Several elements come together in this video, most notably a mix of live/performance footage with a car racing through the desert and an adrift astronaut downtown.
While music video production has slowed down amidst the COVID-19 pandemic — although a restart appears on the near horizon — it's a good time to revisit this re-released, remastered and now uncensored version of Pearl Jam's 1992 classic "Jeremy" video that has essentially never been seen before. This original cut increases all the power of the original, making clearer the effects of bullying, teen suicide and the easy availability of guns.
Director/Photographer Danny Clinch isn't the only one with a role in this short film. Interviewers include Judd Apatow, Portlandia star and fellow musician Carrie Brownstein, pro surfer Mark Richards, and Steve Gleason, an NFL player living with ALS. An unlikely group, but they get the band to open up more than you might expect, and Clinch gets very close, thanks to his longterm association with the band.
Methinks Pearl Jam has tired of being called "notoriously video shy." "Sirens" is the second video to precede new album Lightning Bolt and it's bascially a beautifully shot performance — that I would make an educated guess also has live audio — of the band in their stage set-up.
Any Pearl Jam video is an event for the simple reason they made one of the greatest videos of their generation — Mark Pellington's masterful and never to be imitated "Jeremy" — and then basically walked away from the medium.
