Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, guitar), Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), and Mike McCready (lead guitar). The band's current drummer is Matt Cameron, also of Soundgarden, who has been with the band since 1998.

Formed after the demise of Ament and Gossard's previous band, Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with its debut album, Ten. One of the key bands of the grunge movement in the early 1990s, Pearl Jam was criticized early on as being a corporate cash-in on the alternative rock explosion. However, over the course of the band's career its members became noted for their refusal to adhere to traditional music industry practices, including refusing to make music videos and engaging in a much-publicised boycott of Ticketmaster. In 2006, Rolling Stone described the band as having "spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame."[2]

Since its inception, the band has sold over thirty million records in the U.S.,[3] and an estimated sixty million worldwide.[4][5] Pearl Jam has outlasted many of its contemporaries from the alternative rock breakthrough of the early 1990s, and is considered one of the most influential bands of the decade.[6] Allmusic refers to Pearl Jam as "the most popular American rock & roll band of the '90s.

Background information
Also known as	Mookie Blaylock
Origin	Seattle, Washington, United States
Genres	Alternative rock, grunge, post-grunge, hard rock[1]
Years active	1990–present
Labels	Monkeywrench, Universal Music Group, J, Epic
Associated acts	Green River, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, Skin Yard, Brad, Hovercraft, Wellwater Conspiracy, Mad Season, Neil Young
Website	pearljam.com
Members
Eddie Vedder Mike McCready Stone Gossard Jeff Ament Matt Cameron
Past members
Dave Krusen Matt Chamberlain Dave Abbruzzese Jack Irons

Dealing with success: 1993–1995 :

The band members grew uncomfortable with their success, with much of the burden of Pearl Jam's popularity falling on frontman Vedder.[10] While Pearl Jam received four awards at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards for its video for "Jeremy", including Video of the Year and Best Group Video, the band refused to make a video for "Black" in spite of pressure by the label. This action began a trend of the band refusing to make videos for its songs, despite it being common knowledge that music videos were one of the most vital sales tools any band had in its arsenal. However, Vedder felt that the concept of music videos robbed the listener from creating their own interpretation of the song stating that, “Before music videos first came out, you’d listen to a song with headphones on, sitting in a beanbag chair with your eyes closed, and you’d come up with your own visions, these things that came from within. Then all of a sudden, sometimes even the very first time you heard a song, it was with these visual images attached, and it robbed you of any form of self-expression.” [28] "Ten years from now," Ament said, "I don't want people to remember our songs as videos."[10]

Pearl Jam headed into the studio in early 1993 facing the challenge of following up the commercial success of its debut. McCready said, "The band was blown up pretty big and everything was pretty crazy."[29] Released on October 19, 1993, Pearl Jam's second album, Vs., sold 950,378 copies in its first week of release and outperformed all other entries in the Billboard top ten that week combined.[30] This set the record for most copies of an album sold in its first week of release.[31] Vs. held this record for five years before it was broken by Garth Brooks' 1998 album, Double Live.[32] It held the record in the rock genre for 7 years until 2000 when Limp Bizkit released Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.[33] Vs. included the singles "Go", "Daughter", "Animal", and "Dissident". Paul Evans of Rolling Stone said, "Few American bands have arrived more clearly talented than this one did with Ten; and Vs. tops even that debut." He added, "Like Jim Morrison and Pete Townshend, Vedder makes a forte of his psychological-mythic explorations... As guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready paint dense and slashing backdrops, he invites us into a drama of experiment and strife."[34] The band decided, beginning with the release of Vs., to scale back its commercial efforts.[35] The members declined to produce any more music videos after the massive success of "Jeremy" and opted for fewer interviews and television appearances. Industry insiders compared Pearl Jam's tour that year to the touring habits of Led Zeppelin, in that the band "ignored the press and took its music directly to the fans."[36] During the Vs. Tour, the band set a cap on ticket prices in an attempt to thwart scalpers.[37]

By 1994, Pearl Jam was "fighting on all fronts", as its manager described the band at the time.[38] Pearl Jam was outraged when, after it played a pair of shows in Chicago, Illinois, it discovered that ticket vendor Ticketmaster had added a service charge to the tickets. The United States Department of Justice was investigating the company's practices at the time and asked the band to create a memorandum of its experiences with the company. Gossard and Ament soon testified at a subcommittee investigation in Washington, D.C.[39] The band eventually canceled its 1994 summer tour in protest.[40] After the Justice Department dropped the case, Pearl Jam continued to boycott Ticketmaster, refusing to play venues that had contracts with the company.[41] Music critic Jim DeRogatis noted that along with the Ticketmaster debacle, "the band has refused to release singles or make videos; it has demanded that its albums be released on vinyl; and it wants to be more like its '60s heroes, The Who, releasing two or three albums a year." He also stated that sources said that most of the band's third album Vitalogy was completed by early 1994, but that either a forced delay by Epic or the battle with Ticketmaster were to blame for the delay.[38]

Pearl Jam wrote and recorded while touring behind Vs. and the majority of the tracks for its next album, Vitalogy, were recorded during breaks on the tour. Tensions within the band had dramatically increased by this time. Producer Brendan O'Brien said, "Vitalogy was a little strained. I'm being polite—there was some imploding going on."[18] After Pearl Jam finished the recording of Vitalogy, drummer Dave Abbruzzese was fired. The band cited political differences between Abbruzzese and the other members; for example, Abbruzzese disagreed with the Ticketmaster boycott.[18] He was replaced by Jack Irons, a close friend of Vedder and the former and original drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Irons made his debut with the band at Neil Young's 1994 Bridge School Benefit, but he was not officially announced as the band's new drummer until its 1995 Self-Pollution satellite radio broadcast, a four-and-a-half hour long pirate broadcast out of Seattle which was available to any radio stations that wanted to carry it.[42]

Vitalogy was released first on November 22, 1994 on vinyl and then two weeks later on December 6, 1994 on CD and cassette. The CD became the second-fastest-selling in history, with more than 877,000 units sold in its first week.[15] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic said that "thanks to its stripped-down, lean production, Vitalogy stands as Pearl Jam's most original and uncompromising album."[43] Many of the songs on the album appear to be based around the pressures of fame.[44] The song "Spin the Black Circle", an homage to vinyl records, won a Grammy Award in 1996 for Best Hard Rock Performance. Vitalogy also included the songs "Not for You", "Corduroy", "Better Man", and "Immortality". "Better Man" (sample (info)), a song originally written and performed by Vedder while in Bad Radio, reached number one on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, spending a total of eight weeks there. Considered a "blatantly great pop song" by producer Brendan O'Brien, Pearl Jam was reluctant to record it and had initially rejected it from Vs. due to its accessibility.[18]

The band continued its boycott against Ticketmaster during its 1995 tour for Vitalogy, but was surprised that virtually no other bands joined in.[45] Pearl Jam's initiative to play only at non-Ticketmaster venues effectively, with a few exceptions, prevented it from playing shows in the United States for the next three years.[46] Ament later said, "We were so hardheaded about the 1995 tour. Had to prove we could tour on our own, and it pretty much killed us, killed our career."[18] In the same year Pearl Jam backed Neil Young, whom the band had noted as an influence, on his album Mirror Ball. Contractual obligations prevented the use of the band's name anywhere on the album, but the members were all credited individually in the album's liner notes.[7] Two songs from the sessions were left off Mirror Ball: "I Got Id" and "Long Road". These two tracks were released separately by Pearl Jam in the form of the 1995 EP, Merkin Ball.