Scathing Guitars, Pretty Tunes

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Like butterflies or Apollo rockets, the careers of rock-'n'-roll superstars typically have multiple stages. In the first, the rock star sings powerfully and touchingly about the sweet pangs of adolescence and the seemingly endless , wait for adulthood. In Stage 2, the rock star screeches churlishly about the unbearable pain of megacelebrity and the seemingly endless wait for room service at the Four Seasons. And in the third and last stage, the rock star goes on MTV Unplugged and performs all the songs from the first and second stages, only this time with acoustic instruments.

The terrifyingly popular Seattle-based rock group Pearl Jam has released just three full-length albums but has already ripped through all the stages of rock stardom in record time. The group has sung about restless youth (the song Jeremy became a bona fide rock anthem), it has established an adversarial relationship between itself and everyone else on the planet (the band's last album bore the confrontational title Vs.), and, yes, it's made the inevitable pilgrimage to MTV Unplugged. Now what? Having gone from larva to butterfly, does the band flutter to the ground, its brief season done? Not exactly. Pearl Jam's vigorous new CD, Vitalogy, shows that, having come to the end of one rock-group cycle, the band still has a lot to say.

Vitalogy explores in more depth some of the themes the band has touched on in the past: alienation; the glory of youth; mortality; the difficulties that come with living in the public eye. The album has its share of stinkers -- the accordion-driven Bugs, for example, sounds like something circus clowns might perform before a Greenwich Village poetry slam. But that's one admirably experimental failure on a largely successful album. Pearl Jam's great talent is the ability to meld melody and power: the music is sweet and dangerous. On Corduroy, the album's best song, lead singer Eddie Vedder delivers an impassioned antimedia rant backed up by scathing guitars -- but the melody is pretty and whistleable, and you can't forget it.

Vedder, the group's lyricist, continues to improve as a songwriter. "Don't need a hand," he declares on Whipping, slyly adding, "There's always arms attached." His most troubling fault is that he tries to build a sense of community among his fans by shutting others out. On Not for You he declares that his music isn't for all people, just the right people, his kind of people: "Small my table/ Sits just two ... this is not for you/ Never was for you." As it is, the world is already full of too many people who want to keep only with their own kind. Do hipper-than-thou Seattle rock bands now share the sentiment? When a group is as good as Pearl Jam, it's too bad everyone isn't invited to listen.