If Pearl Jam existed in the Dragon Ball universe, what characters would be a fan of the band’s music?

[DLJL731980]

Obviously they either only listen to Japanese music or no music at all…but if Pearl Jam existed in the Dragon Ball universe, what characters could you see liking the band’s music and why?

[TheatreStyleKai]

I could see either the Turtle Hermit or Dr. Brief listening to Pearl Jam, considering they're both boomers with hi-fi stereo systems.

[VegettoEX]

I could see either the Turtle Hermit or Dr. Brief listening to Pearl Jam, considering they're both boomers with hi-fi stereo systems.

Uhhh eldest of eldest possible millennials here representing contemporary listenings of Pearl Jam from the beginning. Boomers generally weren't listening to Pearl Jam then and wouldn't be listening to Pearl Jam now except in the rare cases when the classic rock stations have moved on to inserting the occasional 90s song.

If Capsule Corp. was founded in Age 712, and that was after Brief got his doctorate, that means he was in his early- to mid-30s at that time. When do we assume Pearl Jam came out in the Dragon World? Contemporary with the time that Goku meets Bulma? That's Age 749. I don't think Brief is listening to contemporary grunge at that point. He'd have to be pretty damn cool and intentionally with it.

Then again, I dunno man, I get the impression that Brief and his wife have some pretty wild arrangements and allowances and that dude seems like he's down for whatever.

So yeah, I take it back. Brief's favorite album is the objectively best Pearl Jam album, which is Vitalogy, and I will allow no arguments to the contrary.

[jjgp1112]

If we equate DBs calendar with the Dr. Slump calendar, then Pearl Jam would've been in its peak popularity during the 5 year gap between the 23rd Tournament and Raditzs arrival. I bet Yamcha would've been rocking out. If Tien was remotely interested in anything besides fighting he'd probably be a huge fan

(Fittingly, this means the Saiyan and Namek sagas takes place in the exact years they first aired on US television )

[PurestEvil]

Obviously they either only listen to Japanese music or no music at all…but if Pearl Jam existed in the Dragon Ball universe, what characters could you see liking the band’s music and why?

Bulma would probably have listened to it tbh. FWIW I remember a moment in the anime when Bulma drove up to her house and met Goku with the cop and she was apparently listening to rock music on a radio.

[MasenkoHA]

I could see either the Turtle Hermit or Dr. Brief listening to Pearl Jam, considering they're both boomers with hi-fi stereo systems.

My dude the last of the boomers was 1964. Pearl Jam would mostly be a gen x and older millennial band.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Any characters like Mr Satan that can scream they're still alive after everything the Earth endured.

[JulieYBM]

Showing my total lack of knowledge on the subject by somehow having lived in the Seattle area my entire life and not knowing that Pearl Jam is both a band from Seattle and also not being familiar with their music.

[Super Sonic]

Showing my total lack of knowledge on the subject by somehow having lived in the Seattle area my entire life and not knowing that Pearl Jam is both a band from Seattle and also not being familiar with their music.

Same area, but not as familiar as early 90s was living in the hood. Wasn't really bumping their music back then.

On topic, maybe Yamcha, as was at the time of grunge era when Cell Saga was running I think.

[capsulecorp]

which dragon ball characters listen to classic 90s jungle? i can imagine future trunks getting into it, if he can find albums in the rubble.

what does mr satan listen to?

[JulieYBM]

Showing my total lack of knowledge on the subject by somehow having lived in the Seattle area my entire life and not knowing that Pearl Jam is both a band from Seattle and also not being familiar with their music.

Same area, but not as familiar as early 90s was living in the hood. Wasn't really bumping their music back then.

On topic, maybe Yamcha, as was at the time of grunge era when Cell Saga was running I think.

I swear, I saw you at Sakura Con 2018-2019, actually. Just never said hi IRL since I was still boymoding lol.

I wonder if the MoPoP has an exhibit?

[Cursed Lemon]

There are so many "I'm still alive" jokes here

[Kunzait_83]

I could see either the Turtle Hermit or Dr. Brief listening to Pearl Jam, considering they're both boomers with hi-fi stereo systems.

I get that the term "Boomer" has evolved/devolved to mean just "old person" in some vague, non-descript, generic sense: but in the interest of humoring this... incredibly random, absurdly bizarre thread topic with something that at least sort of approaches a straight answer:

"Boomer" is derived from the term "Baby Boomer", which in turn is meant to describe an actual, very specific age demographic of people: those born between roughly the mid 1940s and the mid 1960s, the 20 or so years immediately following World War II.

Most actual, legitimate Boomer music generally encompasses music anywhere from the 1950s through the 1970s (and with some overlap into the 1980s somewhat if we push it a bit: most 80s Yacht Rock and assorted Yuppie-friendly music you might find in Patrick Bateman or Gordon Gekko's CD collection would generally still be considered very late Boomer music): so very early & classic rock and roll, Motown, Doo Wop, vintage Disco, maybe some Adult Alternative, and so forth. Think anywhere from the time of Elvis and Little Richard up through to somewhere between Disco Demolition and Hall & Oates.

Pearl Jam, by contrast, came to prominence in the VERY early 1990s as part of the at the time still burgeoning Grunge genre of music: which in itself is really just a surface-level rebranding of the kind of alternative rock & roll sound that had emerged from the Hardcore Punk Rock scene of the 1980s. Early Grunge is effectively just late 80s hardcore punk with some mainstream polish as well as some elements from artsy, experimental noise rock that also came about concurrently in the 80s (and overlapped a great deal with hardcore of the time).

Music genres like 80s hardcore punk and early 90s grunge are really not at all Boomer music: they're very much firmly Gen X music. Gen X is the generation immediately following Boomers, born anywhere from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Gen X was then followed by Millennials (born anywhere from the mid-80s to the late-ish 90s or thereabouts, and who made up much of the bulk of this community here for a very long time), then Zoomers (the current youth zeitgeist who are now currently supplanting millennials as the dominant voice in spaces like this place here).

(Full disclosure: I myself am partly a Gen X'er. I was born basically exactly dead on the cut off point, and much of my formative youth was spent eyeball deep in Gen X counterculture while my latter teens and adult years were spent experiencing the post-millennial transition into where we are now currently in real time. Which makes me technically what's called a "Xennial": someone who grew up with one foot in Gen X, and one foot in the Millennial camp. One foot in the analog age, and one foot in the digital age. What this basically means for me in practice is that I have the pop cultural background and sensibilities of a Gen X'er, the social mores of a Millennial, and an overall historical framework that's very much an almost evenly split hybrid blend of the two.)

While there actually were SOME Boomers at the time who did get into Grunge and the late 80s/early 90s punk and alt musical scenes, they very much were not at all the norm. The kind of punk and punk-adjacent music scenes that birthed bands like Pearl Jam were overwhelmingly decidedly Gen X-centric. Circa 1990/1991, a band like Pearl Jam would've been considered (at least in the mainstream: much less so in more ardent hardcore/underground circles) to be incredibly hip and cutting edge.

Pearl Jam's rise to mainstream success was very much contemporaneous IRL with the Z era of DB in its original run. So for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to treat the ages of the characters in early Z as analogous to the age of the youth zeitgeist in the early 90s. Meaning that a large majority of the core cast are effectively Gen X'ers for all intents and purposes.

So given that historical context: which characters in the series would have the age, social, and geographical markers for someone who would've likely gotten into a band like Pearl Jam during the peak of their mainstream stardom?

Two of the biggest, most glaringly obvious likely answers here are Yamucha and Bulma. Both of them are right smack in the exact age range (in their mid-20s more or less), and both are very urban and socially plugged in characters who'd be into a lot of the latest fashions, trends, and pop cultural movements. Those two are almost givens.

Kuririn's an iffy maybe. He's certainly in just the right age range, and he's at least a lot more socially aware than someone like Goku is: but he's also kind of a dork and super awkward, and he'd probably be much more into a band like Weezer before he'd be into one like Pearl Jam. But its certainly possible with him for sure, maybe.

Goku's an almost definite no however, for several reasons. A) He's a total fucking backwoods hillbilly who doesn't in any way keep up on anything current or contemporarily cultural. And B) his whole life is almost singularly devoted to martial arts training. The same goes for Tenshinhan and to a lesser extent Chaozu.

All three of those characters all live essentially almost borderline monastic lives (ironic, considering Kuririn's childhood background), and spend untold numbers of months/years up in the mountains in the middle of assfuck nowhere training and honing their kung fu and their ki noon to night. And when he isn't training, Goku in particular seems much more concerned with things like farming and food/eating. If he listens to anything music-wise, it'd probably be a bugfuck random grab-bag mix of god-knows what, much of it probably years and years out of date.

Given his slightly older age, Vegeta might well actually be a VERY young, late-end Boomer rather than an X'er, at least relative to much of the main cast. I don't think he'd be a "fan" per se, but I could maybe see him liking some of Pearl Jam's heavier tracks (its a somewhat later song of theirs, but something like Do the Evolution seems like it might be something slightly up someone like Vegeta's alley). Maybe. He'd probably be listening more to something like Motorhead or Pantera though. Even if we disregard his GT portrayal, Vegeta always gave me more "motorcycle/biker thug" vibes.

Here's a fun swerve: while Roshi is much older than a Boomer (physically-speaking, he passes for being of the Greatest Generation: but since he's a Sennin/Xian several hundreds of years old, he's obviously much, much older than even that), I could actually see him playing and head banging along to a band like Pearl Jam: if only to stay up to date on what the young chicks are currently listening to. He's certainly always carried himself like someone who's much more modern and pop culturally aware than a lot of the other principal cast members are.

#17 and #18 are also very likely gimmes probably for Pearl Jam listeners. In both age, social awareness, and overall sensibilities, they're both almost a dead certainty to at least be casual Pearl Jam listeners at a minimum. Even Flow seems like the kind of song someone like #17 might blast while joyriding around in whatever stolen hotrod he's snagged from some poor schmuck, and I could see someone like #18 really liking songs like Jeremy or Black.

Gohan's probably a no, if mainly because of how sheltered he is and what a tight, helicopter-parent's leash Chi Chi keeps him on. I don't see him even being into that kind of music even just purely in terms of his personal sensibilities: in some ways, he's an even bigger dork than someone like Kuririn is. He'd probably listen more to bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, or Ben Folds Five, or maybe even Superchunk by the time he gets to high school in the Boo arc. He strikes me as like a 1st wave, proto-Emo kid (of the more Math Rock-ish variety, not like the My Chemical Romance or Paramore types that most folks today generally associate with Emo: that stuff would be well after Gohan's time, since he's an early to mid 90s kid).

Piccolo... would Piccolo even like ANY music? Like at all? If he did (and even that seems a reach), it almost certainly wouldn't be something like Pearl Jam. Hell, with his hearing issues with high pitched noises, I could actually see Gohan playfully tormenting him with bands like Melt Banana just to be an ass.

Trunks and Goten are solidly millennials: despite being a Xennial (and thus at least partially a millennial myself) when it comes to music - or for that matter virtually just about almost damn near ANYTHING pop cultural, like movies, TV, etc. but especially music - I tend to be pretty solidly divorced from a lot of what millennials are usually into. Most anyone else here who has any musical knowledge is probably better equipped than I am to diagnose the hypothetical real life-equivalent musical tastes of two pint-sized millennial kids: fictional cartoon ones or otherwise. Either way, no I highly doubt they'd be into Pearl Jam and would likely consider them to be "Boomer music". My best outside guess is they're either listening to Brittney Spears, Nu Metal, or maybe just solely video game soundtracks.

Future Trunks however might actually be into Pearl Jam though: he's certainly a whole helluva lot more mature than his present day counterpart. And even though he's from 20 years in the future, he's certainly designed with the aesthetic sensibilities that are much more in line with Gen X youth culture in the early to mid 90s. So I dunno: he probably would like Vitalogy quite a lot I'd bet.

Chi Chi's a solid no. She's way, WAY too much of a midwestern soccer mom, and she's almost as backwoods as Goku is to boot.

Mr. Satan I doubt is a "fan", but he might have a few notable tracks somewhere in his playlist. Not out of the realm of possibility, even though he's slightly outside of the age range. Videl seems solidly likely to be more of an actual fan though.

And yeah, I'll concur with Mike: Mrs. Briefs almost certainly would listen to them, and thus by extension would Dr. Briefs, since he's very much of a deferential "Yeah, whatever makes her happy I guess" sort of guy in that marriage.

...I am clearly very, VERY bored out of my mind right now to be putting anywhere remotely near this much thought into this fucking ridiculous thread.

[MasenkoHA]

On the subject of Goten and Trunks. Goten is listening to whatever Kidz Bop or Glee cds Chi Chi will buy for him and Trunks is on YouTube listening to popular music before his time commenting “I’m only 8 but I listen to this. I wish I lived in this generation my generation sucks they don’t make music like this”

[JulieYBM]

On the subject of Goten and Trunks. Goten is listening to whatever Kidz Bop or Glee cds Chi Chi will buy for him and Trunks is on YouTube listening to popular music before his time commenting “I’m only 8 but I listen to this. I wish I lived in this generation my generation sucks they don’t make music like this”

God, Trunks sounds like the most obnoxious little cuss ever.

[PurestEvil]

On the subject of Goten and Trunks. Goten is listening to whatever Kidz Bop or Glee cds Chi Chi will buy for him and Trunks is on YouTube listening to popular music before his time commenting “I’m only 8 but I listen to this. I wish I lived in this generation my generation sucks they don’t make music like this”

God, Trunks sounds like the most obnoxious little cuss ever.

He'd probably be watching and making those comments on Queen or Michael Jackson music videos exclusively

[jjgp1112]

snip

If you go by Dr. Slump time, Goku and the gang were all born in 67-72, which indeed makes them PRIME Gen X'ers

Also going by Dr. Slump time, me and Gohan are the exact same age ('92) which would put him as a young millenial. Big Linkin Park energy from Gohan.

But if you're being more accurate to DB's time period though, Gohan is either Xennial/Elder millenial like you said. And so more accurately, Goten and Trunks would be the Linkin Park guys lol. I could see Goten into more pop-friendly stuff while Trunks is a trashy nu-metal kid (though nu-metal is more of a younger Gen X - elder millenial thing.)

Also: Vegeta's only a year older than Bulma, but yeah I'd see Heavy Metal being more his thing. Big late 80s Metallica energy from him.

[JulieYBM]

On the subject of Goten and Trunks. Goten is listening to whatever Kidz Bop or Glee cds Chi Chi will buy for him and Trunks is on YouTube listening to popular music before his time commenting “I’m only 8 but I listen to this. I wish I lived in this generation my generation sucks they don’t make music like this”

God, Trunks sounds like the most obnoxious little cuss ever.

He'd probably be watching and making those comments on Queen or Michael Jackson music videos exclusively

Lawd! Listen, unless Trunks wants to come out as a bisexual man he is NOT allowed to be an obnoxious Queen fan.

[MasenkoHA]

,
Also going by Dr. Slump time, me and Gohan are the exact same age ('92) which would put him as a young millenial. Big Linkin Park energy from Gohan.

What I’ve Done be playing in his head rent free when he kamehameha’ing Cell

[jjgp1112]

,
Also going by Dr. Slump time, me and Gohan are the exact same age ('92) which would put him as a young millenial. Big Linkin Park energy from Gohan.

What I’ve Done be playing in his head rent free when he kamehameha’ing Cell

Cell Games was 2002, so more like With You