All this talk of MYM being either Punk, or Metal, or a hybrid of both (crossover?), got me thinking: what metal credentials, if any, do Pearl Jam have? I know McCready is a fan of Maiden, Motorhead, KISS, Ozzy, Sabbath; and Jeff is into Venom, Hellhammer, Slayer, Mastodon. Given their background, I am surprised of the lack of very few true metal moments in PJ’s catalog. The closest they got was probably the breakdown in Supersonic, which was very Sabbathy. Any thoughts, opinions? Any other examples of quasi metal moments appearing in their music?

They ain't metal. Didn't people used to say that grunge was a crossover of punk and metal. So by that formula, MYM is grunge.

Didn't they refer to Vs. as their "heavy" record? Go/Animal are pretty intense.

thats about it really. But I'm sure metal has probably influenced some things here and there.

'in the moonlight' feels kinda metal to me

Is metal an attitude like some say punk is, or does it get to be an actual thing?

it's more of a material

No way you could ever get a consensus of metal fans to agree on what is and isn't metal. They are as bad or worse than punk fans.

It isn't strange to me that being professed fans of heavy metal doesn't conjure up many metal "moments" in the Pearl Jam oeuvre. It'd be hard for me to imagine any professional musician not having an affection/reverence for bands like Iron Maiden or Slayer, but that doesn't mean they're gonna write a thrash album. It's just not what this band is about; it's not in their wheelhouse. I'm a huge metal fan, and I do a little home recording as a hobby. I try different styles, but the best songs that come out of me are always the ones that sound kind of like Elliot Smith. Go figure.

By extension, the Ramones should sonically be a pretty easy band to reference-- whatever your degree of proficiency-- and look how poorly Pearl Jam has done it in the past. It's just not their thing. It's not what they do well. So a Pearl Jam "metal" song kind of makes my stomach do a somersault...I think that would sound really, really bad.

there is a disturbing lack of songs about Vikings and wizards in the pj catalog.

This post is so metal.

well one thing is sure: punk isn't metal, PJ are neither punk nor metal

DSBM?

BM?...

don't go all Jorge on me

metal PJ:

I'm certainly not going to listen to 10 + minutes of THAT!!
... you want me to kill myself here at work or something?
I'm just having issues with all this attempted categorization of "What's Pearl Jam's music best described as?" - It's just rock music to me, or alternative rock music would be as much refinement as I'm willing to offer on that genre.

Way I see it, all the punk music and all the metal, and all the "other' rock out there has influenced this band throughout its career - pretty much like any band, I guess. And they've been producing music for 20 years or so now, so there's a wide range of examples that can be picked and chosen to demonstrate that influence over the course of their career - sometimes it's straight up rock and roll, sometimes it punk, sometimes it leans closer to metal (although not much in my opinion, but whatever) - the best parts of the musical product of Pearl Jam is that it has a desire to wander around from influence to influence and experiment with it to try to come up with something worth listening to - and sometimes they fail miserably and sometimes they don't but I have a hard time classifying any of it as one specific type/genre/sub-genre/ anything.

it's fairly impressive how long the discussions can extend here about it though - but man... sometimes.... just... a bullet to the head emoticon is the only comment I can make.

carry on though, at least it's more entertaining than work.

hey, McP - excellent followup post, btw