Five Against One: The Pearl Jam Story

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Summary: Slam biography attempting to cast a bad light on Eddie Vedde
Review: When I bought the Five Against One book, I was really looking forward to getting some insight into Pearl Jam...not the dirt on the band members, but information that a fan would like to know...."Why did Dave Krusen leave the band?" "How was 'Ten' recorded?" That kind of information. And while Kim Neely's book offered some of that perspective, the majority of it deals with Eddie Vedder, and the things she says about him are NOT flattering. Five Against One is reminiscent of the article Rolling Stone did on Eddie in its November '96 piece, "Inventing Eddie Vedder: Pearl Jam's Mystery Man." Ms. Neely uses a lot of "confidential" and "anonymous" sources, along with some of her own opinions (appearantly she spent a lot of time with the band in its early days....funny that she doesn't interview them anymore) to build up Eddie Vedder as an egomaniacal jerk, more interested about his image than his music. While the book starts off well, discussing the events that led up to Pearl Jam's forming and shedding light on Stone Gossard's and Jeff Ament's history, it ends up as a slam, and is taken by fans (or at least by this one) as an attempt to discredit an amazing group of musicians. If Pearl Jam is more interested in its image than its music, then they sure as hell fooled me....

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Summary: Man Bites Dog More Interesting Than Other Way Around
Review: When you're a gifted writer, especially one with a reporter/journalist background, you tend to write about the things you think are most likely to get a reaction. That is, to generate buzzing press about someone, something, some issue. That is what Kim Neely has done with this intriguing novel about Pearl Jam. While Neely tells the story of how the band formed as Pearl Jam, following their much-publicized pre-history, she also opens wide the door to the chamber of Eddie Vedderism, or the science of dissecting the singer's psyche through delving into his past, exhibiting various behavioral tendencies, and even speaking to the very people in his life who would have much-less-than-flattering things to offer. In doing this, Neely creates a renewed fascination in a study in which most people would have otherwised stopped immersing by now. The book, published in 1998, devotes most of its attention to early Pearl Jam happenings and developments, and spends less and less time as the band's chronology progresses. As well, the book focusses almost exlusively on Vedder, almost as if to suggest that fans and critics worldwide would not be interested in knowing more about the other 7 members of Pearl Jam (including all drummers to have ever been involved with the band by 1998). While I enjoyed reliving all the defining moments in my love for Pearl Jam, and learing a bit more about the Dave Abbruzzese phenomenon, this petrie-dish treatment of Vedder was at times indulgent, too familiar, and tiring. Which leads me to restate my view on reporters, and question their motives in delivering the "news" the way Neely does in this book. For Part Two, "The Continuing Journey Into The Under Drawers of Eddie Vedder", scrapping info on Pearl Jam's enigmatic frontman in favour of some morsels of musical exploration, or even a sophmore-level seminar on the other band members would make this reader more charmed.