Eddie Vedder 'Ukulele Songs'

       Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder sings and plays a ukulele, and you would think that would be the end of this review, and on some levels you the reader would be correct but on some other musical plain this record is so much more....read on. 

       When I first heard ramblings of this project I was very quick to write it off as just a lead singer needing his creative space to “experiment” with something completely different from what he’s used to producing with his band, and maybe in the end that’s really all this is, but I’ve got this feeling that this record is something Eddie had to make so he could return to the studio with PJ and energize their inventive juices. 

  

       Eddie croons his way through 16 tracks of love and loneliness with just his voice and a ukulele and if you’re a Pearl Jam fan (and I believe most people buying this record will be already) you will enjoy it, but if you’re an Eddie Vedder fan you will eat this up bowl and all. One track that really stands out for me on this record is “Sleepless nights”, it’s a duet with Glen Hansard, Glen you might know from such bands as The Frames and The Swell Season, well their two voices together create such a beautiful landscape that you cannot just listen to this track once, you have to repeat it a few times to feel everything that’s being offered to you.

    This is no Pearl Jam record, and this is not the Eddie that I watched climb the stage at Lollapalooza back in 1992, this is a record about simplicity, it’s about loneliness and togetherness, and it’s about a guy and his ukulele...turn the lights down and relish in some Ukulele Songs

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS