10 Greatest Hard Rock Songs Of The 1990s
4. Alive - Pearl Jam
At the start of the '90s, the entire rock scene seemed to be standing at Mother Love Bone's feet. After making a name for themselves in the Seattle scene, their brand of arena ready rock and roll felt like the future of rock, until Andy Wood succumbed to a heroin overdose shortly before their debut record came out. While that should signal the demise of any other band, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament soldiered on and made history with the help of Eddie Vedder.
Forming the basis of what would become Pearl Jam, the genesis of the band began with Alive, which turned into one of the most cathartic songs of the '90s. Written around the trauma of Vedder finding out who his real father was, the whole song feels like a throwback to classic rock, with Gossard's riffs sounding like something you would hear out of an old Aerosmith record. This was all new though, and Eddie had just the kind of voice to sell it, with a slick baritone that became the norm for rock singers for the next decade.
The icing on the cake though has to be Mike McCready, who brought his influences of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix into the mix to create one of the single greatest guitar solos that the rock world had ever seen at that point. The song may have been a touch on the dark side, but it certainly lived up to its title. Now wasn't the time to mope...this was life affirming music.