Eddie Vedder – Into The Wild
It’s hard to believe that it’s taken Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder so long to release an entire non-Pearl Jam album. Afterall, Stone Gossard has Brad and one solo album, Jeff Ament with Three Fish, Matt Cameron has Wellwater Conspiracy and Mike McCready had Mad Season and The Rockfords.
That’s not to say that Vedder hasn’t branched out before, mainly popping up as a guest here and there. His previous solo endeavors were only a handful; which includes ”Goodbye” for the Brokedown Melody soundtrack, “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” for I Am Sam and “Dead Man” for Dead Man Walking, which showed up on the 2006 legacy edition and Pearl Jam’s Lost Dogs.
Oddly, two of the three solo tracks appeared in Sean Penn flicks, which makes sense since Vedder and Penn are buddies. So, it shouldn’t be a shocker that Penn hand-picked Vedder to write and record the music for Into The Wild.
The eleven track album has Vedder stripped down to a folk artist far removed from the young man, whose angst brought us Pearl Jam.
However, there are some foot tappers, like the opening track “Setting Forth” and ”Far Behind”. There are also some instrumental tracks, ”Tuolumme” and “The Wolf”, as well as some real beautiful gems like “No Ceiling” and “Rise”. The soundtrack also includes two fantastic covers, “Hard Sun” by Indio and “Society” by Jerry Hannan.
Most of the songs are under two and half minutes, but they work perfectly. The waiting may have driven fans mad for an Eddie Vedder solo track, but it’s been well worth the wait. I can’t wait to see Vedder’s music going along with the film.
I should add that folks buying the album from iTunes need to get the deluxe version, which includes the bonus tracks “No More”, “Photographs”, “No More” (Live) and “Here’s to the State” (Live).
1 Comment
[...] mentioned his fantastic work on the Into The Wild soundtrack and he also contributed two tracks for the documentary Body of [...]