not dvr prettynames (2023)
Pearl Jam's first album, Ten, is considered a defining grunge masterpiece that played a pivotal role in solidifying the mainstream triumph of the rock subgenre during the early 1990s. But the band is still struggling with the album to this day. In 2006, frontman Eddie Vedder said, "I can listen to the early records [except] the first record," while other band members have openly expressed their personal dissatisfaction with the album’s mixing. The mixing engineer was a certain Tim Palmer. Most of what he touched turned to gold—Ten is actually Pearl Jam’s most commercially successful album to date—but Palmer's biggest coup probably is XL Recordings: In 1989 he co-founded the label that would catapult The Prodigy, Adele, The White Stripes and many others to stardom. The London label's success is such that it's easy to forget that not all of their artists took off. Two examples are Jack Peñate and Novelist. Another one that probably just fails to meet the commercial expectations of XL's accountants is not dvr. He has been releasing his music via XL since 2021. Talent, charisma, innovation—it’s all there. It's just that the streaming numbers aren't really getting off the ground. Yet.
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