The 5 Best Songs to Bust out your Eddie Vedder Impression For

        There are many 90’s musicians who are fun to impersonate. Dave Matthews’ penchant for hitting unexpected and unnecessary high notes never gets old. I still can’t tell if Steve Jenkins’ delivery is the result of a speech impediment or a heavy California accent, but either way I’m here for it. And then there’s whatever the fuck Billy Corgan is doing. But the undisputed king of the bad impression is Eddie Vedder.

Despite being one of the most accomplished and talented musicians alive, and by all accounts a really great dude, no vocalist sends a crowd of dudes into low pitched incoherent wailing faster than Brother Ed. There’s really no bad song to sing in the style of Eddie Vedder, but here are the top 5:

1. Black

Black contains all the quintessential Vedder maneuvers. An initial low volume “HeeEEEEeeeeEEyyy” (a necessary vocal warmup before taking on some hardcore Vedder), a slow emotional buildup filled with just the right amount of oohs, and a dramatic finish where you get to yell “WHY?!?!” multiple times in a row. This song really allows you to get out there and explore the space. To test the outer limits of your Vedder voice. The only reason this song doesn’t rank higher is that it’s possibly the Pearl Jam's greatest song, and you are certainly ruining it with your shitty take on Ed's vocals.

4. Hunger Strike

This song does double duty as it also gives you an opportunity to try and fail to hit some Chris Cornell high notes. Not only is the operative word in each chorus a sustained ‘hey,” but you can either opt to switch back and forth between the Vedder and Cornell parts yourself, or perform this as a two man karaoke duet and instantly ruin everyone’s night.

3. I Only Wanna Be With You

Eddie Vedder didn’t technically sing this song, but your Vedder impression works just as well for it. In fact, there’s a whole subgenre of 90’s music that a Vedder impression does the trick for, and if there are subtle differences, it does matter. You’re not doing it well anyway.

2. Even Flow

It’s the transition from lot two note phrase to rapid fire lyrics that make this song prime for a bad imitation. If you actually know the verse lyrics, I’m sorry your dating life is so bleak. For the rest of us, the degree of difficulty is a free pass to abandon any pretense of accuracy and just make vague guttural noises in the something approaching the melody.

1. Alive

The key to a successful Vedder is holding those elongated vowels and using as few consonants as possible along the way. The chorus of Alive allows you to hit almost every note in your limited range before having to mouth anything approaching a full word. The jammy outro even gives you an opportunity to make some dramatic groaning noises over a sick guitar solo. I highly recommend freestyling this last part, put the whole damn routine on display, everyone within hearing distance already disdains you anyway.

There you have it, the best songs to use break out your Vedder voice for.