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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.
Nice rock album by Pearl Jam. It is certainly not their best, but songs like "Daughter", "Dissident" and "Rearviewmirror" make it 4 star worthy.
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.
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.
Actually good Not what I expected from Pearl Jam 4
Excellent album by an excellent band. 4 stars.
Didn't think I'd like that but was good
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.
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