Pearl Jam

Editorial

Pearl Jam helped define the '90s. Rising up alongside Seattle's grunge movement at the start of the decade, they went on to conquer the world with a series of landmark albums. Ten, their debut LP, was released in 1991 and conquered the charts with a series of monster singles; Alive, Even Flow, Jeremy and more.

As the decade got underway in earnest, Pearl Jam and Nirvana would provide two distinct counterpoints of the grunge movement. While Kurt Cobain may not have been a fan - he famously told Eddie Vedder so to his face - millions of people did love Pearl Jam, and continue to do so. Since the release of Ten, nearly 20 years ago, the band has sold over 30 million albums in the US, another 30 million internationally. Indeed, the follow-up albums, Vs. and Vitalogy, sold even quicker than the debut, and with Cobain's death, Pearl Jam became the biggest band in the world.

The band spent much of the late '90s and this decade talking down their legacy and maintaining a low profile. As Rolling Stone wrote in 2006, Pearl Jam "spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame." They seem to have settled more comfortably into their legacy these days and the current tour finds them working through both the classics and showcasing tracks from their ninth studio album, Backspacer.
Mikolai, August 2009