then explained to Vedder that they were 'glorified pellet guns'.  And the song was born, as Eddie was none too happy and openly mocked him. The song did go through a series of changes before it would land on the album.

Police racism was the subject of 'W.M.A.'  While the lyric page includes clippings of a story about Malice Green, an African-American man who dies following a struggle with Detroit police, the song was actually inspired by a first-hand incident Eddie witnessed. 

“I think I’d probably stayed stayed at the rehearsal studio the night before and it had been a couple of days since I had a shower and I’ve got my old shoes on and I don’t look too great, a little grunge on my teeth or whatever" “And I’m sitting there with this guy who’s of a darker color than me, and along come these cops, they run around with their bikes trying to look cool. So here they come, they’re heading straight for us. And they just ignored me and [started] hassling him. . . . So I started hassling them. . . . And one thing led to another. . . . I had all this fucking energy rushing through me. I was mad. Really fucking angry. I got back to the studio and the guys had been working on this thing and I just went straight in and did the vocals, and that was the song.”

Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town, one of my personal favorites, is the tenth track on the album.  The title was a reaction by the band regarding the fact that most of their tracks, up until this one, featured one-word titles. Despite the lack of commercial release, it had quite a bit of success and remains a fan favorite, especially live where fans sing along and scream 'HELLO'. Eddie says he wrote the lyrics in twenty minutes and shared with Stone, who really liked it.  They recorded that day.  When asked the meaning of the song, Eddie said

It's kind of about a lady, and she's getting on in years, and she's stuck in this small town. Small towns fascinate me: You either struggle like hell to get out, to some people want to stay 'cause then they're the big fish in the small pond, and then others just kind of get stuck there. So here she is working in this little place, and then an old flame comes in, and he's probably driving a nice car and looking kind of sharp—not a fancy car, but he's moved on. And then she sees him, and at first she doesn't even remember who he is, and then she realizes who it is. She's just too embarrassed to say 'hello'.

Blood seems to be pointed at anti-media, the music industry to be specific. 

The lyrics also seem to allude to certain magazines that 'used' him. "Spin me around"-Spin magazine "Roll me over"-Rolling Stone "Fucking Circus"-Circus Magazine.

Other tracks include 'Rearviewmirror' which is about leaving a bad situation behind.  Rats, a nod to a creature that Eddie thinks are 'more admirable than humans'.  'Leash' was written about the same girl from the song 'Why Go' off the Ten album.

'Indifference' is the last song on the album.  In contrast to the rest of the album, the song is calm and serene. In an interview, Eddie Vedder would comment that "Indifference" is a song about the feeling of dissatisfaction felt by those people who have not done anything relevant in their life, and who see their age advancing without being able to leave something or say that they enjoyed of what they lived.
It's not a song they play often live (167 times) but they recently played this on their third show at Ohana Fest last month (and yes, I was there!). 

• What You Didn't Know

'Better Man' was rejected on Vs.  That's right, for fear of it being a 'hit'.  This goes full circle to what I mentioned at the beginning a band that does thing their own way. With the criticism of 'selling out' and feeling trapped by fame, they were not excited to present a track that was obviously commercial.  So when O'Brien heard the song for the first time and raved that it would be a huge hit, instead of seeing excitement, he saw the band all hang their heads. 

“They all just looked straight down, and the whole room was deflated. I knew I’d said the wrong thing.”

They did eventually record the song for the album, but no one was happy with the outcome.  Vedder even considered giving the song to Chrissie Hynde, but the band protested.