10 Perfect Songs That Had To Wait Years To Become Hits

At the start of the '90s, Pearl Jam had the entire music world at their feet...and were absolutely pissed about it. Being a fairly introverted person off the stage, Eddie Vedder had always pictured his band to have a bit of a slow build like Pink Floyd or R.E.M., only to be thrown into the spotlight overnight once the grunge movement hit. Eddie couldn't control his sudden rise to fame, but he could control what kind of poppy songs made it onto the record.

After Vs. made for something a little heavier than Ten, records like Vitalogy were made with the intention of testing the band's audience, looking to lose some of their fairweather fans in the process with tracks like Stupidmop and Tremor Christ. When producer Brendan O'Brien starting digging through some band demos though, Better Man was everything they needed for a pop song, being a relic from Vedder's early days in the band Bad Radio, long before Pearl Jam had even formed.

Although the plan was to initially have this song as the centerpiece of Vs., Eddie was reluctant to record it and thought it would be better to give the song to Chrissie Hynde to sing instead on a tribute record. Since this was the 'anything goes' album though, the band settled on just cutting a barebones version of the song, which became the classic that we know today. Fame can be a bit tricky for people like Eddie, but you also need to realize when you have a genuine hit on your hands.