10 Perfect Albums That Will Make You Love Alternative Rock

Part of the appeal of the grunge revolution in the early '90s was how fresh it sounded compared to what we had already gotten. The era of Poison and Motley Crue were firmly out the door, and this was the kind of organic rock and roll that most of us needed to hear. Though things were more than a little bit dark though, Pearl Jam's first record gave us a throwback to the glory days of rock and roll.

As far as the grunge heavyweights are concerned, this is the kind of record that could win over the classic rock snobs of the world. Across every track on here, you can see them wearing their influences on their sleeves, whether that's when they're doing ballads on songs like Black or laying down a funkier take on rock and roll with the song Even Flow. In fact, the music is the biggest contradiction here, considering most of Eddie Vedder's lyrics deal with topics that no one would have thought about touching, like teen suicide in Jeremy or a girl being disowned by her family after acting out on Why Go.

If these words were on any other album, they would have been shunned immediately, but when they're brought to the level of arena rock, it doesn't even matter what kind of words you have in front of you. While there's a lot of morbid stuff on here, it somehow makes you feel more alive for having listened to it.