Vs.

Pearl Jam

1993

3.67

Rating

123

Votes

34%

39%

19%

Distribution

Grunge

User Submitted Album

Album Summary

Vs. (pronounced versus) is the second studio album by the American rock band Pearl Jam, released exclusively on vinyl on October 11th (UK) and 12th (US), 1993, through Epic Records, with wide releases on CD and cassette the following week. After a relentless touring schedule in support of their 1991 debut album Ten, Pearl Jam headed into the studio in early 1993 facing the challenge of following up the commercial success of its debut. The resulting album, Vs., featured a rawer and more aggressive sound compared with the band's previous release. It was the band's first collaboration with producer Brendan O'Brien and its first album with drummer Dave Abbruzzese. Pearl Jam decided to scale back its promotional efforts for Vs., including declining to produce music videos for any of the album's singles. Upon its release, the album sold 950,378 copies in its first five days on sale, which set the record for most copies of an album sold during its first week since SoundScan began tracking sales data in 1991, a record it held for five years. It occupied the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart for five weeks, the longest duration for a Pearl Jam album. Vs. received critical acclaim and has been certified 7× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of at least seven million copies in the United States.

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Sep 15 2025 Author

A masterpiece.. My 3rd favorite Pearl Jam album behind Ten and Binaural. A no skip album. Favorite top 3 songs 1.Animal 2.W.M.A. 3.Rats To bad they didnt put Hold On to the album. And its stil the Go-Animal combo the best duo openers of all Pearl Jam albums. Love it

Aug 14 2025 Author

Kinda torn on this one. Ten is one of the greatest albums of all time, and the first 3 PJ albums overall are all pretty good. But Vs is definitely the point where Eddie Vedder started to get annoying, and their songwriting started getting kinda iffy. They held it together for this album and most of Vitalogy, but after that they just started outright sucking. I think a lot of that is due to Vedder taking on a lot more songwriting. You can hear the beginning of it here. The Aerosmith-ish influence that made Ten (and Mother Love Bone) so cool is mostly gone. It's not that they turned to shit, it's that they were obviously trying to *mature* and you can hear the contempt for their greatest stuff in the sound here. I hate the production, basically. Thankfully there are still things in here that made Ten cool: that thick bass sound, a bit of a funky edge in places, guitar solos that haven't really left the 80s, etc. And rearviewmirror is one of rock's most underrated songs. Some of the songs wouldn't be THAT out of place on Ten if they'd been given the same arena rock production (which was categorically fucking BETTER). I dunno, this is either a 4 or 5, but I'll have to think about it until tomorrow.

Aug 15 2025 Author

Nice rock album by Pearl Jam. It is certainly not their best, but songs like "Daughter", "Dissident" and "Rearviewmirror" make it 4 star worthy.

Aug 15 2025 Author

Just complete grunge perfection. Instant nostalgia. I still prefer the polish of Vitalogy, but this is pretty much just as good.

Aug 17 2025 Author

Fantastic album from the kings of 90s rock!

Sep 08 2025 Author

What can you say about a masterpiece! These early Pearl Jam albums are pieces of art.

Sep 12 2025 Author

This is PJ’s go to album for me. Raw. Energetic. Enveloping. Not a weak track among them. It’s telling that Better Man was recorded during the Vs. sessions and couldn’t make the album. I would sub it for Rats, but I’m nitpicking.

Sep 15 2025 Author

My second favorite Pearl Jam album!

Aug 14 2025 Author

An album that has lived in my DNA since 1993. I hadn't listened to the album, or much Pearl Jam, in the last few years, but I sang along to every lyric and guitar fill when I listened to this again. Definitely their creative peak, with such a great blend of the melodic and the raw. Each subsequent album from here on had less and less of that fire and fury. I'd have given this a 5 back in the '90's, but these days it's a 4.

Aug 15 2025 Author

Actually good Not what I expected from Pearl Jam 4

Aug 15 2025 Author

Excellent album by an excellent band. 4 stars.

Aug 15 2025 Author

I can only picture Eddie Vedder sitting on the toilet moaning "mmmehhh eeehhh"

Aug 15 2025 Author

Didn't think I'd like that but was good

Aug 16 2025 Author

Never a huge fan - I don’t dislike the band, but found them.always to be on the more dark/self-serious side of the grunge spectrum, while I preferred the funnier, more oddball product. But it can't be denied that the musicianship, writing and performance are all very high tier. I'll bump it a point above my strict preference for showing up early and sticking it out for the long haul.

Aug 16 2025 Author

Not really a Pearl Jam fan so this music doesn't do much for me. It's fine and slightly better than average. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 4/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Aug 17 2025 Author

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Go, WMA, Rearviewmirror

Aug 18 2025 Author

Definitely plenty of pearl jam magic here. It becomes a bit more challenging than ten, but still a ton of really solid tracks.

Aug 19 2025 Author

Classical pearl jam sound

Aug 21 2025 Author

This was a left turn from 10 but also more modern to my ears. Been a while.

Aug 22 2025 Author

Nowadays I hear a lot of smack talk directed at Pearl Jam, which is unjustified because these guys rock! This and their debut are both great pieces of grunge

Aug 28 2025 Author

The ballads and folkier cuts hold up better than the rockers but what a delight to hear again a recrod that meant so much in '94. A band that seems to have retained its integrity and remains easy to enjoy/like and admire in the post-rockist era. Vedder's always been a proper rock frontman/demi-god.

Sep 05 2025 Author

Legends.

Sep 25 2025 Author

September 25, 2025 HL: "Go", "Daughter", "W.M.A.", "Rearviewmirror" Pearl Jam? More like SQUIRREL Jam, because, uh- these songs are so good it's nuts -_- Once again, Pearl Jam pops up on this website and I have nothing really to say. The last PJ I listened to in full wasn't Ten, but Vitalogy, which had a lot more bells and whistles to mention- not that it made it a superior album. "W.M.A" and "Glorified G" do demonstrate a righteous fury I forgot this band was capable of, so that's pretty noteworthy!

Nov 03 2025 Author

Like all 90s rock, it wildly overstays its welcome, but honestly way better than I was expecting from them

Aug 13 2025 Author

A side of Pearl Jam I hadn't heard before, reminded me of Primus in a few spots with the typical Vedder twang. Did run a bit long for my liking, but it was nice to hear some solid 90s hard rock for a change here.

Aug 13 2025 Author

[Eddie Vedder voice]

Aug 14 2025 Author

Grunge, alternative rock, hard rock. Ni fu ni fa.

Aug 15 2025 Author

Ten is a hard album to follow up on. Between the great songwriting and hard rock it’s one of the best grunge albums made. In Vs Pearl Jam went in a little different direction. Their best song on the album is a much softer song that still rocks. Pearl Jam had a wider range of ability and in Vs they show that off even if it isn’t the hard grunge style everyone fell in love with. 7.2/10

Aug 16 2025 Author

I enjoy Pearl Jam when I listen to them, but I don’t ever want to listen to them voluntarily.

Aug 16 2025 Author

Ok this was put on but a big Pearl Jam fan who feels there should be more of theirs on the list. I respect that although they aren't one of my favourites. It's functional and represents the genre perfectly.

Aug 17 2025 Author

Whatever, just not my thing

Aug 21 2025 Author

This is a really good album, one that really doesn't immediately come to mind when I think of this era, but is absolutely worth consideration. Starts out heavy as a hammer and maintains a pretty consistent energy throughout. Most of the best songs are loaded on the front half, which does make the middle part feel a bit dull by comparison. The lyrics are a bit simplistic and repetitive for my taste, but musically the band is on point, sometimes viscerally so. Eddie Vedder is in his prime as a vocalist here as well. I gave a 4 to Ten, so I'm going to have to go high 3 with this one. Fave Songs: Daughter, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town, Go, Animal, Dissident, Rearviewmirror, Indifference

Aug 25 2025 Author

Pretty good

Aug 31 2025 Author

This is a good album, stand alone I’d have it on the list, but it really isn’t in the same league as ten, so when I’m in the mood for pearl jam, that’s the album I’ll be going for.

Sep 03 2025 Author

I kinda forgot this album existed, and when I listened to it I could see why. Pretty dull, almost like outtakes from the Ten sessions.

Sep 06 2025 Author

For better or for worse, this is exactly how you'd expect a second Pearl Jam album to sound like. Rawer, heavier and edgier than "Ten", mirroring Nirvana's evolution from "Nevermind" to "In Utero". Not as consistent as their debut, but "Rearviewmirror" might genuinely be the best song they've ever done. Strong 3/5.

Sep 09 2025 Author

Grunge, alternative rock, hard rock. Pearl Jam puro y duro. La canción Daughter es la primera que conocí de él. No soy su fan.

Sep 09 2025 Author

Grunge, alternative rock, hard rock. Ni fu ni fa.

Nov 18 2025 Author

I grew up in the 90s with grunge in my bloodstream. Ten was one of the great pillars of that era for almost everyone, so coming back to Vs. should have felt like home. It never really has for me. This is a heavier and edgier record than Ten, but it doesn’t feel like a band naturally getting heavier or edgier. It feels like weight they were carrying. The anger is there, but it isn’t the wild, feral anger of the first record. It’s clenched. It’s directed inward. It’s pressure rather than release. You can hear a band that suddenly found itself massive. A band that was all of a sudden classed as one of the official stewards of “grunge," trying to live up to everything the world expected from them. There’s still plenty to enjoy here. WMA and Rats hold up well, and Rearviewmirror remains the best song Pearl Jam have ever recorded. But most of the album sounds like a group who lost their fun and their looseness in the rush of becoming one of the biggest bands on the planet but also not repeat Ten. In later years, Pearl Jam learned how to relax into themselves again. Vs. is the uncomfortable moment in between: important historically, but emotionally strained.

Aug 13 2025 Author

Gen X culture is so aggressively lazy and dull and boring and Jesus Christ I already had to live through this once why are you making me do it again

Oct 01 2025 Author

For me this is 1 star album. I'm sure they invite folk and rock into their music but for me, this isn't necessarily working as a genre of music.