10 Perfect Rock Albums That Almost Destroyed Bands
4. Vitalogy - Pearl Jam
The mid '90s were an absolutely glorious time to be in the alternative rock scene. Though we were about to be shaken to our core by the death of Kurt Cobain, the sounds of everyone from the Smashing Pumpkins to Green Day were still some of the defining sounds of the decade. Irony was booming, the record sales were skyrocketing, and every member of Pearl Jam was absolutely pissed.
After already dealing with personal tensions between the band members, PJ were already road weary from going toe to toe with Ticketmaster for what they thought to be unfair prices for concert tickets for their fans. Since Eddie Vedder wasn't the biggest fan of attention to begin with, this record almost feels like it's trying its best not to be commercial, with random interludes that are too weird for their own good like Bugs and Pry To.
Even the other band members weren't too sure of the finished product when it eventually came out, but that didn't stop them from creating some of their most eclectic songs yet, from the blend of acoustic and electric on Corduroy to the punk rock bombast of Spin the Black Circle. The first wave of grunge may have been coming to an end, but that didn't mean that Pearl Jam had stopped being interesting.