Reception
"Black" became one of Pearl Jam's best known songs and is a central emotional piece on the album Ten. Despite pressure from Epic Records, the band refused to make it into a single, feeling that it was too personal and the feeling of it would be lost by a video or a single release. Vedder stated that "fragile songs get crushed by the business. I don't want to be a part of it. I don't think the band wants to be part of it." Vedder personally called radio station managers to make sure Epic had not released the song as a single against his wishes. In spite of this, the song charted at number three on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number 20 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart in 1993. The popularity of "Black" gained it everlasting rotation, putting it amongst Pearl Jam's most enduring songs.
Stephen M. Deusner of Pitchfork Media said, "On songs like...'Black,' with strangely dramatic vocalizations, there's a hardscrabble dynamic that the band would be unable to capture on subsequent releases."
In March 2009, "Black" was made available as downloadable content for the Rock Band series as a master track as part of the album Ten. The song was featured in the Cold Case episode "Into the Blue" in 2009.
In May 2011, "Black" was voted the 9th best Ballad of all time by readers of Rolling Stone magazine.
Read more about this topic: Black (Pearl Jam Song)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)