Product Description

TEN, Pearl Jam's debut album, was released less than a month before Nirvana's NEVERMIND, and although it took longer toclimb the pop charts it also hung around longer, eventuallyoutselling its Seattle rival. Together, the two albums reinvigorated rock and roll, whose share of the pop marketplace had been slipping through the late 1980s. But while Nirvana's bruising punk rock was an all-out assault on the classic-rock dinosaur, Pearl Jam's accomplished hard rock was an attack from within the system.
The drawn-out, bluesy guitar riffing and anthemic choruses that dominated TEN instantly gave away roots in the same popular hard rock and heavy metal that Nirvana was intent on crushing. Indeed, before forming Pearl Jam, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament (who between them wrote most of the music on TEN) were the core of two '70s-influenced metal bands, Green River and MotherLove Bone. But in place of the self-aggrandising, larger-than-life singers that led most such bands, Gossard and Ament found Eddie Vedder, a ravage-voiced vocalist more apt to identify with the abused and misunderstood children he was singing about than with any other rock stars. When he exploded into one of TEN's many memorable choruses, Vedder offered transcendence for the people who needed it most.
The storyline of the album's breakthrough single, "Jeremy", was typically vague and elusive (despite a highly suggestive video), but the message was not. The meek and the misunderstood, PearlJam seemed to be saying, would rise and inherit the world, even if it was only a world of their own invention.

Track Listing

1. Once
2. Even Flow
3. Alive
4. Why Go
5. Black
6. Jeremy
7. Oceans
8. Porch
9. Garden
10. Deep
11. Release
12. Master/Slave

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1398 in Music
• Released on: 2002-12-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks

Customer Reviews

The Debut
There are a lot of reviews on this album, time and time again Nevermind seems to stretch its fuzzy head and look over, all I can say is ,to me Nevermind has some good tracks and Ten has some brilliant. its impossible to even compare them with each other, a bit like saying Grand Funk Railroad ( early years ) were like the Mahavishnu orchestra. total difference Pearl Jam are a clever group of musicians who write play and express themselves perfectly, the Nevermind crew had a few catchy riffs.

Just plain excellent
I've known of Pearl Jam for many years, but have only heard Vitalogy previously which is OK without any real stand-out tracks, plus the iconic 'Alive' from this album. However, having read the recommendations in Amazon I decided to take a punt and after only one listen I'm really glad that I did. It sounds fresh with great vocals and heavy guitars: classic rock and miles better than the drivel played on the readily-available channels. Chalk one up for the oldies!

Great album, or greatest album ever?
In 1991 the greatest ever grunge album and indeed one of the greatest albums of all time was released; but not many people realised. One year later the album finally made it's mark climbing it's way to the high end of the billboard charts and staying their; for 2 years (eventually outselling Nirvana's Nevermind). So, why was it able to do this? Well, simply because its an amazing album. No fillers, just 11 great tracks. Opening with the harder material of Once, Alive and Even Flow and finishing on the softer Release the album is arranged beautifully (my favourite bit being when Why Go follows onto Black). Often dubbed as a dark album Ten is a rather moving album with each song bearing enormous weight. Execution of the songs may have troubled most people but Vedder's amazing and varied voice tackles it with ease. Each song gets a at least a 9 or 10/10, but gun to my head the highlights for me are Jeremy and Garden. Ten is 11 great songs perfectly arranged into a masterpiece albums. The bonues tracks on this edition are also pretty sweet. Most bands couldn't produce a Best of album this good. You may never need buy another album again.