10 Rock Music Debuts That Changed The Game

10. Ten - Pearl Jam

The minute that grunge hit the airwaves, you knew that all of the hair metal that had polluting MTV for the past few years was going to become a thing of the past. Acts like Warrant were starting to look way too artificial at this point, and bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden were going to take rock in a bold new direction with riffs that were a lot more sludgy than before. While the rest of Seattle was getting a little more gutteral, Pearl Jam hadn't forgotten the music that raised them either.

Throughout most of Ten, you do get the impression of the grunge era in the production, but the real appeal is the kind of '70s throwback sounds present here as well. Almost constructed like a Led Zeppelin record at points, Stone Gossard's riffs are already ready to fill out massive stadiums, from the opening sounds of Alive to the groovy as hell trip that comes on Even Flow. Arena rock is just one side of this though, and you can hear every member putting a different spin on their sound, like Eddie Vedder's punk side coming out on Why Go and Mike McCready tapping into some Stevie Ray Vaughan style blues licks.

There was a healthy respect for the past here, but their roots were always in Seattle, and a song like Once or Garden could be studied as perfect examples of what grunge was all about in the first place. It was noisy, angry, and a little bit scary if you weren't prepared for it, but you couldn't deny the heart that went into making it either.