Eddie Vedder – Ukulele Songs | Album Review for Pop 'stache

Eddie Vedder – Ukulele Songs

written by: Alex Bahler June 10, 2011

Release Date: May 31, 2011

Don’t say Eddie Vedder didn’t warn you.

By explicitly calling his second solo effort Ukulele Songs, Vedder proudly flashes his cards, relieving himself of all blame if you’re pouting 34 minutes later. There’s even a front-and-center olive branch to starving devotees of his band.

“Can’t Keep,” the smoldering opener from Pearl Jam’s underrated Riot Act, is unearthed to set the story again, this time propelled only by Vedder’s brisk strumming. There really is no other place for it in a running order, and the song’s introductory statement—”I wanna shake/I wanna wind out”—sounds even more appropriate since Pearl Jam followed Riot Act with two stripped down “return to rock” albums. One was political, the other personal, both more than competent but forgetting the dynamics that make American acts like Pearl Jam worth following. Not long after 9/11, Vedder would impale a George Bush mask on a microphone stand night after night, and it’s good to see he still embraces the unpopular. Instead of making this a brief PJ detour—imagine Dave Abbruzzese’s potential reaction back in the day—Vedder took it upon himself to put out a full album with his cheery little companion.

Somehow, it’s not boring as sin. It’s too easy to write off ukuleles as pitiful, would-be guitars only good for beach settings, but the instrument manages to give weight to Vedder’s words, although those were never particularly whimsical.

When properly presented, it displays surprising versatility, sounding stately and harp-like on “Broken Heart.” While a ukulele-based album reeks of try-and-stop-me aging rocker luxury, it also reveals itself to be a necessity. Songs such as the haunting “Light Today” simply couldn’t have worked in the context of Vedder’s traditional five-against-one lineup. That song consists of four notes, maybe five, and acts as a flip-side to the vague revelation in R.E.M.’s recent Vedder-assisted “It Happened Today.”

The man and his uke aren’t alone here. There’s beautiful cello drone on “Longing to Belong,” an ocean’s undertow pulling at “Light Today,” and backing vocals from Cat Power and The Swell Season’s Glen Hansard. Nevertheless, that voice dominates, and Vedder sounds positively liberated on “You’re True,” where he lets out falsetto yelps to complement his patented woolly moan.

That bronzed voice seals these songs of bittersweet renewal, sung by someone longing for a fresh start. If the singer in Ukulele Songs isn’t overwhelmed by Washington’s antics, he’s at least longing for a simpler time—and the person he once shared it with. “I need you so/More than you know,” Vedder sings on an original that sounds like a cover (and without liner notes, it’s near impossible to distinguish). “More Than You Know” recalls a pre-rock era where music was, for better or worse, pure of heart and mind, free of controversy and seemingly existing in a vacuum untouched by everyday problems.

Irony was a favorite crutch of the ’90s rock scene that gave Pearl Jam a stage, but it has unintentionally carried over to Ukulele Songs—when Vedder shakes his day job and produces a full-length ukulele windout, it still falters from the uniform color sported by its predecessor.

Some humor breaks that up: there are fuckups left intact that hint at the happier, warts-and-all record that could have been. He flicks a lighter before saying “Goodbye,” answers a ringing phone before “Longing To Belong,” and even gives a false start its own spotlight in the track listing (“Hey Fahkah”).

At 16 tracks, Ukulele Songs is generous in quantity, and it soon feels like one long Side C interlude. But when the main instrument is, for many, a late-night drunken joke prop, what’s an earnest left-leaning rocker to do? If Vedder took the best six ukulele songs, this would be seen a toss-off barely worth a listen.

Only time will tell whether anything here becomes a fan favorite. But after years of oil spills, boos and backhanded criticisms, Vedder sounds like he got the change he wanted. Where Pearl Jam’s Backspacer hinted at calm waters, Ukulele Songs sounds as if it were written under the Bodhi Tree by an enlightened Vedder. In that case, maybe we should all start chilling out a little more.