Over Three Decades Later, Fans Still Debate This Pearl Jam Classic

Pearl Jam has become one of the most innovative and recognizable voices in the rock genre over the past few decades, but it took some time for listeners to get adjusted to this pioneering band.

Despite becoming a breakthrough commercial success and landing multiple hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, Ten remains a point of contention among critics and long-time Pearl Jam fans.

Pearl Jam came together in Seattle, Washington in 1991 through several ambitious musicians who'd previously been involved with other groups that didn't quite find success. Bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard had previously played in a band called Mother Love Bone, and they essentially brought the rest of Pearl Jam together with local artists and rising talents.

Many of the songs on Ten were originally written as Mother Love Bone tracks, with vocalist Eddie Vedder coming up with new lyrics and melodies to fit the instrumentals. This gave the album a much stronger sense of classic rock than Pearl Jam would later be known for; it avoided the grunge influence that the band associated themselves with.

While the album's initial sales were slow, Ten eventually broke into the charts and received an RIAA gold certificaiton. It would eventually peak at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart and spent a cumulative 264 weeks on the charts.

Ten continued to sell throughout the '90s, often competing with Pearl Jam's later records that struggled to overtake it on the charts. In the decades since its release, Ten has become 13x certified platinum and sold 13 million copies in the United States (via Billboard).

The album's lead single, "Jeremy", ultimately became one of Pearl Jam's most beloved songs, with its anthemtic rock instrumentals and dense lyricism resonating with listeners around the globe. The single won Best Rock Song at the Grammys and was quickly picked up my MTV, who played the song frequently and increased Pearl Jam's publicity in the U.S.

While Ten remains Pearl Jam's most commercially successful studio album, it was met with mixed reviews from critics at the time—and is still considered overrated by some Pearl Jam fans. Though All Music and Uncut offered five-star reviews, publications like NME and Entertainment Weeklywere less impressed.

"[Ten] goes to show that just about anything can be harnessed and packaged," wrote David Browne in EW, suggesting the album falls short of Seattle grunge artists like Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. Angela Lewis of NME doubled down on the invalidity of these comparisons, accusing Pearl Jam of "trying to steal money from young alternative kids' pockets."