Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament reveals the albums that CHANGED HIS LIFE, and the one that really introduced him to music and made his “hair [stand] up on the back of [his] neck.”
In a new feature in this month’s edition of Uncut Magazine, Ament lists the records that mean the most to him.
Pearl Jam Bassist’s 8 Most Meaningful Albums
Simon & Garfunkel – “Sounds of Silence”
The Beatles – “Let it Be”
KISS – “Alive!”
Ramones – “Leave Home”
Devo – “Duty Now for the Future”
Public Image LTD – “Second Edition”
Brian Eno – “Discreet Music”
IDLES – “Joy as an Act of Resistance”
“One day, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Robertson – not Robinson! – said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna put on this record and I want everybody to sing along.’ And she passed out lyrics to ‘The Sound of Silence’,” Ament said, recalling his introduction to Simon and Garfunkel. “I didn’t know what the words meant, but it was heavy: ‘Hello darkness, my old friend…’ I remember the hair standing up on my neck. We were church-going folks, but I never felt the spirit moving through me the way that I did singing along with my friends to that song. I almost see it as a moment when I was really introduced to music. I go back to that song probably at least once a year. Usually it’s a moment when I’m by myself, so I can get weepy.”
Ament also said that “Let it Be” was the “first full-length album [he] ever bought,” that “Alive!” “gave [him] a taste of what it must have felt like being at a rock show” since where he lived was “so far away from live music,” and that “Leave Home” changed his taste in music in that it “completely turned the corner for [him]” and he became “fixated with punk rock.”
