10 Most Important Hard Rock Bands Of The 90s

Out of all the bands to come out of the Seattle scene, it almost felt like Pearl Jam didn't fit in all that well. From some of their peers calling them too mainstream, the band still had the same values as the rest of their Seattle brethren, looking to just make the kind of music they wanted to make regardless of what was popular on MTV. When you listen back to an album like Ten though, this is practically a '70s band in '90s clothing from back to front.

While that sounds a little strange at the outset, take a listen to something like Alive. As much as this screams early '90s right now, it doesn't have that many differences between songs that Led Zeppelin would have come out with in their prime, complete with the Paul Rodgers-like voice of Eddie Vedder and the bluesy licks of Mike McCready. If anything, Pearl Jam was a good crossover act for mainstream rock fans, being catchy enough to sing along to while also being lyrically dense enough for the alternative kids to take in.

That wasn't the only string to their bow at the time, and the later albums like Vs. and Vitalogy were examples of just how eccentric they can get, even going full on punk on some tracks like Blood and Go. Whereas most Seattle bands were trying to push the rock genre forward, Pearl Jam at least had a lot of respect for their heroes when it came time to write their own material.