Long Road: Pearl Jam And The Soundtrack Of A Generation

Steven Hyden HACHETTE

Grunge stars’ broader influence.

Pearl Jam are not known for their enthusiasm for interviews – from the earliest days they’ve baulked at the starrier side of stardom. No surprise, then, that they didn’t speak to rock critic Steven Hyden for this book, nor did he approach them. As he points out, getting Pearl Jam’s thoughts on Pearl Jam would have been pointless because that book already exists in the shape of 2011’s Pearl Jam Twenty.

Instead he’s taken a more creative approach with a wider focus. Presented as a mixtape, each chapter takes the name of one of their songs and explores a different element in PJ’s history, putting it in the context of popular culture and the political and social landscape of the time. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the band, and although he doesn’t shy away from some of Pearl Jam’s more fractious elements, he captures perfectly the experience of being a young fan of Eddie Vedder et al, and of being a teenager navigating the mid-90s. As such it’s a nostalgic and oddly moving journey for us Generation Xers, and a likeable alternative-culture history lesson for those who came along later.