10 Perfect Hard Rock Albums That Are Insanely Dark

A lot of grunge fans tend to forget just how dark the early '90s was starting to become for rock music. Since most of the '80s involved bands that were too neon colored to be taken seriously anymore, the alternative kids made up for it by going in the exact opposite direction for their music. Even when becoming staples of classic rock radio, do people still need to be explained that Pearl Jam's Ten is not really kid-friendly?

Granted, people may have let this slide because they couldn't figure out what Eddie Vedder was even saying half of the time. Once you actually get the lyrics in front of you, there's a lot of uncomfortable stuff to unpack here. While you do have breakup songs like Black, you've also got Once detailing a killing spree, Alive's tale of a mother trying to seduce her son, and Jeremy's lovely little tale about a kid committing suicide in front of his classmates.

And the crowds absolutely ate it up too, becoming one of the greatest albums of '91 and even going toe to toe with Nirvana's Nevermind for a little while in terms of raw sales. In terms of promotion though, we should be thankful that songs like Alive was just given the live video treatment. Because anyone making a conceptual music video about all of these songs would probably need to seek some professional help afterwards.