Pitchfork Forkcast: New Music: Eddie Vedder: "Hard Sun" [ft. Corin Tucker] [Stream]

New Music: Eddie Vedder: "Hard Sun" [ft. Corin Tucker] [Stream]

Unlike Pitchfork's Matthew Solarski, who obviously has cooler friends than I do, I have spent time in this decade thinking about Pearl Jam. I guess I've thought about them way too much ever since the previous decade, when as a young Sacramento, Calif., Top 40 radio listener I would see kids on the bus wearing the band's T-shirts and mistakenly assume the word "Jam" meant these dudes were the next soulful Silk or Jodeci. What I ended up hearing, again and again, were Eddie Vedder's moany, growling moans and growls. Sometimes, on quiet nights with no car alarms, I can hear them still.

Now Vedder has a solo album on the way in the form of a soundtrack to Sean Penn-directed film Into the Wild. The people who will buy that record will buy it regardless of what I write here, but AOL's Spinner has posted a track, and let's just say it's not Chris Cornell's "Seasons". On this mostly acoustic track, as on Pearl Jam's recent self-titled album, Vedder's divisive pipes are in full focus, along with heavy-handed lyrics about being a "better man" (heard that one!) and digging "an early grave", which eventually dissolve into Vedder-esque animal noises. The movie co-stars Vince Vaughn, and this track features the distant backing vocals of Sleater-Kinney co-founder Corin Tucker; you might think anything involving both of them couldn't totally suck. You'd be totally wrong.

Stream:> Eddie Vedder: "Hard Sun" [ft. Corin Tucker]
[from Into the Wild OST; due 09/18/07 via J Records]