Send "Eddie Vedder " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 If you include the soundtrack album he recorded for Into the Wild, Ukulele Songs is only Eddie Vedder's second solo album. Considering the size and devotion of his cult, coupled with Pearl Jam's "No, you really shouldn't have" over-generosity when it comes to releases, it's remarkable he hasn't put out five by now. This makes Ukulele Songs even more of a curiosity: As its title makes clear, the album consists of 16 tracks of Vedder pawing the tiny, four-stringed Hawaiian instrument and warbling love songs. That's it. In a way, it's as clear-cut a proposition as you're going to get these days. You either instantly know you need 35 minutes of this in your life or are already backing slowly away.The songs themselves date back, in some cases, 10 years or more-- presumably from around the same time Vedder wrote "Soon Forget", the two-minute ukulele ditty from Binaural. The rest of the songs occupy that same headspace. They are casual, sweet, and disarmingly unaffected, and you can practically smell the campus green wafting off them. That Vedder is putting Ukulele Songs out during this Big Blowout Year of Pearl Jam (Documentary! Festival! Reissue! Tour!) makes it seem even less of a solo project and more like a a souvenir for longtime Pearl Jam fans. It works best that way. Indeed, in small doses, Ukulele Songs is lovely. Vedder has always been affecting when he's lovelorn, and here he's more or less curled up in a ball of bewildered hurt. "As I move myself out of your sight/ I'll be sleeping by myself tonight," he croons on "Sleeping By Myself". The album's best moments-- "Sleeping By Myself", "Without You", "Longing to Belong"-- tap the same quietly wounded melancholy as Paul McCartney's 1971 proto-indie pop masterpiece Ram. Alas, 34 minutes is a perilously long time for most to to spend alone with just Eddie Vedder, a ukulele, and his feelings for company. Vedder's precious side has never been his best one (see: No Code's "Sometimes"), and Ukulele Songs is so determinedly twee and relentlessly self-effacing that it can feel like watching a grown man attempting to morph into a baby koala before your eyes. By itself, hearing Chan Marshall playing Bernadette Peters to Vedder's Steve Martin for the duet "Tonight You Belong to Me" is winning and funny; in the context of a full ukulele album, it is slightly cloying. Vedder has said he wants this record to inspire people to pick up the instrument and sing with their friends, an old-fashioned sentiment impossible not to be charmed by. Like a lot of Vedder's experiments, the spirit is easier to admire than the final product. The ukulele might be a great campfire instrument, but sometimes what works best at the campfire should stay there....full text |
| Guardian |
| Given Pearl Jam's longstanding refusal to play by music industry rules, March's announcement that frontman Eddie Vedder had recorded a solo album backed only by ukulele was unlikely to have raised many eyebrows. Comprising songs Vedder wrote a decade ago but never released, plus a reworking of Pearl Jam's "Can't Keep" and a handful of covers (most notably an effortless-sounding "Dream a Little Dream"), it's a pleasingly coherent collection, Vedder's baritone nicely offsetting the trebly instrumentation. It's unlikely to appeal to the unconverted, but the likes of "Satellite" and "Longing to Belong" have genuine charm....full text |
| Pastemagazine |
| The first question you might ask, upon hearing that Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder has decided to release a ukulele record, is “Why?” A fair question, that. After all, perhaps it’s not the most obvious career choice for a 46-year-old career musician to make. Why devote an entire album to a cute, four-string novelty of an instrument, recording a batch of songs—a third of which are covers—with the help of a couple famous friends sprinkled here and there (The Swell Season’s Glen Hansard and Chan “Cat Power” Marshall each appear on one track)—a batch of songs you’ll release on your own imprint, freed of big-business interests? Why take a lighthearted break from your legacy act that’s essentially proven all that is has to after 20+ years and can now successfully tour on its laurels whenever it wants? Why then, after releasing said album, which you will cheekily call Ukulele Songs, would you book a month’s-worth of shows that will all sell out almost immediately? Why foist all of this upon a fanbase that’s gracefully aging right along with you and is thus a little more malleable than either of you were in your mid-twenties, a little more open-minded, a little more down for whatever? The answer, clearly, is “Why not?”...full text |
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