PEARL JAM Ten Vinyl LP (1991) Debut Album

There are exactly two types of people: those who were changed by Ten, and those who came later and had to catch up. Released in 1991 and arriving like a freight train into the wreckage of hair metal, Pearl Jam's debut didn't just define a movement, it outlasted everyone else in it.

Vedder's baritone howl over McCready's coiled guitar work still hits with the same weight it did the first time. "Alive", "Black", "Porch", "Jeremy", the whole record plays like a document of something rupturing open. Grunge gets treated as a moment now, a footnote in a VH1 special, but Ten is proof it was a full emotional vocabulary. This is the 2018 reissue on vinyl, which means it actually sounds like it deserves to.

Format: vinyl LP. Full length album, reissue pressing 2018. Original release: 1991. Artist origin: USA. Genre: grunge. Side One: Once, Even Flow, Alive, Why Go, Black, Jeremy. Side Two: Oceans, Porch, Garden, Deep, Release.

Fans of: Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney