Vs. (Album)
| Vs. | ||||
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| Studio album by Pearl Jam | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Epic | |||
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Format (s) |
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Title (number) |
12 |
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running time |
46 min 17 s |
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| occupation |
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Brendan O'Brien , Pearl Jam |
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Vs. is the second studio album by the American rock and grunge band Pearl Jam . The original title of the work published on October 19, 1993 was Five Against One , but was changed shortly before publication.
publication
Within 24 hours of going on sale, the album went over the counter in the US over 350,000 times. In the first week, almost one million records were sold (figure determined: 950378) , breaking the record set by Nirvana in 1991 with Nevermind . Only through the great success of the boy groups at the end of the 1990s the Backstreet Boys and * NSYNC managed to break this record (However, after the success of Pearl Jam, the counting method was changed, and no longer the first five days, but seven days then counted as the observation period). However, that had a huge impact on the band, which was now in the limelight and whose privacy virtually ceased to exist. Eddie Vedder in particular struggled with the huge commercial success, which can be clearly heard on the follow-up album Vitalogy , where he addresses the problem in his lyrics.
After the hype surrounding the debut album and the intrusion into privacy, the band decided not to release any videos worldwide or singles in the United States. Therefore, the singles initially only appeared outside of the United States. This policy was abandoned because the fans were forced to buy expensive imported singles. Thus, the four single releases came on June 27, 1995 on the US market.
Presentation
cassette
The cassette still bears the original title Five Against One , as it was the first sound carrier to be produced and was thus completed before the decision was made to rename it.
compact disc
Like the band's previous and debut album, Ten , and in contrast to the follow-up albums (which came in the form of digipaks ), Vs. in a jewel case . However, the title of the album does not appear anywhere on the cover of the copies produced first. On the inside of the inlay behind the tray is a photo of a hand on which “against one” was scribbled with a pen - together with the conspicuously depicted five fingers, an allusion to the originally planned title Five Against One. The front of the cover is adorned with the head of an angora goat .
vinyl record
Similar to the compact disc, the title of the album is not found anywhere on the first editions. The artwork itself is the same, only the front differs from the CD: While the goat looks directly into the camera, you can see its head in profile.
album
Track list
- Go - 3:12
- Animal - 2:49
- Daughter - 3:55
- Glorified G - 3:26
- Dissident - 3:35
- WMA - 5:59
- Blood - 2:50
- Rearviewmirror - 4:44
- Council - 4:15
- Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town - 3:15
- Leash - 3:09
- Indifference - 5:02
Songs
While its predecessor Ten was best known for its hymns Alive , Even Flow , Black or Jeremy , Pearl Jam managed to come up with a contrary album here. Producer Brendan O'Brien was supposed to help the band develop further. Although the tremendous speed for which they had been highly praised on their debut was lost in some places, Pearl Jam still manage some punk songs, but also a number of rock ballads .
Go
Go was the album's first single and was released in an acoustic version and alone with the B-sides Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town . He was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Hard Rock Performance . He can also be found on the band's best-of album, Rearviewmirror: Greatest Hits 1991-2003 .
In the UK , a cassette with a live version of Animal was also released. This made him unsuitable for the UK Top 40. In the USA, the single reached number 8 on the US Modern Rock Tracks and number 3 on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks.
Animal
The second single was Animal . Although there was no video for the song, it was played at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1993 . Released in 1993, the song can also be found on Rearviewmirror: Greatest Hits 1991-2003 .
The single was released in different versions, but not until 1995 in the USA. As a b-side for this version, the song and Jeremy were added to the single as live versions, each recorded at the Fox Theater in Atlanta , Georgia on April 3, 1994. The 1993 version had the live versions of Jeremy , Oceans , and Alive as B-sides . In 1994 there was another version with Jeremy , Daughter and Animal .
There are two theories about the meaning of the text. One says it is about mass rape , the other, which is also the more believable, says that it is about the band's hatred of the mass media .
Daughter
Daughter is one of the most popular songs among fans at Pearl Jam's live concerts. Together with the B-sides Blood (Live) and Yellow Ledbetter (Live), Daughter was released in 1993 as the third single. At number 28 on the Billboard Mainstream Charts, the song Pearl Jam became the first top 40 single in the United States. The reward was a Grammy nomination in the category Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal .
The title is played at almost every concert. However, mostly with an improvised extension that fans call a daughter tag . This mostly involves the processing of rock classics such as American Pie or Another Brick in the Wall II ( Pink Floyd ) , songs by admired bands such as Ben Harper or Dead Moon or the incorporation of own titles such as WMA Daughter can also be found on the live album Live on Two Legs and the best of Rearviewmirror: Greatest Hits 1991-2003 .
dissident
Dissident was the fourth single from Vs. The song climbed to number 3 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number 14 on the UK singles chart. Although it did not make it into the Top 100 on the Billboard Mainstream Charts, the track is a popular and widely played song on many radio stations in the United States.
The single was released with 6 B-sides. All live versions recorded on April 3, 1994 at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia: Release , Rearviewmirror , Even Flow , Dissident , Why Go and Deep .
The Dissident single was also the first of three parts of a live CD set: In addition to the version in the jewel case, the single was also released in a digipak, which also had space for 2 more CDs. These were released a few months after the single in 1994. They completed the set, which is entitled Live in Atlanta carries.
WMA
The title is an abbreviation for “White Male American” and deals with racism in the USA . The song was inspired by the case of the African-American Malice Green, who was so badly mistreated by two white police officers during a traffic stop on November 5, 1992 that he died of the injuries. A photo of Greens is also printed next to the text in the CD booklet.
Awards
After just under a week, five-fold platinum status was achieved, so that the RIAA presented the volume with the corresponding award on January 6, 1994. Having sold over seven million records in the US, it achieved seven-fold platinum status in 2000.
| Country / Region | Award | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales) |
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 Australia (ARIA)
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 platinum
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70,000 |
 Brazil (PMB)
|
 gold
|
100,000 |
 Canada (MC)
|
5 × platinum
|
500,000 |
 New Zealand (RMNZ)
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platinum
|
15,000 |
 Netherlands (NVPI)
|
gold
|
50,000 |
 Norway (IFPI)
|
gold
|
25,000 |
 Spain (Promusicae)
|
gold
|
50,000 |
 United States (RIAA)
|
7 × platinum
|
7,000,000 |
 United Kingdom (BPI)
|
gold
|
100,000 |
| All in all |
5 × gold 14 × platinum |
7,910,000 |
Main article: Pearl Jam / Music Sales Awards
Web links
- Vs. at Allmusic (English)
- Eric Oliver: Pearl Jam delivers one of the best albums of the 90s In: The Tech. Volume 113, No. 53, October 29, 1993 ( tech.mit.edu ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ eclipsed . No. 209 , April 2019, p. 16 .
- ↑ WMA by Pearl Jam on songfacts.com.