Pearl Jam: Ten Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

Ten climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and has gone 13x platinum in the U.S. "Alive," "Even Flow," "Jeremy" and "Black" are all here, and Eddie Vedder wrote the lyrics to most of them over instrumental demos the band mailed him.

This edition

Epic / Legacy pressing
Original 11-song album, cover photo of the band's "all for one" salute

About the album

For a band originally assembled almost by accident from leftover parts from other bands, Pearl Jam has had a mighty fine run. And it all started here.

The Seattle quintet's debut album, Ten, wasn't an instant hit on delivery in August of 1991, but by the end of the following year (thanks to the sticky singles "Alive," "Even Flow" and "Jeremy") it had crept near the top of the Billboard album chart in the U.S. and established Pearl Jam as one of the Lollapalooza era's most formidable forces to be reckoned with. Not bad for a band of spare parts assembled from the ashes of Green River, Mother Love Bone and whatever other bands all involved had previously played in. Maybe luring Eddie Vedder and his sensitive-surfer-poet baritone into the fold was the key, maybe the Nevermind-adjacent timing was just right, maybe Pearl Jam was a classic-rock band rather than a "grunge" outfit all along despite the flannel shirts and Doc Martens but ... hey ... it worked. Ten is never going away. It is itself now a classic rock album.

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