1993–1995The band members grew uncomfortable with their success, with much of the burden of Pearl Jam's popularity falling on frontman Vedder. While Pearl Jam received four awards at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards for its video for Jeremy, including Video of the Year and Best Group Video, the band refused to make a video for Black in spite of pressure by the label. This action began a trend of the band refusing to make videos for its songs. Ten years from now, Ament said, I don't want people to remember our songs as videos.
Released on October 19, 1993, Pearl Jam's second album Vs. sold a record 950,378 copies in its first week of release and outperformed all other entries in the Billboard top ten that week combined. Vs. included the singles Daughter, Dissident, Go, and Animal. The band decided, beginning with the release of Vs., to scale back its commercial efforts. The members declined to produce any more music videos after the massive success of Jeremy and opted to give fewer interviews and make fewer television appearances. Industry insiders compared Pearl Jam's tour that year to the touring habits of Led Zeppelin, in that the band ignored the press and took its music directly to the fans. During the Vs. tour, the band set a cap on ticket prices in an attempt to thwart scalpers.
By 1994, Pearl Jam was fighting on all fronts, as its manager described the band at the time. Pearl Jam was outraged when, after it played a pair of shows in Chicago, it discovered that ticket vendor Ticketmaster had added a service charge to the tickets. The United States Department of Justice was investigating the company's practices at the time and asked the band to create a memorandum of its experiences with the company. Gossard and Ament soon testified at a subcommittee investigation in Washington, D.C. The band eventually canceled its 1994 summer tour in protest. After the Justice Department dropped the case, Pearl Jam continued to boycott Ticketmaster, refusing to play venues that had contracts with the company. Music critic Jim DeRogatis noted that along with the Ticketmaster debacle, the band has refused to release singles or make videos; it has demanded that its albums be released on vinyl; and it wants to be more like its '60s heroes, The Who, releasing two or three albums a year. He also stated that sources said that most of the band's third album Vitalogy was completed by early 1994, but that either a forced delay by Epic or that the battle with Ticketmaster were to blame for the delay.
After Pearl Jam finished the recording of Vitalogy, drummer Dave Abbruzzese was fired. The band cited political differences between Abbruzzese and the other members; for example, Abbruzzese disagreed with the Ticketmaster boycott. He was finally replaced by Jack Irons, a close friend of Vedder and the former and original drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Irons made his debut with the band at Neil Young's 1994 Bridge School Benefit, but he was not officially announced as the band's new drummer until its 1995 Self-Pollution satellite radio broadcast.
Vitalogy was released first on November 22, 1994 on vinyl and then two weeks later on December 6, 1994 on CD and cassette. The CD became the second-fastest-selling in history, with more than 877,000 units sold in its first week. Many of the songs on the album appear to be based around the pressures of fame. The song Spin the Black Circle, a homage to vinyl records, won a Grammy Award in 1996 for Best Hard Rock Performance. Vitalogy also included the songs Not for You, Corduroy, Immortality, and Better Man. Better Man (sample (info)), a song originally penned and performed by Vedder while in Bad Radio, reached #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, spending a total of eight weeks there. Considered a blatantly great pop song by producer Brendan O'Brien, Pearl Jam was reluctant to record it and had initially rejected it from Vs. due to its accessibility.
The band continued its boycott against Ticketmaster during its 1995 tour for Vitalogy, but was surprised that virtually no other bands joined it in refusing to play at Ticketmaster venues. Pearl Jam's initiative to play only at non-Ticketmaster venues effectively, with a few exceptions, prevented it from playing shows in the United States for the next three years. In the same year Pearl Jam backed Neil Young, whom the band had noted as an influence, on his album Mirror Ball. Contractual obligations prevented the use of the band's name anywhere on the album, but the members were all credited individually in the album's liner notes. Two songs from the sessions were left off Mirror Ball: I Got Id and Long Road. These two tracks were released separately by Pearl Jam in the form of the EP Merkin Ball.
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