From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1990. One of the key bands in the grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries from the early 1990s, and is considered one of the most influential bands from that decade, dubbed "the most popular American rock and roll band of the '90s". Since 1998, the band's lineup has comprised bassist Jeff Ament, guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, vocalist/guitarist Eddie Vedder and drummer Matt Cameron; keyboardist Boom Gaspar has also been a session and touring member with the band since 2002. Drummers Dave Krusen, Matt Chamberlain, Dave Abbruzzese, and Jack Irons are former members of the band.

Formed after the demise of Gossard and Ament's previous bands, Green River and Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with their debut album - Ten - in 1991. Ten stayed on the US Billboard 200 chart for nearly five years, and has gone on to become one of the highest-selling rock albums ever, being certified 13× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Released in 1993, Pearl Jam's second album, Vs., sold over 950,000 copies in its first week of release, setting the record for most copies of an album sold in its first week of release at the time. Their third album, Vitalogy (1994), became the second-fastest-selling CD in history at the time, with more than 877,000 units sold in its first week.

Pearl Jam's members often shunned popular music industry practices such as making music videos or participating in interviews. The band sued Ticketmaster in 1994, claiming it had monopolized the concert-ticket market. In 2006, Rolling Stone described the band as having "spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame".

Pearl Jam had sold more than 100 million albums worldwide by 2018, including nearly 32 million albums in the United States by 2012, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 in its first year of eligibility. They were ranked eighth in a readers' poll by Rolling Stone magazine in its "Top Ten Live Acts of All Time" issue. Throughout its career, the band has promoted wider social and political issues, such as abortion rights sentiments and opposition to George W. Bush's presidency, with Vedder acting as its spokesman on these issues.

Full article: Pearl Jam