Eddie Vedder's debut album was released on September 18, 2007. This is an album that Eddie wrote for the soundtrack of the movie "Into The Wild". This time our review will not focus on the album but rather on the film and the soundtrack.
Do you know how sometimes there are books that are later made into movies and how in most cases the movie adaption is less good than the books themselves? So, There are also cases where the films surpass the books and create a whole new world of perception that we did not imagine when we read the book. Now try to project this experience onto a soundtrack. Listening to the album alone does not even come close to the experience of watching a movie and actually "seeing" the music.
The two connect in a wonderful way and create an exciting, moving, and rare experience.
When you realizes that the movie is based on a true story the experience takes on a much stronger meaning. This is exactly the case with "Into The Wild"!!
The film was released in 2007 and it is based on a book of the same name written by Jon Krakauer.
The film/book tells the story of Christopher McCandless and takes place in the early 1990s. Christopher graduates with honors from "Emory University", but decides to leave behind the normative and modern life and venture out into the wild. He donates all his money, destroys his credit cards and identification documents, takes a vehicle (that later broke down and forced him to hitchhike), and heads for the northern United States. Along the way he meets people, gaining experiences and thrills, but his ultimate goal is nature! He arrives at an Alaskan reserve called "Denali National Park and Reserve," where he chooses to settle, alone, in an old bus he calls "The Magic Bus." We will not tell you what happens during the trip or how things develop in the reserve, but it is amazing to see the courage, determination, ability, and worldview of the guy.
The film was directed by Sean Penn and Christopher is played by the actor Emile Hirsch. Sean has already worked with Eddie Vedder on the movie "Dead Man Walking" and wanted him for this movie as well.
Sean did not want Vedder to write only the theme song, but the entire soundtrack for the film. The recordings were made at the famous "Studio X" in Seattle with the producer Adam Kasper, who worked on several albums with "Pearl Jam". After the initial draft of the film, Sean sent the materials to Vedder and asked him to write a number of tracks for the film. Within three days Vedder had sent out a number of songs to Sean so he could adapt them into the film. The two were very enthusiastic about the result.
Sean adopted Vedder's materials and asked him to continue working on additional tracks.
Vedder said that he just sat down in the studio with Adam Kasper and like on a factory production line, he started writing and recording non-stop, while between songs, Adam was changing Vedder's instruments like guitar, bass, mandolin, piano, drums, and more. Vedder added that Sean gave him full freedom of creation and there was mutual trust between them therefore he had no limitations in the work process. Vedder said that it was very easy for him to create because the scenes he watched led him to the music. No doubt and you will see this perfectly in the film. The man responsible for matching the music to the movie scenes was producer Michael Brook, who according to Vedder did an amazing job. We reinforce his words!!
All the songs on the album have a scent of folk music, especially with the mandolin sound that dominates in most of the songs. Eddie wrote and composed all 11 songs on the album, except two.
The song "Hard Sun", which was also released as the first single from the album, was written by Gordon Peterson and the song "Society" which was written by Eddie Vedder along with Jerry Hannan.
Vedder said he was amazed at how easily he managed to get into Christopher's head, feel him as if he himself had gone through the journey.
After the album's release, Vedder went on his first tour as a solo artist. He has performed in the United States and Europe. The album was nominated for a number of categories at the 2008 and 2009 Grammys but did not win any awards.
As we have said, it is impossible to disconnect this album from the film. The full experience requires watching, so this time we will not put a link for listening to the album and we recommend that you go watch the movie at high volume. Take a lot of handkerchiefs with you and someone to hold your hand.