Last night Pearl Jam released a few new recordings for members of its Ten Club fan club. The songs consist of four covers with selections from Chris Cornell, Soundgarden, Tom Petty and Warren Zevon chosen to be the final releases of its once annual fan club singles series.
While the release of the songs can technically be considered new music from the band, for the most part, there isn’t a whole lot that’s new in this batch of songs. The Petty cover (“Wildflowers”) has been a staple of Eddie Vedder’s recent solo shows and he performed the Zevon track (“Keep Me In Your Heart”) during a tribute to David Letterman. The Cornell cover (“Missing”) was debuted during the band’s Home Shows in Seattle in 2018.
However, the Soundgarden cover (“Hunted Down”) is something new from the group and it features Stone Gossard, not Vedder, on vocals. The track, which was released in 1987, was one of the first singles issued by venerable indie label Sub Pop Records and was a precursor for the rock & roll upheaval that would come out of Seattle during the 1990s.
Instead of delivering a faithful cover, Pearl Jam reworked the composition and gave it a new sound. In the hands of Gossard and his bandmates, the song is turned into a wispy, ethereal and somewhat spooky version of a classic Soundgarden deep cut. It’s a treatment is begging to be compared to how Johnny Cash transformed “Rusty Cage” into a completely different song than it’s punishing Badmotorfinger origin.
Take a listen to the singles along with the group’s take on “Hunted Down” below and compare it to Soundgarden’s original.
“Missing”
“Wildflowers”
“Keep Me In Your Heart”
“Hunted Down”
