You're God and you've got big hands

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

01/09/96 : No Code - Pearl Jam


Our second visit with the Seattle slackers - I found out I really liked their debut when I was forced to revisit it (and have, of course, never been back since).  So I was looking forward to this one...

And, well - it's an odd one.  I started off not liking it, but found it growing on me as I made my way through it.  I think part of the problem was that I thought it was very derivative, but I'm wondering if it's just that a lot of stuff that came after it derived from it - I'd be amazed if Kings Of Leon hadn't listened to this a couple of times (or a couple of thousand times).  It feels like it could be a grower - back in '96 I'd have given it the time to do so, but I'm not going to manage now, I'm afraid.  I'm going to file it under "interesting" and move on - and no, we've never owned it taking us to a pleasing third of 6/18.

We're at the lofty heights of #3 in the charts this week with a new entry at the start of a six week run - and hardly any albums managed only six weeks back in those days, so I take it this wasn't that well received.  The rest of the top five are Alanis, Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis and Crowded House with no other new entries in the top ten - the next one is a completely forgotten Mike Oldfield album at #12.  And that managed six weeks on the chart as well!

Wikipedia has LOADS on the album (335 milliPeppers) but this was the sentence that intrigued me the most - "The album package consists of 156 Polaroid photos that unfold into a 2×2 square".  I also learned what "no code" means - "DNR" is the closest over here.  Critical reception was mixed - "about half are worth the effort".  Ouch!  Commercial reception looked good from this distance, but apparently lots of people were very disappointed.  Never mind, eh?

"Customers also listened to" Stone Temple Pilots, Screaming Trees and Mother Loves Bone - I can't claim to be fans of any other them.  Sorry, guys.  But the more I hear of Pearl Jam the more interested I am - I can't claim to immediately love this but it's certainly got me intrigued to listen to a bit more of their stuff (which, of course, I won't).

25/08/96 - A very pleasant revisit
08/09/96 - I think I should like this more than I do

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