Pearl Jam had well and truly set out their stall by the start of the 21st century. From 1994’s Vitalogy onwards, they were a band prizing career longevity and artistic gallivanting over commercial success and heavy rotation on MTV. Nowhere is that clearer in some of their choices for an album’s lead single. Given To Fly, from 1998, and 2002’s I Am Mine are two of the band’s most exhilarating anthems but they are red herrings when you look at the wider picture, songs that seemed to suggest that Ed Ved & co. wanted to become U2 with distortion pedals (Given To Fly) or a grittier R.E.M. (I Am Mine). No, they didn’t want to do that. What was really going on at the time was something a lot more experimental and wilfully provoking.
One of their strangest and most haunting single releases turns 25 next month. Nothing As It Seems, a song that heralded their sixth album Binaural, is up there with 1996’s Who You Are for sheer oddness as a comeback song. Those who were expecting Pearl Jam to keep on rockin’ in the free world were about to get a shock or three.
