Ten

Pearl Jam were the historically continuous wing of the Seattle movement. Nirvana sounded like rupture; Ten sounds like a long-established rock vocabulary surviving into a new decade, newly dressed and carrying more interesting things to say. That helps explain why the album’s reception in Britain was cooler than its eventual reputation might suggest. By 1991, punk and post-punk had happened. The Pixies had happened. Hip-hop, sampling, rave, shoegaze and indie-dance had all changed the available language. Even something as straightforwardly enjoyable and human-scaled as Definition of Sound could feel liberated from rock’s obligation to make everything weigh several tonnes. Against that background, much of Ten sounds like a return to old certainties: riffs, power chords, expressive solos, enormous crescendos and a singer planted firmly at the front. There is nothing inadequate about Pearl Jam’s execution of that language. The record has attack, bite and virtuosity. What it too often lacks is point. Eddie Vedder is another matter. He is disgustingly earnest, but his lyrics are really good. He enunciates clearly and writes with unusual empathy about homelessness, institutionalisation, childhood damage, addiction, fractured identity and people losing control of their own stories. “Even Flow” observes a homeless man without turning him into picturesque grit. “Why Go” understands how adults can create intolerable circumstances around a child and then diagnose the child as the problem. “Alive” turns survival into an existential question: you are still alive, but who decides whether you deserve to be? “Jeremy” takes that concern with authorship somewhere darker. Suicide appears to be a final act of self-authorship while simultaneously destroying the author’s ability to explain it. Afterwards everybody else gets the story. Earlier ambiguities become signs; remembered incidents become causes; the life is reorganised around its ending. Jeremy’s act collapses the narrative. The lesson I found myself taking from it was considerably less romantic: write your fucking story while you still retain the right to revise it. The recurring problem is that the band often responds to writing this specific with generic Rock Importance. A lyric makes a precise observation and the guitars arrive to inform us that Something Significant Is Happening. Sensitive passages bring light bass drum and rim hits; emotional climaxes acquire more reverb and another layer of guitar. It reminded me of an old television joke about putting Michael Nyman beneath arbitrary footage and immediately making a couple of swans look impossibly profound. Too much of Ten comes with significance already built into the soundtrack. This is especially noticeable on the material whose music existed before Vedder joined. “Once” and “Alive” began as instrumentals to which he added words remotely, and at times it still sounds as though the vocalist and band have never met. Vedder supplies complicated psychological material while the musicians pursue their existing idea of serious heavy rock. “Alive” cannot quite decide whether it is a chord song or a riff song, so a guitar figure noodles persistently through an otherwise stronger piece before the long coda converts existential uncertainty into familiar guitar heroics. The frustrating thing is that a much more interesting Pearl Jam is already present. “Oceans” is the revelation. Suddenly there are audible thirds, discordant intervals, softer percussion and guitars hovering uneasily around one another. The band stop merely accompanying Vedder and start embodying what he is saying. Form serves function. “Deep” does something similar: its springy, sliding guitar figures create unease before the lyric has explained why. “Jeremy” is intelligently framed by those distant guitars, while “Black” at least allows harmony and restraint to carry some of the emotional weight. “Release”, developed through jamming, provides another clue. Everybody is finally listening to everybody else. It breathes beautifully and sounds like one band rather than parallel monologues, although like most jams it could do with a second idea. That may be the real missed opportunity of Ten. Pearl Jam found Vedder and treated him as the final component required to complete a band whose musical language was already substantially formed. Yet the music they created once everyone was actually listening together suggests they could have started again and discovered something stranger. Retaining some of the earlier material begins to resemble sunk-cost thinking: a lack of confidence in a creativity which demonstrably wasn’t lacking. The worst songs on Ten sound like nobody is listening. The best sound like everybody is. When the album finished, autoplay immediately produced R.E.M.’s “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” The contrast was almost embarrassing. Its distorted guitar attack — and particularly its wonderfully malformed solo — sounded stranger than almost anything Pearl Jam had permitted themselves here. That was the final frustration. Ten is full of talented people capable of making fascinating music. They just keep returning to what they already know.

Absolute classic in my collection. Many nights in my 20s with this on repeat

5/10 I liked this I didn't love it

Love it - great teen memories, thx!

1. Once: new to me not bad 2. Even Flow: I know this one! Good song 3. Alive: Fun guitar in there 4. Why go: I like this one 5. Black: I know this one too! pretty good 6. Jeremy: I know more of these than I thought, I haven't listened to the lyrics before damn 7. Oceans: Not my fave so far 8. Porch: Nice 9: Garden: I like this one too 10: Deep: My least favorite, I dont like the instrumentation as much 11. Release: This one is very good I had no idea this was their first album. I think I knew a lot of Pearl Jam just from hearing it over time on the radio but had never deliberately sat down and listened to them. I think the "whiny" vocals are what puts me off really keeping them in rotation regularly. I like the instrumentals a lot.

One of my favorites from my youth. Just a wall of guitar sound, but not like in the hair metal bands. The mix really captures the feel of a band that worked these songs out on the stage. There were some fantastic albums that came out of this era. This was one of those weird periods of time where the music I liked suddenly become popular.

Better than I remembered

Nice, first Pearl Jam and I kinda get it

Classic Perl Jam

One of my favourite albums, happy to get any reason to listen to it again

I expected to be a bit bored of this album. It has a very "on the nose" mainstream, guitar driven, arena rock sound that is easy to criticize for being a little too familiar. On top of that, several of these songs have been played to death on rock stations since this album cam out. Surprisingly, I actually got totally sucked in, and found myself really enjoying leaning into the familiarity. This album was an absolute monolith when it came out, I feel like it really hasn't aged one bit and still feels just about the pinnacle of this generation and genre. While it does feel incredibly mainstream, I actually find it really impressive that it can somehow still feel completely authentic and genuine.

I’m going to basically just copy my Soundgarden review from a few months back because I had essentially the same experience listening to Pearl Jam today. When I saw Pearl Jam generated I initially thought, “Hell yeah, great band, this’ll be a great time!”, but as I listened I realized they’re another band I respect who I just don’t care to listen to. I’m not entirely sure why either because, on paper, they’re a band I should like. I enjoy grunge and hard rock, everyone in the band is a great musician, Eddie Vedder is a phenomenal singer, they’re even the reason I want an 8 or 12 string bass, but their music just doesn’t excite me.

Liked the mixture of sad and deep lyrics. Nice to see time given for instruments as well which isn't common anymore. I am new to rock and this album has made me realise how emotional an artist can be.

Pearl Jam gets a lot of shit. Sure it’s a product of the times but it’s still a great listen.

This album has some really great songs on it, but drags occasionally. I docked it one star because of the hints of GNR guitar work, Jeff Ament's hats, and the legions of Eddie Vedder copycats throughout 2000's rock.

Ja, ik hoor ook wel dat dit goed gedaan is, dat er een bak vette hits op staat, dat dit dus wel een klassiek album is. En toch wordt het nooit echt 'mijn' muziek‏, ik weet niet waarom. Dikke rock met een grungerandje, daar is immers niks mis mee. Maar ik mis achter alle power een beetje de bezieling die ik wél voel bij bijvoorbeeld Eddie Vedders prachtige, verstilde (film)album Into the wild. Die plaat had van mij zonder enig nadenken meteen 5 sterren gekregen. Hier moet ik me inhouden. (Zoals de samenstellers van het boek dat kennelijk ook hebben gedaan. Maar één Pearl Jam-album in de lijst? Echt?)

Dit is toch een bijzondere plaat, met meerdere iconische nummers. Ook dit album werd mij vaak voorgeschoteld, alleen bij dit album werd vaak veel overgeslagen. Of eigenlijk werd hij steeds weer teruggezet naar Alive. Ik was blij als we als we Jeremy haalden, want dat vond ik zelf het fijnste nummer op het album. Het album bestond hierdoor voor ons dus uit zo'n 6 nummers. Met uitzondering van opvuller Why Go alleen maar knallen. Nu luister ik natuurlijk wel ook het tweede gedeelte. En eerlijk gezegd geef ik de groep wel gelijk. Er staat absoluut niets slechts op, maar het haalt het niet bij het uitzonderlijke niveau van de eerste helft. Maar goed, die eerste helft had de vijf sterren al lang te pakken.

Ik denk dat iedereen wel weet op wat voor cijfer dit plaatje gaat komen. De heren wisten het zelf destijds ook al gelijk, dus noemden ze hun album zo. Een zeldzaam album waarop elk liedje raak is en alle nummers dus goed zijn. Ik wist zelf natuurlijk in 1991 van toeten nog blazen, maar zelfs als klein menneke kreeg je dit album al wel mee. Ik denk dat ik het voor het eerst hoorde, toen ik bij mijn hardrockoom (die ik wel vaker heb aangehaald) de hoes uit zijn platenkast haalde. Op de een of andere manier trok die hoes toch ook al de aandacht. Onmiskenbaar 90s denk ik wel, maar tussen de doodshoofden van Iron Maiden was dit voor mij een positieve uitschieter. Ik weet eigenlijk niet of Alice in Chains en Soundgarden ook in zijn platenkast stonden. Die zouden ook zeker niet hebben misstaan, maar Pearl Jam herinner ik me nog. Vanaf toen heb ik dit album tot op de dag van vandaag regelmatig gedraaid. Het verveelt nooit en zogezegd zijn alle nummers raak. En dat heeft de band helaas daarna zelf ook nooit meer kunnen overtreffen. Maar wat wil je, als je zo'n classic hebt geproduceerd. Ze hadden ook op hun lauweren kunnen rusten. Dit album is in ieder geval de 10 sterren dubbel en dwars waard.

Nah RYM: N Saved a song: N

yo tampoco vibre mucho con pearl jam la verdad pero objetivamente zafan imo

solo me gustaron los temas mas conocidos dps no mg pearl jam

A personal favorite of mine. Definitely in my top 10. This album is the epitome of 90s grunge. With themes of helplessness and loneliness in a golden era of Americana, this album illustrates a rejection of affluence without consequence. This album features easily the two most popular songs by Pearl Jam: Evenflow and Jeremy. These exemplify the themes of the album; a vulnerable person rejected by society and acting counter to it. If only we had been better to them, maybe things could have been better for them and those they hurt. It’s gut wrenching and beautiful. The pacing is incredible. Eddy Vedder’s vocals are supreme. And the band, as a whole, gels on every track. I love this album, and I hope you do, too.

Sama biisi vähän eri tavalla soitettuna x 11. Eddie Vedderin ääni on aina jostain syystä lähinnä ärsyttänyt enkä ole Pearl Jamia osannut pitää muuta kuin aikuisrockia vääntävänä tusinabändinä, joka jostain syystä menestyi. Tämän albumin kuunteleminen kokonaan läpi ei muuttanut vanhoja käsityksiäni bändistä mitenkään. 2/5

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky, but why, why, why can't it be mine?

This is one of my favorite albums of all time, and I think it's the pinnacle of grunge and maybe even 90s rock in general. Eddie Vedder's lyrics may not be the best on their own, but his delivery is so wholehearted that it's impossible not to be moved by it. Between the hits, absolute bangers like "Once," "Why Go," and "Oceans" may get lost, which only shows the overall quality of the songs in this album. I know I am biased, but this record runs laps around Nevermind, and you can talk to my lawyer about it.

Un debut histórico, lleno de temas icónicos para el grunge y otros que no conocía. Es obvio que el lado A del álbum es superior y tiene todos los temas conocidos, pero el lado B mantiene el ritmo a la altura y genera grandes atmósferas con sus jams imponentes. Sin dudas un álbum impresionante y que debería haber escuchado hace mucho tiempo. P.D.: El combo Black/Jeremy debe ser lo más desgarrador que escuché en mí vida.

I can barely understand the lyrics without reading them along, BUT I LOVE IT!

Damn do I like this more than nirvana?

A monster album of my youth. I never carried the torch for Pearl Jam, but they were always there and important, and honestly this gets better with age when a lot of similar artists/albums of that era do not.

Listening to this album in 2026 is kind of a weird experience. As time goes by, this album, and so much other 90s grunge, sounds more and more like harmless yacht rock. It's kind of hard to imagine this sounded edgy or rebellious at some point (I think I noted the same when reviewing Hole). But it's still a great album. The big hits are mainstays and still land pretty well. Some of the rest can feel like filler, certainly the second half of Release...it probably could have been a 40 minute album.

Maybe it's because alternative music fundamentally rewrote the sound of rock music, but I'm surprised by how...straightforward (?) this sounds now. Meaning it just sounds like guitar rock to me, with nothing particularly "alternative" about it. But we're a long way from 1991, and even though I was there when Ten came out, I've lost some of the sense memory of what was on the radio back then. Still, this was/is a seismic album and one of the defining classics of the era.

I am 2 tracks into this record, instant 5/5. No notes. Thank you, Pearl Jam.

Okay I get it.

AWESOME🤤

Great album.

Pearl Jam > Nirvana

Never got them to be honest. Derivative and dull at best

Some of the best grunge you’ll ever hear

I'm starting to think that i don't dislike grunge nearly as much as i thought - maybe i just don't like Nirvana Fave song: Alive

The whole first song I was thinking hey this reminds me of that one song but I don’t know what it’s called or who it’s by but it’s so familiar. Anyway it turned out to be the second track.

eu gosto desse

A una de ser perfecto…

Grunge, alternative rock, hard rock.

Meh. Not as bad as expected

I hadn't heard this for years but it was immediately familiar, and I liked it much than I remembered. It's probably the most hard-rock album that I actually like - the grunge sensibility and lyrical themes are so much more my thing than is normal in this style of music.

Day 23 What the fuck was Seattle putting in their water in the 90s? Fav track: Black

New genre for me. One song was good. Need to listen multiple times I guess for it to grow on me.

Don’t get me wrong, I like some Pearl Jam songs. I also enjoy some grunge here and there. But I just don’t get it man. Why is this band so popular? They are pretty formulaic and entry level feeling IMO. Perhaps it’s my bias of having 4 decades worth of music after the fact. So many of these bands sound entirely the same. I get it right, we can see this in every era of music. I mean like how many Beatles bands did we have in the 60’s, etc? Maybe it bugs me more here because I grew up on 90’s music and grunge is a big part of that, I’ve just been exposed to the samey vibes all my life. I digress. How did this album specifically make me feel though? Well, Eddie Vedder simply has a way of making me feel even more single than I am. Doesn’t matter what brother is yapping about, his vocals and delivery make me feel like the depressed single father I am. Mission accomplished I guess? Idk man. I just can’t. It’s giving the same vibes I get with some of the cringe classic rock music I come across. This dude can make all the emotional & confessional lyrics he wants, i just can’t resonate. Perhaps it’s his voice- people have similar issues with the Pumpkins so I get it. I just feel nothing. It’s not moving me. The closest thing to *fun* I had here was the track “Garden” #Boring #Slop #Divorce #NotFun #Lonely

The problem with Pearl Jam isn’t that they aren’t talented for me. The issue stems from the boring nature of the compositions and vocals. This has not aged well and while there is artistic intention for me I do not resonate with this at all. Lyrically it’s just so so so growler and feels like more of a chore to actually listen to. It takes from all sorts of styles without even truly exploring any of them deeply. Let’s take the most popular song it’s a hair metal tribute I mean you can literally hear the guitarist sliding on the strings that’s how into it they are. Yet the vocals emotional core feels off and also I have no idea what the lyrics are and that is not a knock on the band it’s just annoying. It’s not about what they are saying it’s about how you’re saying it and Pearl Jam tonality just sounds like a guy rushing through a story and pretending to know more than he does. Alive is another example chorus so uninspired to me. The emotional depth to these songs just aren’t there and it feels more like caricature than actual art. I think this is a good example of music not made for me. It’s less about it being iconic and more about this being another band that lives off the legacy of others that didn’t really add much but mimicry

Loved this more than I remember from my teenage years.

It has its high, it has its lows, but it always has the same vibe. Variety is important to me and this doesn't have that. Some songs are very good and catchy. I knew all of these before listening and enjoyed them now. But as an album, the songs bleed into each other too much. Also his voice is pretty annoying to me. Overall it's a good album though. I'm pretty neutral towards this, it's not really for me. In terms of grunge I would MUCH rather listen to Nirvana.

Mangler revidering

god damn it i hate vedder’s voice

Enjoyable listening with some bangers

I mean it’s great. It’s got the hits. I can’t listen to this without thinking of the Steezus Christ video. You know an album is good when the first six songs are songs you have heard on the radio dozens of times.

not a man of eddie vedder's voice but not a bad album

Ugg...

I can remember the name and I'm familiar with their game but I was just too young to catch the hype. Interested to dig in and discover a gap in my knowledge as grunge was disappearing off the music channels. -------------------------------------------------------------- Ah ok - I've definitely heard [Even Flow] on Kerrang back in the day - and I even remember actively turning it off. It's funny because 11 year old me had good instincts. The album itself - it's got an 80s glam rock/metal sound but someone's slathered it in muddy vocals. It's not too far from Guns and Roses and is no where near as heavy as I was expecting. The grunge tag feels insincere - they just happened to be around at the time. Production wise the drums are weak and echoey, the guitar often sounds like it's underwater but at least the bass gets room to breathe. I don't mind it as a listen, but I'm not going to search it out. 2*

I enjoyed this! Solid rock, engaging throughout. Will revisit

Solid

This is just a classic. I have listened to this countless times. One of my favorites of all time.

Amazing album; great bangers like Even Flow, Alive, Jeremy, and Black. I also liked how it begins and ends with the same instrumental section, which was pretty cool.

The few excellent songs are really excellent, and the rest is unfortunately rather boring and forgettable.

This one is a 5 for me all day every day

This album feels so alive and good. Listening to it was emotional and raw from the start. There is a real intensity in the performances that pulls you in, and at times it gets confusing in a way that actually makes you stop and think. The lyrics are often heartbreaking and carry a heavy sadness that sits under the louder moments. Eddie Vedder’s voice has a lot of weight and urgency, and the band sounds locked in and powerful behind him. The songs have a strong sense of feeling without becoming overdramatic. It works especially well as a long drive album. The energy and mood keep you company without needing constant attention. The production is solid for its time. It has that early 90s rock clarity with enough rawness left in to keep the emotion intact. The guitars and rhythm section come through strongly, and the overall sound still holds up well. Ten is a strong and affecting debut. Emotional, raw and still very listenable all these years later.

Pretty decent!

No brainer 5 stars , one of the best albums in the list if you would ask me. Risen from the ashes of Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam was born after Eddie Vedder wrote and sang his lyrics over the now famous songs like Alive and Once. It was a perfect match. Although it took awhile, Ten brought grunge to a bigger audience. I was 18 when this came out and I was immediately blown away by it and liked it more than Nevermind. Had more meaning, less punk, more (classic) rock and what a voice! I know every second of this album, have the cd since 92, the vinyl since I bought again record player in 2021 and is one of my favourite albums of all time (as of many people). Saw them live multiple times and PJ is in my top3-5 bands of all time. Ten is the greatest debut album of all time.

Solid grunge

Knew this was gonna be at least a 4 going in cause I already loved half the album before going in. The tracks I never got around to listening to really complimented the entire experience and I left appreciating this album in a different way.

Great Album

All time classic grunge album. They're the key grunge band that didn't suffer the deaths and breakups the rest of the major ones did. Even Flow and Alive are excellent songs. You could say that about much of this record. I will give props to anyone who gets bored of this though. It's a little plodding at times if you aren't a huge fan of Vedder's vocals. I really enjoy the dark lyrics (emo boy at heart here) but if you aren't a fan of that growling crooning thing he does... this could get old fast.

SUONA BENE. NON AMO IL GRUNGE ALLA FOLLIA. “BLACK” SPICCA SU TUTTE. GLI CONCEDO 4 STELLE COME SUPERUNKNOWN DEI SOUNDGARDEN, MA DUBITO POSSA ALZARSI. 4/5.

2026.08.24.

This was a big album when I was in middle school. Although I won't blame them, imitators took their template and created the modern crap rock thing, see Creed, Nickelback, etc. Riff heavy rock with Eddie Vedder. Its a good album. 3.

I don’t like Pearl Jam. I hate Eddie Vedder’s voice. I hate that they compare Pearl Jam and Nirvana or put them into the same category when Nirvana is so much better. I knew a few songs on this album (Even Flow, Alive, Black, and Jeremy).

One of my favorite albums of all time. One of those “perfect albums” with no bad tracks

意外的还行

pas nul mai c'est du rock j'arrive pas trop meme si c'est de la bonne musique

FINALLY! I’ve had this on CD for months and held off on listening to it because I knew it was on this stupid-ass list. Well NO MORE! Anyway this album is incredible. Obviously. I’m probably gonna listen to it later tonight. On my mom’s old CD. Still great quality by the way. When I talked to her about it she said it was one of the best albums ever made, and I don’t disagree completely. Like, no, but if you want. The highs are incredible, and by the highs I mean the big songs. We all know them. “Even Flow,” “Alive,” “Black,” and “Jeremy.” There’s also a few others that I personally liked a lot, outside of those, “Once” is great, “Porch” and “Garden” really hold down the fort on the latter side, but what I really want to discuss is the deeper feeling of this album. Not the anthemic choruses, not the extended outros, but the bridge on “Alive,” the placement of “Oceans” after “Jeremy,” the menacing intro and outro. There’s a deeper sensitivity here, that after a while, after all the words are gone, the seeps out of the chords and into the spaces in which the songs are played. It seeps into the streets, and the houses, and the radio stations. It’s why I really appreciate albums like this, despite some of the actual lyrics perhaps not being as intact as the songs themselves, what they’ve come to mean. They’re cultural pillars, and that means more. 9.2/10 DOES IT BELONG ON THE LIST: YES REASON: Cultural relevance and quality

21/08/2026 I am happy to give this a good score as I have never committed to these guys before and thought the album was good. Spotify listeners: 18.3 million

8/10. Discazo que no conocía. Había escuchado hablar de Pearl Jam, obvio, pero no sabía ni qué música hacían ni qué tan buenos era, y me sorprendieron para bien. El disco es muuuuuuy motivador, cada tema te carga de energía y es muy frenético. Los sonidos están muy bien, con unos solos de guitarra épicos y temones que te hacen reescuchar el disco sí o sí. Buen disco de... hard rock? Metal? No sé qué es pero está piola.

Well, I keep running into no-brainers. This album meant a lot to me when it came out, I listened to it with no skips like the day before yesterday. It came out at a time in my life when I needed to listen to something that sounded like it was being sung in my ears just for me, and it made such an impression that I've never really been able to listen to any of their other albums. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Some really great song but also some missers. They would make better albums after their debut.

Did not love this one

Listening to this before 10 am counts as self harm

Good

not my cup of tea

\ o / I /. \

When I first saw this album, I thought, well, 5 stars. I know it, I love it but I hadn’t listened to it completely in years. So I thought I’d listen but I’d only listen to the songs that weren’t the big hits. Then I see the track list and I’m like, ok, that idea is out the window. What I’m saying is, this is album is about as perfect as you can get for a debut album. That’s it. That’s all. My time has come to move on. Choice cut: Release

When I was a kid, my parents loved Pearl Jam. I don't know which albums they had, but I heard many of the tracks on this one specifically a ton as a kid. I always remember making fun of the singer and how silly he sounded. "Wait until you get older," they would tell me. "You'll appreciate it one day." Today I am older and I am listening to this album... Nah this singer still sounds fucking stupid. In theory, I should like the songs, but somewhere around Jeremy I just burst out laughing every time this dude made some new weird noise, strung together some insane unpronounceable chain of words, or held the same word for an extended period of time. It turns out that I just knew what I liked as a kid.

A classic for a reason. Yes his voice has been imitated (badly) for so long and so often that even the original sounds like a parody, but I never thought Vedder's voice or delivery were 'bad' at all and didn't quite understand the criticism. As for rest of the performances everyone is bringing it. Possibly the best 'debut' album of all the Seattle Sound bands. Porch makes me want to jump off shit (complimentary).

I remember buying this and wearing it out. There are some songs that seem to lag a little but even great albums will have that. This is certainly a great album as the band has great instrument play and were not afraid to sing about real issues.

One of the most influential albums in grunge and rock music

Easiest five I've ever given. One of my all time favorite albums and quite possibly the greatest album of all time (imo). There are no bad songs on here, literally every one is superb and a masterpiece. The guitar attack is spot on, in your face, fuzzy, pointy. The drums drive SO well, keeps the whole album moving. Bass does the same thing and helps be the current underneath everything. And then there's Eddie. Sure, you can't always understand what he's saying but you can always understand what he's feeling. Not only does his voice always sound incredible (same level as Cornell and Lanegan), but the delivery is just so, so powerful. I literally have nothing bad to say about this album, it is a perfect album imo. Completely bulletproof.

I remember when this came out-was such a great sound (not hair metal or bubble gum pop). Banging, in your face driving sounds, & lyrics. And lyrics that had depth & weren’t pretty. Yes, Vedder is a mumbler but he’s got great range & delivery.

- one of the greatest intros I've heard and closings - perfectly encapsulates the album inviting the listener and then saying goodbye - it's a debut album - Vedder writes about people who can't escape something - it's sad but sounds so big - past lead singer died

Helped make me fall in love with rock music when I was a kid, still holds up. Diverse songs that work well together

2.2/5 This is another album that I've heard a few of the hits so many times that I don't know if I like them or they are just familiar. I don't really like Eddie Vedder's voice so I've never really enjoyed Pearl Jam as much as others do. This was pretty average except for the hits

Lots of my favorite Pearl Jam tracks on here. Lyrics to Alive were more messed up than I remembered. Even the deep cuts are outstanding — Once, Porch and Oceans stood out. 10/10

No thank you. Like a ‘90s version of The Doors. Perfectly competent musicians making self-serious songs that I have zero interest in listening to. The quality and affect in Vedder’s vocals that turns some people off are particularly pronounced on this album. It makes sense that most of these songs are reworked from Mother Love Bone songs - they sound like they are in tension with themselves and feel like a collision of genres that is forced rather than intentional. If someone else put this record on, I wouldn’t go so far as to ask them to turn it off. I can’t see myself ever intentionally choosing to listen to any song on this album again.

I’ve been listening to this album for years already and have no plans to ever stop

At least a four star album WITHOUT Alive, Even Flow, and Jeremy.

Solid classic of the grunge era. I wouldn't have predicted that PJ would be the band to emerge from the 90s with a core audience who continues to support new music and tours.

Crazy debut, 4 out of 5 first songs are classics. That said, album is def front loaded keeping me from a 5

Solid debut, has a few hits/bangers, great guitar work and vocals/lyrics from Eddie. Drags the tiniest bit towards the back end, but they really established themselves. Another debut where the band almost seems fully formed, even though we know they explored some different directions later.

Jesus on a skateboard only adds to the epicness of even flow

Steezus Christ reference. I know this came out in '91 but a lot of tracks feel very 80s (in a negative way). Out of the list of prolific grunge artists, I tend to rank Pearl Jam lower than most. Mr. Jam's voice gets pretty old while listening to a full album. I find myself gravitating more to the slower, more drawn-out tracks potentially just because they're a break from the energy. Favorite(s): Oceans Release Least: Porch 2.5/5

Fav: Oceans, Garden L: Porch 3.5 I don’t know how to feel about Pearl Jam. Listening to it I can’t stop singing along in a mocking style. It’s kind of good though and they definitely have their own sound. I’m glad it exists but I completely understand people who don’t like it especially if they had to hear it all the time.

Grunge is weird. If genres are areas of excavation for musicians, grunge has been mined through almost completely. And most of it kinda sucks. However, there is gold to be found in grunge hills. Nirvana is quite obviously incredible. But within the same genre, excavators found nickelback. This area is filled with a terrible malaise of terrible music. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for grunge. So, where is pearl jam? Well, they're no Nirvana. But they have some good songs. There is clear musical talent and pop sensibilities throughout Ten. But, as with a lot of grunge, it sounds a little samey. So the album overall consists of a few memorable singles and a pile of single soundalikes. Fool's gold that glitters just as much as the real stuff but lacks in value. Idk. It's fine. The hit tracks are pretty good. But I don't really care for pearl jam's sound, or their lyrics, or their vocals. They make things too echoey, so riffs that would sound sharp if played by another band sound floppy instead. Even though I seem to have a lot of complaints, the album isn't bad by any means. It isn't annoying. It isn't a crime against music like some other inclusions on this list. It has a hint of malaise to it, but maybe that's what makes grunge grungy. W: Even flow, black L: oceans, garden, deep 2.5/5

I loved it. I love the sound, and it lowk made me want to relisten to Chris Cornell’s stuff again. I’d def give this a relisten, in total album form or not

I may have never actually listened to this album, just absorbed the ubiquitous hits through osmosis. This little Fripp-y intro on "Once" got me excited, then suddenly, Pearl Jam busted in playing Pearl Jam music like they always do. I still haven't listened to it. By the time I got to Jeremy, I had to tap out.

This album is like putting on a favorite old sweater — or OK, flannel — from college. It no longer fits as well as it once did, it’s grown threadbare at the elbows and the fashion police may quibble, but it feels good and brings a reassuring sense of time and place. Ten remains a bracing listen, stuffed with big anhemic melodies, ambition and hooks that transcend genre. Fun to hear this again after so long.

Had not listened to this album all the way through and the canyon between the hits and the not-hits is... enormous.

Can't believe these guys are the ones that lasted 3 decades.

I understand the hate people have for grunge and by extension, Pearl Jam. That said, if you can understand just how fucking crazy 1991 was for rock and roll, you'd put more respect on Ten. Still listenable today. Lyrics touching on grief, loneliness, hope. You know, classic Seattle bullshit. Still an iconic album 35 years later. Feels crazy to type that out.

I love sad grungy music. So many excellent songs on this one.

Прородители tool Когда я услышал песню even flow - я подумал что это не вышедшая песня с первого альбома tool. Интересно что такая песня чуть ли не одна на альбоме остальные в "рамках приличного" и "из ряда вон не выходящие". Потрясная группа буду слушать дальше, хотя сего прям необычного я не услышал. Оценка 6/10

this might be the best debut album ever, and one of my favourites from the 90’s

10

9 - childhood classic

It is a bit embarrassing to admit I’d never heard this before. I obviously have heard the biggest songs - even Flow, Alive, Jeremy, and have enjoyed them separately but it never occurred to me to listen to a Pearl Jam album. Well regardless here I am a 39 year old man listening to Ten for the first time in 2026 and realising it’s amazing. The album has such a strong song to it - you know each song is Pearl Jam. For a debut it’s really surprising how polished their sound is. Want to spend more time catching up on what I’ve been missing.

I am of the opinion that, had Eddie Vedder quit after his first two professional recordings - Hunger Strike from Temple of the Dog and State of Love and Trust from the Singles soundtrack - he would have left a happy legacy. Good songs both. And had Andrew Wood lived, even if the band had recorded nothing else, Mother Love Bone's Apple would be more than the footnote it ended up being. But Ten is a thing that should not be. A broken fire hydrant of grief and latchkey kid trauma being fed from the groundswell of Seattle's scene. It is a rupture. This is my charitable take on Ten's lumbering butt rock, its wandering, widdling solos, and Vedder's rambling rumblings. If 1991 is "The Year Punk Broke," nobody keyed in Pearl Jam. They seem barely even aware of the glam rock most of them played in their previous band. Musically, it is nothing more than the return of the lank-haired jam band - a bit Grateful Dead, some Neil Young, a little from The Who. A raid on the record collection daddy left behind when he went to get milk and cigarettes. There is a sad oedipal desperation in the emotional outpourings from all players. And goodness the songs all feel long. 2.5 What a grand thing it is to get old and wise, eh? The simple pleasures like an early bedtime and good food and drink enjoyed in moderation recommend themselves to you with regularity. You can sit then, with a nice half glass of red at a quarter to nine with your slippers on and enjoy the delicate pleasure of recalling the follies of youth, a little ruefully and yet with the pleasure of feeling remote from these wicked deeds by time and a substantially improved moral condition. Where shame and self-accusation might follow on the heels of a late night of getting drunk and harassing your friends for being Pearl Jam fans at all and, worse, daring to associate the band with the label ‘Grunge’ - years turn blushes into olive wreaths. ‘Well done you for not being like that anymore’ coos your conscience, ‘aren’t you just the olderest and wiserest?’ I haven’t listened to Ten in many years, but in the interim, in search of enlightenment and the fulfilment of penance, I have indulged at least half a dozen other Pearl Jam albums - some more than once and even, for my sins, recent Pearl Jam. In lockdown in 2020 I learned and performed ‘In Hiding’ on guitar and sent the video as tribute to those of my dear friends to whom I had been ungenerous and lubricated enough to subject to my thoughts on this band they loved. Aislinn got the video of course, as did Henrique - to whom I must give special mention here because Pearl Jam are his favourite band; they mean to him what Radiohead mean to me, quite simply everything. Long confronted with recommendation from such Menschen - thoughtful and passionate about music, humans I love and have great respect for - how could I do less in the end than give this Grunge Band a just, sober hearing and more? I repent again for my foolishness - sorry, my friends. And if either of you ever happen to be reading you can just stop here please. I felt really down when I got home today. Today was supposed to be something like my Confirmation Mass - a celebration of a milestone in spiritual maturity. I knew Ten was on this list and had been quite looking forward to sitting down with it and, however the album sounded now to my more informed, more experienced listening, finding that *I* had changed. Well by about halfway through Even Flow I felt about ready to head down to Voodoo, climb up on to a table and offer anyone who liked Pearl Jam a fair dig. For fuck’s sake. This is not terrible music by any means. What is it about these pricks, and this album in particular, that I continue to hate so much? Well I didn’t enjoy listening to Ten today but I held it together, got home safe and had a good old think, at least, about what is ~my~ their fucking problem. The core issue is, probably, regrettably, the ‘grunge’ label. ‘Grunge’ is, at the end of the day, just a label that the press decided to use. Like ‘Britpop’ it is evocative of particular acts linked by a time and place, a way of dressing, of social attitudes, but utterly resistant to any attempt to resolve musical meaning with the disparate acts involved. In musical terms - even in lyrical terms - what have Blur got to do with Oasis, or Pulp with The Verve, really? Equally the ‘grunge’ label compels me to hear Pearl Jam through the filter of music which shares nothing in common with it. I love Nirvana and they have meant almost as much to me as a band could. I care little about the label ‘grunge’ in comparison to how deeply I care for Nirvana’s music, but at the same time ‘grunge’ has always been part of the meaning of Nirvana and Nirvana in turn give the term ‘grunge’ its definitive meaning to me (and to most people to be fair). And the meaning(s) are far beyond musical and everywhere Pearl Jam grind up unpleasantly against them… There is a famous photograph of Eddie Vedder hanging high above the stage from the rigging during a Pearl Jam gig in the early 90s. He performed this stunt a lot at this time - diving into the crowd after - but there is one particularly famous photograph from the back of a stage in 1992. Henrique once joked/not joked that he would like the photo done up as wallpaper so he could have it occupy an entire wall of his living room. It is part of the iconography of ‘Grunge’ no doubt. It is also emblematic of the divisions that make Pearl Jam irreconcilable with Nirvana, and by extension with the label ‘Grunge’. Vedder’s climb might be superficially compared with Kurt Cobain’s wild stage dives - blindly off the stage or destructively into the drum kit. But the fact is that if Cobain had climbed to where Vedder was the assumption would have been that Kurt was surely trying to hurt himself, possibly kill himself - as he had once threatened to do having climbed to the top of a speaker stack during an early Nirvana show. There was no such concern with Vedder - his climbs were implicitly understood as a ‘stunt’; he was showing off his strength, his agility, and his contempt for danger. Bread and butter for an experienced surfer dude. I am certainly not approving Kurt’s self-abuse over Vedder’s showing off, but the difference between the two acts is significant because it is also written into their music. Kurt played guitar and sang carelessly, sometimes destructively - during a solo he would often attack and twist his instrument anywhere his fingers fell. His yells and howls often approximated a note but just as often it was honest screaming. There was nothing much new in this form of expression in rock music - it was well accounted for in the family tree above Nirvana. They were essentially a punk rock band. Pearl Jam were not musical paisan. Listening today to Ten I found it difficult even to digest it as the sound of a 90s band, never mind a grunge band. The obvious musical pedigree for Ten is, it seems to me, two of the biggest rock bands in the world when Ten was released, neither of whom at that moment had released an album in the 1990s - Guns N’Roses and U2. The lascivious, serpentine bass grooves and the languorous palm-mute picking and the showy-sloppy blues guitar solos point plainly to the asshats from L.A. Vedder’s voice, meanwhile, while it sometimes recalls Axl’s patented contemptuous nasal snarl, evokes Bono in those regular little interjections between lines - ‘ugggh’, ‘ah yeah’, ‘mmmm’, ‘aaaa’ - and in the yearning falsetto coo for the stadium crowds (Oceans, Release) and in the stadium-heroic extraction of extra syllables (Be-ee-ee, Sa-hay-hay-haaaaay) for yearning long notes. Porch in particular strikes me as an almost comically even-blend of Guns N’Roses and U2. The Even Flow vocal is richly evocative of Bono, but Deep must take the trophy as the Bonoist cut here. As I observed of Bono’s singing in our review of The Joshua Tree - those things are there because the singer knows he better do something, otherwise the illusion that anything is properly ‘meant’ will fail. Vedder’s lyrics may occasionally be verifiably personal - as on Alive - but that does not make them in any way poetic. Whatever sense he grinds out of them amid his Heroic vowel-ising they have no rhythmic life or musical colour of their own; Alive is a nothing lyric - although several of the lyrics here are worse than that (Garden, Deep). If the lyric of ‘Jeremy’ strikes observers as the sort of thing that aligns Pearl Jam with the nihilism and body horror of the lyrics of Nirvana and Hole - and certainly helps differentiate Pearl Jam from the stadium rockers above - well I think it’s a little meek. Jeremy shies away from the horror of its subject and is certainly more cautious in making an explicit break between the protagonist and the singer than is Polly, for example. Vedder would sooner have himself read as a bystander (or even a violent bully) than as the weird, suicidal outsider. Again, in any case - the song has less poetry than you’d encounter in a high school toilet cubicle. Pearl Jam, like Vedder when he climbs the rigging, have nothing to express or communicate - it’s just about impressing. There is a puerility to their music - in their conspicuously triumphal chord progressions, their showy solos, in the surliness of Vedder’s singing. Simply, boys looking for mass approval - which is nothing to accuse them of, nothing new in rock music there - and undoubtedly their record label approved. Their music is the ceaseless striking of a fashionable pose, like whatever the fuck is going on on the (full) front cover (that is The Edge standing there at the front with his hat on is it not?) Well…whatever these lads thought was ‘fashionable’ anyway. I haven’t even brought ‘Black’ into evidence yet but regardless, Pearl Jam were ’grunge’ because, eventually, they would wear the appropriate clothes and because they were from Seattle of course (excepting the surfer bro that blew in from Southern California to be the frontman) and they had guitars, setting aside what they actually did with them. Perhaps no journalist and very few music fans meant much more than that by ‘grunge’ in the early 90s. But my problem is that, unlike those people a little older than me (Aislinn for example) of whom I am very jealous, I was not ‘there’. By the time I heard my first Nirvana song Kurt Cobain had been dead for 2 or 3 years; ‘Grunge’ was a closed book and the interpretation of its meaning - or lack thereof - was all. I’d much rather have been a paid-up member of Gen X - who presumably wouldn’t have cared - than an ‘Elder (or Geriatric!) Millenial’ fretting over the faultlines in popular music genres on MSN Messenger and vanilla Napster. But more than that - I wish I could have, and could now, hear Pearl Jam for what they are, rather than as a set of musical and ideological offences to the blessed memory of Kurt Cobain. When Appetite for Destruction comes round I will judge it for what it is, not the ways it isn’t Nirvana. I won’t mention GnR being a bunch of chauvinist, racist, corporate rock shitbags, well… I mean I will but I won’t hold it against the music they made, much. The truth is, probably, that Ten isn’t bad - almost bound to be better than most of U2 - but what can I do? I can only speculate what irredeemable trigger lies in my subconscious. The world told me this was Grunge when I already knew in my heart what Grunge was and so, the first time I listened to Pearl Jam, and it was this album of course, all it was to me was ‘is not’ and that’s all Ten has ever been. Perhaps my revulsion even titillated me as another layer of meaningful connection with Nirvana, with their music, with their worldview, even with Kurt who thought Eddie a nice man, but hated his band. Then again maybe the turn was before I even listened/didn’t listen to Ten. I probably took the cd liner booklet out on the bus on the way home, unfolded the full cover photo, took one look at Pearl Jam and knew. Look at these fucking eejits with their hats and their hairdos and clothes that more-or-less fit them, and their hands in the air. These were not my people. Never would be. Lame. So lame. 2/5

One of the most iconic albums of grunge.

Grunge had its moment. That moment is not now.

Todas las canciones me parecieron algo iguales, aunque tiene sus momentos, no es mucho de mi agrado pero si habia algunas en las cuales me llamo la atencion. Me gustaron mas las canciones que tienen en su mayoria mas vocales que instrumental. 7/10

I loved this album, the guitar is so powerful throughout both lead and rhythm and the vocals are so prominent throughout. The anthemic nature of the album whilst also appreciating the melancholic undertones that exist. Overall, it had a clear style and also some songs which whilst keeping into that explored others. However, I don't think it explored enough of those other tones for it to be a 5/5. However, it does what it does extremely well, anthemic rock which makes you want to pick up a guitar (including air) and play along.

Similar to AC/DC, this could honestly be the only Pearl Jam I listen to until forever. My husband and I had a perceived near death experience not long before hearing Alive for the first time, so that song in particular really holds some meaning for me. Black, Jeremy, Even Flow and Alive?!?! Chock full of bangers.

Absolute bangers throughout but a few that drag the album down

You don't need to listen to this before you die. But definitely need to listen to Black. First off, why call an album 10 and have 11 (plus a hidden track!) This shouldn’t ever be allowed. When this album is good, its spine tingling awesomeness, when it’s not ‘Ten’ just there. The power of ‘Black’ is a joy, and makes me feel the pain of Vedder within me, ‘Once’ really gets the party started at 100mph which helps along even flow, Porch is rocking and you cannot help but scream ‘ I’M STILL ALIVE!’ Jeremy bores me, how on earth it that one of their classic songs? The rifts are great, I’d really like to see them live, I imagine their sound comes ‘aliveeeee’ pun intended, more so than on the album. I’d even go as far as to say there’s a part of each song I really like, and starts to get me excited then inevitably lets me down (Garden, Ocean.) The end of the album is a bit of a slog that just shouldn’t be there. The themes are dark but I struggle to hear a lot of the lyrics, let alone decipher a meaning, resulting in a lack of intimacy to really feel the pain as I did with ‘Black’.

I liked it and i did add some Songs to my playlist

Rating: 4.8/5 Short Review: I knew the big songs already, but hearing the whole album together makes it feel much heavier than I expected. It has that early-90s grunge weight, but there’s also a lot of melody and vulnerability underneath all the guitars. A couple moments feel very of their era, but when it hits, it really hits. Favorite Track: “Black.” That song just keeps building emotionally without feeling forced. The ending is brutal in the best way.

Ha. I could do this with my eyes closed.... 5 "still golden after all these years" stars.

wow! I loved this. Guitarist is better than brilliant and the drummer was pretty damn good too. By the end I could actually decipher the lyrics. it was like I had my own Tardis translation matrix.

Easy 5. Absolutely great from start to finish. Despite being unintelligible, one of the best rock voices ever. It's part of the charm. Good times and memories attached. Ten out of Ten.

This was a massive record when I was about sixteen. I had a dubbed cassette copy at one point, but it honestly wasn't a record that I listened to a lot and I really haven't listened to it in decades. Within the kind of pointless binaries that rock fans all to often create, I guess I am on team Nirvana and Nevermind, which was equally an effort to enter the commercial market, but just one that connected more with me. Looking back on it, its a beautifully constructed record. It really updates the classic rock sounds and Eddie Vedder has a fantastically distinct vocal approach. It deserves the incredible success it has received. I also will almost certainly not listen to it again voluntarily. I don't dislike it, but for some reason, it just doesn't really connect with me. I don't think that its an issue with the record at all. It says something about me and I'm not really that concerned with what that is.

What a debut album. Have been a fan of it for years. Garden, Black and Release me are among my favourite songs of all time. Easy 5/5

okei, no auto

Pure nostalgia growing up during the Grunge era. Pearl Jam is still one of my favorite bands and there’s not a bad song on this album.

Första halvan är toppen! Banger på banger. Alive är nog topp 1 på denna platta. I övrigt så behöver vi ta tillbaka stark gitarr och ridecymbal på refränger. Det är i refrängerna albumet lyfter!

Ett bra album som tyvärr inspirerat mycket usel musik som kommit efter.

Steven Flow

I couldn’t understand why this band got so much air time back in the 90’s and I understand even less why this hasn’t been buried in reviews deriding it as dad rock. How is this album within spitting distance of a 4 star average? This man has some of the worst vocals in the history of recorded music. Folks, what are we doing here?

You can hate this band/album all you want for "selling out" or whatnot - but it FREAKING rips!

not terrible but I see why the only songs I've heard from this are the singles. Totally competent but never been the biggest pearl jam guy. Kind of the progenitor to butt rock which I can't in good conscience dock a point for but, think I just hear this music a lot ambiently and am worn out on the sound.

Hermoso. El disco que me hizo entrar a Pearl Jam.

One of those albums that i had not given much thought to previously, even when knowing how well acclaimed it was and it left me dumbfounded for not having listened to it much previously. Truly solid record that is very representative of the grunge movement. 9/10 [KEEP]

Solid 4.5 stars. Listened to it whilst working on my DIY bass. Felt appropriate.

Most amazing band!!!

Wonderful album

I wasn't big on Pearl Jam in my youth, but age has wizened me to its subtle complexities and the gripping narrative it shares. Also, Jeremy is a banger.

Some pretty solid and well-known songs in here. I was all about that 90s rock after the week of mostly meh that this had put us through.

Do not like listening to Eddie sing but the instrumentation is great

I'm honestly not sure I'll ever get over this album

um iconic af best of theirs lwk

9/10

This album shaped my childhood and still one of my favourites. Not one bad track.

bangers, didn’t get to lock in and listen to this but enjoyed what i did hear

Perfect

Absolutely phenomenal album, front to back. Every song is worth a listen, and with the album having no song that made me want to skip listening to it, I truly think this deserves a 5 star rating. Overall vibes are immaculate, and I caught myself head banging multiple times throughout my initial listen. I'll definitely be re-visiting this project many times in the future.

Mature and well produced for a debut album.

It's good, but I get Veddered out quite quickly.

A perfect album. Relentless onslaught of emotion. Vedder gives the performance of our lifetime.

The best grunge album I've had so far But I don't like grunge

GRUPAZO

Ah... the grunge scene of the early 90s... I was listening to Nirvana and Soundgarden. This album.is good too, 4 stars.

I'm slightly ashamed to admit it as a 90s kid, but grunge just isn't really my thing. I like Nirvana, but the other big grunge bands just sound a bit generic rock band with slurred vocals to me. That said, this is a very competent debut and has some great singles.

The hits are hits, the back half drags

Great album, okay band. Wished I owned this one for sure.

10/5 stars. Favorite Track: "Black".

Bunch of hits - even flo the winner. I've listened to this album and rear view mirror enough that I should give it a 5, but it's no longer my favourite sound. The vocals are almost comical now and I hate that I can't hear the lyrics clearly. 4-5 rats.

Music your college roommate was obsessed with. Some great 90s rock anthems in there. But, 30 years later, has anyone figured out yet what the fuck Eddie was saying? "EVEN FLOoow, walked-around like-BUTTERknives." Like, wtf?

Nice!

Notable Textzeile: I see the world, feel the chill Which way to go, windowsill I see the words on a rockin' horse of time I see the birds in the rain, oh Das ist so boring, ich musste mich etwas einlesen um nicht einfach nur zu schreiben, das es langweilig ist, die Songs sehr ähnlich klingen, die Produktion sehr klassisch ist und es vor sich hin Classic-rock-grunged. Jetzt habe ich mich kurz eingelesen und die meisten Songs sind aus Jams von Gitarrist und Bassist entstanden, bevor Drum und Vocals überhaupt in der Band waren. Das erklärt einiges, macht es aber auch nicht interessanter. Auch in den Lyrics steckt für mich nicht viel, erzählen klassische Topoi in oft einfacher, manchmal pseudo-lyrischer Sprache. Ist nichts dran für mich, nur weil es nicht auch noch musikalisch hart nervt sondern halt egal ist eine 2.

Not gonna lie, ich bin etwas whelmed. Klar, tighter Rock, gute Produktion, aber puh... Auch ganz schön jaulig und mittelschnell. Ich kann mich menschlich nicht durchringen, dem ne 3 zu geben, aber voll mitnehmen tut mich das nicht.

Find das lowkey gut. Ja ist eintönig. Aber kann ich mich reinfallen lassen.

Once was a great way to start this album. I’m excited to listen to the rest as this is one of my dad’s favourite bands! I quite liked Even Flow and the steady beat of Alive was great! It also had an awesome guitar solo. Black is one of my favourite songs. I adore this track and it’s always a pleasure when it comes on shuffle. Jeremy is just a great track in general! Oceans was very melancholic, but I thought the way it built was quite fantastic! Porch had a very cool sound to it! I loved Garden. It had such a large sound to it in the chorus that I could help but gravitate to. Release was a gorgeous end. Again, it built so so well. 5/5 ⭐️ 207/1089

It was good to hear them. Brought back good memories

5-

Wasn’t super attentive when listening, finally had a lucky break at work, getting something that resembles progress in hy fairs. Every time I listen to Pearl Jam I can’t help but feel like I’m at a dive bar… and 50 years old

Great album, relentlessly depressing, the music, plus whatever sense you can make of what Eddie is singing. Ironic that the last song is called Release, but it is 9 minutes long. I didn't feel like they were releasing me from anything!

4.8/5 crazy bangers on this radio n sport staples

I was too young for this in '91.

Solid

Awesome energy, great representatives of Seattle's vibrant musical scene!

(5/7) grungy

Pearllllll Jam

Pearl Jamin Ten on erinomainen debyyttilevy ja varmasti bändin paras. Tällä albumilla kuullaan kuta kuinkin yhtyeen kaikki suurimmat hitit, mutta myöskin syvemmät albumiraidat ansaitsevat kehuja. Pearl Jamin melodinen ja tunteellinen hard rock toimii, vaikka olenkin aina pitänyt enemmän muista Seattlen "isoista grunge-bändeistä".

p666. 1991. 3 stars. Well done early 90s grunge, with a nod to Nirvana. Missing standout tunes, but otherwise this is fine.

I’m a huge grunge fan, so Ten was obviously very familiar territory for me. Pearl Jam did take a little while to grow on me over the years, but this album is the one that really made everything click. Listening to it front to back again was just incredible. I love the sound of this era. It has that early grunge heaviness, but there’s also so much melody, atmosphere, and emotion packed into it. The songs cover everything from deeply personal struggles to tragedy and politics, and they never feel like they’re reaching for seriousness just to seem important. There’s real weight behind them. Now, Eddie Vedder can occasionally sound like he’s singing through a mouthful of gravel, so knowing what the songs are actually about definitely helps. Once you get past that hurdle, though, there is so much to pull from this album. The guitar work, the tension, the emotion, and that unmistakable early-’90s sound all still hit just as hard. For me, this is Pearl Jam at their best. Ten helped announce what the ’90s were about to become, and after all these years, it still sounds fantastic.

one of the best albums ever

UGHHHHHH

Creed ass vocalist

Siento que la mejor forma de disfrutar plenamente este álbum es escuchandolo a volumen máximo para hacerle honor al bajo. Jeremy tiene un inicio simplemente increíble que me hace alistar mi oído para escuchar el resto de la canción, siempre será mi número uno en este álbum. La crudeza de la letra es un plus, mucho se le habrá criticado a la banda por esta canción pero de verdad creo que es mejor tocar temas dificiles antes que hacer la vista gorda de ellos e invisibilizarlos. Tras escuchar el album nuevamente, Oceans también me gustó bastante, creo que no lo había oído con la atención que merecía. Mis padres son fans de corazón de este álbum y veo el porque, tal vez eso le quite un poco de objetividad a mi calificación al mezclarlo con la nostalgia de haber escuchado este álbum los sábados en las mañanas cuando mi mamá hacía la limpieza de la casa con Even Flow a todo volumen. Pero que más da, es genial. La voz de Eddie es tremenda. Black tiene un final hermoso, me gusta cuando la letra deja de ser palabras y pasan a ser ruidos. Alive muy buena igualmente, las demás canciones no son de mi agrado del todo por sonar algo similares a mi parecer, pero eso no quiere decir que sean malas, Porch tiene ese ritmo que me gusta. Es un album que puedo escuchar sin saltarme alguna canción, darle 4 estrellas por que una que otra canción no me guste igual que otras me parecería injusto porque realmente siento que Jeremy vale la pena.

carzyyyyyyyyyyyyy

One of my favorite albums of all time. Just a phenomenal collection of beautiful songs. The emotion is raw in both the singing and playing. I’ve grown more accustomed to listening to PJ’s live shows, so it was fun to revisit the studio version.

Interessante Stimme, der Name der Band sagte mir was aber hatte sie nicht mit dieser Musik verbunden.

Nicht meine Musik, aber ganz solide. Wiederholt sich gegen Ende etwas.

Janz oke

Dang, this is still really good. This has aged very well. I never got into them back in the day, probably because for a couple years their songs seemed to be EVERYWHERE.

A fun throwback, reminds me of high school. Except the Jeremy part, luckily that didn’t remind me of school.

Pearl Jam gets a bad rap amongst folks whose opinion I care about. So I never really gave them a shot. But this was great.

A good album with some good songs on it. Some of Pearl jams best are on here, but outside of that, the album loses steam. Still one of the better grunge albums out there. 3.5/5 Might listen again

Black stands as one of the best songs released in the 90's. Alive has got beautiful heartbreaking lyrics and imagery. Even Flow is still a pretty energetic banger. Oceans was a happy surprise, and a much needed break from the more [kind of] metal stuff. The album could be 10 minutes shorter, though. Overall, quite pleasant to listen to.

Grunge’s other high point

Been a long time since I heard this, it holds up well

10/10

it was nice ambiance, didn't really feel it

Me aburrió un poco. O sea sí tiene unas canciones muy buenas, pero no sé no me encantó.

Schono Fun, aber irgendwie tönt au jedes Lied glich. Aber denke widermal en guete Durchschnitts-drüer chan mer da inerüere

I enjoy the vibe and the music, but have never really seen the full appeal. That continues.

Again not a grungey loud shouty band gal

8/10 https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/pearl-jam/ten/ Not a ten. It could be, based on roughly the first half. But then it gets a bit more dull and it loses its ten-ness.

Eddy Vedder graduated from the Bruce Springsteen school of singing. If a lyric is meaningful then singing with passion is more important than understanding what is being said. One of the best debut rock albums ever . grunge but not grunge with personal and emotional lyrics

Solid album

Good guitar sounds and riffs that drive the song. Very good!

Best Debut !!!!!

Don't like it

I see your game - name your album Ten so I'll give it a perfect 10 on 1001albumsgenerator.com. Perfect plan - what could go wrong? Well you made one mistake - you got greedy. See what you don't realize Eddie Vedder is that the ratings on 1001albumsgenerator.com only go to 5. So that big idea you have of getting your album to a "perfect 10" is nothing more than a pipe dream. Piece of advice for next time Eddie - try naming your album Three.

Ten stars

Hands. Hands in the air. 10 hands? Who’s to say. Why is he pointing. He’ll clean photography over distressed bg and lettering distressed me. Filled with rippers. A little top heavy but hey nuthin wrong with that. Ten is a 5.

a little too long and a little too frontloaded

hell yeah

Has a couple great songs on it, but as a grunge album doesn't really move me as much as a Nirvana or an Alice In Chains does.

zajebisci ludzie z seattl

I thought it was fine when it came out but it never stuck with me over the years. I like it more now than I did 30+ years ago. Still not my preferred genre but I can see why this album is so highly regarded and influential.

Love this album.

feels like a gateway for dads to get into alternative rock

Classic!

Never really got into it when it came out, this listening didn't change anything. Some highlights but mostly the same each song

Interesante y muy potente. Tiene clásico de la banda. Banco

Beter as wat ek onthou het ek sal weer luister

If I were to be totally truthful with myself, if I'd somehow only heard this album for the first time today, I'd find it pretty preposterous - often in a good way, but preposterous nonetheless. As it is, this was 11-year-old me's favourite album, and thus just about the most foundational record I'll encounter in this project. It's going to be a five, folks, an absolute time machine back into the self experiencing an introduction to empathy through the most empassioned, earnest (OK, if a little on-the-nose) bangers 1991 had to offer. (And FYI: Vs. and Vitalogy hold up as fives without the caveats, a hill I'll happily die on.)

album vibe churrasco na casa do pai divorciado de 50 anos. Banda legal, melhor que guns and roses so nao acho genial. As animadas servem um rock meio balada

nie muj shit git doceniam ale to rock w niezbyt moim stylu niby lubie stary rock ale nie stary w tym stylu nwm jak to wytlumaczyc lol spoko okok

Loved it

Too distracting to work with.

Meilleur que dans mes souvenirs.

Y'a pas assez de doigts sur la pochette pour que je puisse compter le nombre d'affaires qui me tapent sur les nerfs sur cet album.

Good album nearly a 4.

This is one of the defining albums of my life. I am giving it a 5 but honestly it’s a 4 if I was not so attached to it

This is a pretty decent album, even much better than what I thought it would be. It has pretty nice guitar solos, and some great atmospheres. Some of the riffs are pretty catchy, and, overall, the album is very enjoyable. There is, although, some mixed quality. Some songs are great, others are nice... but there are a couple of songs, past a half of the record, that aren't much interesting. They are... just there, a bit bland and insipid for my taste, to be honest. But, I'm delighted to have found an album that is much better than what I thought would be, and one that I've actually liked. It has some great melodies, and I find it a very nice album to actually taste grunge music... richer in sounds and variety than what other bands of the genre like Nirvana offer.

Overrated, but still a classic. These guys managed to make a perfect balance of grunge and pop, with dark, angsty undertones. Still relate a lot to the concepts of being a misunderstood, different kid, which still rings true in adult life at times. Love the guitar playing and drums in particular, and though Vedder inspired an entire generation of boring lead singers (remember Creed???), he's a great guy and an original and managed to make friends with Neil Young and the Travelling Wilburys, so he and the band are not that bad!

Generic rock

Έκανε 454 δίσκους για να φτάσει σε έναν από τους αγαπημένους μου και έναν από τους κορυφαίους δίσκους όλων των εποχών.

Not horrible.

I know someday, you'll have a beatiful life I know you'll be a star in sombody else's sky But why, why, why can't it be Oh, can't it be mine? Powerful lyrics, sung so very emotionally. It brings a tear to my eye and i believe that is art. But the real reason I am writing this review is that i want to draw attention to the story of Christopher McCandless (aka. Alexander Supertramp). Jon Krakauer wrote the great book "Into the Wild" about him and his journey. If you are more of a movie type, there is one that goes by the same name. And it just so happens that the movie's score was (at least in parts) performed and composed by Edddie Vedder, Pearl Jam's lead vocalist.

It's actually crazy this is my first time listening to an entire album with this sorta sound. I really haven't branched from hip hop since 7th grade mane. Anyways this entire album is dope first listen I'm really loving it.

4/8

My first grunge album. I like the vibe and 2-3 songs really stood out to me

Solid grunge album

Pearl Jam og Eddie når det er bedst

The bridge in Alive 🙂‍↕️ I gave this album a try a few months back in the midst of my Alice In Chains phase, and while I enjoyed it, they really didn't scratch that itch for me. Pearl Jam is not standard *grunge* just because they came up in the scene. Eddie Vedder joined the group from Temple of Dog when Cornell needed some help hitting a harmony. One of the only ones left too. Previously I only added Alive (still awesome) and Black to my Spotify. Once is great, a very, very strong opener. Black is still incredible, a great song that maybe I should have listened to way closer when I was all sad and shit over the Winter. Or maybe not... Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay were laid spread out before me as her body once did. Fuck man Jeremy is on here?? I've heard this song and story WAY too many times (thanks Matthew). Honestly? A fan of the story, not of the lyrics. "Seemed a harmless little fuck, ooh", "Gnashed his teeth and bit the recess lady's breast", although I guess if you think about the *perspective* of what kind of kid is saying that about Jeremy, it makes a lot of sense. The outro is INSANE. "It came from a small paragraph in a paper which means you kill yourself and you make a big old sacrifice and try to get your revenge. That all you're gonna end up with is a paragraph in a newspaper. Sixty-four degrees and cloudy in a suburban neighborhood. That's the beginning of the video and that's the same thing in the end; it does nothing ... nothing changes. The world goes on and you're gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself. Be stronger than those people. And then you can come back" Also the guitarists are fucking crazy. Oh duh it was McCready I already know he's crazy Garden dropped and I had to like stop working and look over. God damn Eddie. Reminds me of Mad Season a lot in its melody. People seem to be indifferent on his voice and I definitely understand that, he taps into this super dramatic 80's singer mode here and there, but I think the way the tone aligns with the instrumentation is way more crucial. Release is fun, although long... oh it has a secret track. I LOVE the cheesy early 90's stock samples that started and ended the album. So out of place, yet so fitting at the same time. Reminds me of Mad Season almost.. funny. "Master/Slave" it's called, so that the album feels like a loop. There's also some cheesy synth-esque noises layered with the guitars starting off Jeremy...? Very odd choice (and it took me 4 listens to notice them). The harmonizing on "King Jeremy, the wicked" is goooood. I'll need to listen closer to the production when I get home; saw a lot of people talking about it and that reverb is STROOONG! Why Go is a fucking banger. Porch is very dramatic and epic. The initial low riff for Deep reminds of of Sludge Factory I quite like this album. I'm excited to get home and give it a little more focus. I really need to find my airpods. Alive has such a killer outro Oceans is a little boring, 4th time through and I'm just now noticing it. Very cool sounds but a little slow. Ok somehow I looped straight back into it and I like the clean guitar tone. Porch probably least favorite, although the hook is really good... Garden still cool You know what I'm gonna be bold and give it the 5, this album rocks dude. The music is beautifully written and played, Eddie has a great voice and knows how to write a song, it's pretty damn consistent (if maybe to a fault..); fuck it. Favorite: Alive Least: Oceans Shoutout: Black, Once, Garden

EVENFLOOWWWW ON THE RED LIKE BUTTERFLIES (or somwthing idk)

Hated it when growing up (was on the Nirvana camp). But it’s a good rock record with an excellent singer

A bit overrated Arena rock Guitar dominates. Alive is a good song. Songs sound the same An average album. Three stars

It's fair to say this is one of the best grunge albums of all time. I have never listened to it from end to end, but have heard the majority of the songs. I would say the first half is much stronger than the second half, but that is probably because it has more energy. Overall, a great album, but not an album I'm going to choose to listen to very often.

classic, fine, i can see why this was a Big Deal at the time

Vs. is better, but this is a great album.

I knew it was gonna be great going in from my past experiences with this album. But yeah it’s quintessential 90’s grunge

Alive and Even Flow are the well known songs, but this is a strong LP with Vedder's vocals coming across as strong as any of the grunge instrumentations.

est debut within grunge? Maybe only on par with Core. From the very first chord of Once it’s madness. It’s incredible, but the weakest point might be Jeremy

why are there 11 songs

When this album came out it wasn't really what I was into at the time. A shame because this record is very good.

This album is so great. Not a bad song on it really. Although "Release" is not a good album closer. Like it isn't like the album and it just goes on and on. This style is so fun and proves you don't need to understand vocals. So great. The guitar work is fantastic. "Even Flow" and "Jeremy" are works of art. Actual rating...4.75 Liked Songs: The entire album except for "Release"

Vanvittig flot debut. Men jeg er selvfølgelig også farvet af, at det her album indeholder en stor del af min ungdoms lyd.

High highs, and some mids

Mumble mumb oh yea, ah yeaa cotton wool fills mah mouth, oh yea-ea-eyeh

I only knew Pearl Jam by name and had a completely different kind of music in mind when I thought of them. The album is good. I'm not entirely thrilled by it, but maybe that will come later when I listen to it again. 4/5

very meh, had it on whilst reading and it really just melted into the background

I dunno if Pearl Jam is my thing, but I liked this album! Garden is a certified banger.

i love this album, what can i say

no notes!

Energy comes spilling out of this record at various points, you could tell they were trying to impose their music and stand out from the crowd. Great vocals throughout, Vedder's pipes are strong and on good form. Some of the lyrics are deep too I enjoyed the mix of the album on my stereo, really well recorded, punchy and balanced. The guitar parts are lively, and detailed, the snare hits are loud and clear.

I need to say this at the outset: I am a Pearl Jam fan. I love and respect every era of this band and believe I can understand, as well as a fan ever really can, why their sound and songwriting approach have evolved the way they have over the nearly 40 years of their existence. They have enriched my life immeasurably; they owe me nothing. But *God* do I wish they still made music like this. Kurt Cobain was deeply insecure about Eddie Vedder's songwriting prowess, taking every opportunity to slag on him in the music press for the supposed crime of sounding insufficiently punk. Listening back now, he had half a point - sonically, this is as much classic rock as anything else, to the point of being hair metal-adjacent at times. There's a gorgeous romantic power ballad ("Oceans") and a moody self-determination power ballad ("Garden") and a "standing on the beach in transcendent contemplation" power ballad ("Release"). And Mike McCready's leads and solos wouldn't sound out of place on Aerosmith album; in fact, "Jeremy" is basically what you get if you write "Janie's Got a Gun" but you actually mean it. And that's the secret sauce: Vedder really, really fucking *means* it. There's no winking at the audience, no disappearing up his own ass in irony here. When he breaks down into his bluesy yarl at the end of "Porch" (one of a couple dozen stand-your-hair-on-end moments here) there's no doubt that the loss he's singing about is one hundred percent real. You've heard of Method actors; he's a Method singer. In his hands, and with his vocals, these songs take on archetypal significance; he's Townshend with more empathy, Springsteen with more righteous anger, Morrison with more determination to fight the devil rather than give in. And Lord, what *songs*! Almost alone in mainstream American music, Vedder is a rock Tolstoy, the great chronicler of families - parents, children, wives, husbands, lovers, how they all see each other and how they see themselves reflected in the others' perception of them. These are the people left behind by Springsteen's protagonists - the wives too beaten down to keep fighting for their families, the kids who woke up one morning to realize their father's hungry heart had led him to desert them. And they end up in all the places such people end up - on the street ("Even Flow"), institutionalized ("Why Go"), in the throes of addiction ("Deep"). The problem child on "Why Go" is particularly incensed because the betrayal leading to her loss of freedom has come from inside her home; "and Mommy agrees," Vedder sneers, practically frothing at the mouth himself. "Deep" is even more vicious, starting inside the head of a self-absorbed junkie (but I repeat myself) before zooming out to capture the horror of the girl he's about to semi-consensually impregnate. The cycle of hurt continues. Nowhere is this raw, generational, familial storytelling clearer than on "Alive," in which a teenage Vedder learns the story of his biological father for the first time and struggles to make sense of it, imagining the memories his father must have had before dying, wishing he were still alive somehow. And then comes "Black," which I have always heard as the other side of the coin - the father's actual perspective, prompted by the sight of "some kids at play" to feel the horrible weight of the love he lost, the family he never had. "I know some day you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky," Vedder howls, begging "why, why, why can't it be mine?" with a force that threatens to physically overwhelm him. Father and son, united in grief. No wonder this album became a touchstone for millions of aching kids - it tells the absolute truth. And yet that truth is not just trauma and despair; the hands on the cover are pointing heavenward together, after all. That's what the power ballads are for; Vedder prays for closure on "Release" and he *gets* it, or at least something like it. He yearns for his beloved on "Oceans" because he genuinely loves her and will find his way back to her. He walks with his head held high on "Garden" because, no matter who may have left him, he refuses to betray himself. Like all great leaders, Vedder ultimately did not want to lead; the chord he struck in a nation of young acolytes overwhelmed him, leading him to change his band's approach for the sake of preserving his own sanity. He didn't choose the burden of speaking for us; it was thrust upon him, and he bore the responsibility the best he could for a while before gracefully abdicating. And yet he was, and is, unimpeachable - like this masterpiece, one of the greatest collections of popular music ever made.

Pearl Jam is Iconic. PJ was also not my favorite alt band. Good lyrics,

💿 favourite tracks -Even Flow -Alive -Deep it's just a damn good hard rock album. had a whole lot of air guitar moments throughout

9/10

06/29 Classic album. Not a bad song on it

It kind of pissed me off how boring this album is

an all time great... vitalogy is better tho.

It had been decades since I listened to the rest of this album - you know, the songs that aren't Jeremy or Even Flow. I'd forgotten how great Pearl Jam used to be. 5 nostalgic stars.

Even Flow.

It's alright. His voice is not my favorite though.

Not for me not a fan of rock in general

I'm little annoyed that I'm getting the same kind of albums here. Pearl jam sounded the same as deep purple. The album was good, a one time listen and that's it. Songs I liked Even flow

Once - 4/5 Even flow - 5/5 Alive - 5/5 Why go - 4/5 Black - 5/5 Jeremy - 5/5 Oceans - 3/5 Porch - 4/5 Garden - 5/5 Deep - 3/5 Release - 5/5

This is my third favorite Pearl Jam album behind Vitalogy and Vs. (it's hard for me to decide the order of those two). However, I still think Ten is 4.5 stars (rounding up to 5), as it is a very strong rock album with great writing, singing, lyrics, and it was a landmark album in so many ways. It still holds up, as far as I'm concerned, as there really is nothing else like this album and its contemporaries before or after, as it doesn't sound like a copy of anything else and just has pioneer spirit, as it was obvious they were trying to create something new.

It's alright, some of the songs have a good flow, some of them are monotonous. Some of them are the right length, others keep repeating themselves for the sake of it. Some of them try to be better than grunge, some of them are just grunge.

Actually looking forward to this. Another album I was late to the party on. Like Nirvana generally. It was too “mainstream.” Doesn’t mean I didn’t basically know it front to back. Like Nevermind, I couldn’t go anywhere with anyone in high school where this wasn’t playing in the foreground or background. As the years have piled up, I have found that I have returned to it periodically and regularly. I think it’s aged incredibly well. Front to back. What a debut. 5 Boolean: True

Perfect album, could listen to on repeat for just about forever.

Had several songs that I knew just not by name - but songs that you’d have heard if you’d ever been around straight 30yo men or in a gym. Music for frustrated straight men teenagers in the 90s.

I missed out on Pearl Jam when they were first getting big, and I never bothered to go back and catch up. Eddie Vedder seems like a good guy, and over the years I’ve heard snatches of their stuff that sounded ok, but there wasn’t much in this album that made me want to do the journey retrospectively.

4.5

Not my jam

Good stuff

Reminds me of 8th grade. At the time was the best thing ever, but looking back yeah it's an OK album. So much yarling.

I'm not a big Pearl Jam fan and this is probably the most Pearl Jam album. It's alright. I've heard it all way too much and it has never resonated with me like some people. None of the Pearl Jam songs I actually really like are on here... but it is alright. Solid background listen.

Nice album, hard with its tender moments. Great vocal line, great bass

This is rock, classic rock and reminds me a lot of audioslave and different like sounding bands just like the album name this is a ten.

i liked this ! it’s very up my alley. this is definitely going in my rotation and i will recommend but i also know that i should really deep dive the lyrics more before i completely decide so this is my first time on this website so let’s see if i can go back and edit this after i lyrically dissect