Vs. (Pearl Jam album)

For its second album, Pearl Jam felt the pressure of trying to match the success of its debut album, Ten. In a 2002 interview, the guitarist Mike McCready said, "The band was blown up pretty big and everything was pretty crazy." Vs. was the first Pearl Jam album to have production duties handled by Brendan O'Brien. It was also the band's first album with the drummer Dave Abbruzzese, who had joined the band in August 1991 and toured for the album Ten. Rehearsals for Vs. began in February 1993 at Potatohead Studio in Seattle. The band then moved to The Site in Nicasio, California, in March 1993 to begin recording. Abbruzzese called the tranquil recording site "paradise" while the singer Eddie Vedder said, "I fucking hate it here ... I've had a hard time ... How do you make a rock record here?" The band took the approach of recording one song at a time, and agreed with O'Brien to mix the songs as each one was finished. O'Brien had the band members set up much as they do live, and most of the songs were developed out of jam sessions. The guitarist Stone Gossard said, "I think we allowed things to develop in a more natural, band-oriented sort of way, rather than me bringing in a bunch of stuff that was already arranged." Gossard added that most of the songs were arranged once Vedder joined in and started singing, elaborating, "You could tell when the music wanted to change just by the way he was singing." In a 2009 interview, Gossard stated, "[Vs.] was probably where it felt better recording-wise. I saw how it could change and evolve which gave me a lot of inspiration to go we can do ballads, we can do fast stuff, we can do slow stuff, we can do punk stuff. That was where I realized there were going to be a lot of places to go with Ed." The first week of recording produced "Go", "Blood", "Rats", and "Leash" before the band hit a lull. Eventually the band was able to get "back on track" according to Ament as Vedder was allowed "to get in the space of his songs". The album was finished in May 1993. Vedder later said, "The second record, that was the one I enjoyed making the least ... I just didn't feel comfortable in the place we were at because it was very comfortable. I didn't like that at all." ==Music and lyrics==

The album featured a much looser and rawer sound compared to the band's debut album, Ten. Besides the heavier songs, the album features two acoustic ballads in "Daughter" and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town". A few songs incorporate elements of funk, including "Animal", "Blood", and "Rats". McCready stated that it was not that the band "sat down and decided to be funky", but rather it came from the band "exploring different directions and combining our influences". Topics on the album include child abuse ("Daughter"), gun culture ("Glorified G"), police racism ("W.M.A."), and the media ("Blood"). "Daughter", "Dissident", and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" are three storytelling songs. "Daughter" tells the story of a child who is abused by her parents because they do not understand her learning disability; "Dissident" tells the story of a woman who takes in a political fugitive; and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" tells the story of an old lady who has been stuck in a small town her whole life. "Glorified G", a song mocking gun enthusiasts, was inspired by an incident that involved Abbruzzese telling the band he had just bought two guns, which sparked a conversation about guns within the band. "W.M.A." was inspired by an incident that happened outside Pearl Jam's rehearsal studio in which Vedder got into an altercation with a group of police officers who hassled a black friend of his but ignored him. Vedder said that "Rearviewmirror" is about being "in a car, leaving ... a bad situation". Vedder stated that "Rats" is about the idea that "rats are probably a hell of a lot more admirable" than humans. "Leash" was written about the same girl that the Ten song "Why Go" is about. Regarding "Indifference", Vedder said it is about "[trying to] do something to make some other peoples' lives better than they are, even if it means going through hell. Three Faces of Me." ==Release and reception==

Vs. was released in the United States on October 19, 1993. The album sold 950,378 copies in its first five days of release, which set a record for the most copies of an album sold in its first week of release since SoundScan began tracking sales data in 1991, surpassing the record held by Use Your Illusion II by Guns N' Roses in 1991, as well as the second-highest single week sales, behind the 1.06 million copies sold by The Bodyguard soundtrack over Christmas 1992. It outperformed all other entries in the Billboard Top 10 that week combined. Vs. held the first week sales record for five years until it was broken by Garth Brooks' 1998 album, Double Live, which sold 1.08 million copies in its first week. While Double Live officially beat Vs. in first week sales, Vs. still holds an unbreakable record in that SoundScan only counted the first five days of an album's release in its first week sales until 1998. The album has been certified 7× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), In the UK the album was released on October 11, 1993, it charted in second place behind the new album Everything Changes by Take That, and would remain in the chart for 33 weeks. Rolling Stone staff writer Paul Evans gave Vs. a favorable review, saying, "Few American bands have arrived more clearly talented than this one did with Ten; and Vs. tops even that debut." He added, "Like Jim Morrison and Pete Townshend, Vedder makes a forte of his psychological-mythic explorations ... As guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready paint dense and slashing backdrops, he invites us into a drama of experiment and strife." AllMusic staff writer Steve Huey gave the album four out of five stars, saying "Vs. may not reach the majestic heights of Ten, but at least half the record stands with Pearl Jam's best work." Pearl Jam made a conscious decision beginning with the release of Vs. to scale back its commercial efforts. "We pulled back after the second record pretty hard," Ament stated. "A lot of it had to do with being in the eye of the storm and not being able to think straight." The band declined to produce music videos after the very successful "Jeremy", and opted to give fewer interviews as well as make fewer television appearances. "Ten years from now," Ament said, "I don't want people to remember our songs as videos." In 2011, Pearl Jam released a remastered Vs., along with Vitalogy, in three formats: an Expanded Version, a three-CD Deluxe Edition and a Limited Edition Collector's Boxed Set. The Expanded Version features three bonus tracks recorded by Brendan O'Brien at The Site studio during the Vs. sessions: a previously unreleased acoustic version of "Hold On", "Cready Stomp" - a previously unreleased studio outtake, and the band's cover of Victoria Williams' "Crazy Mary" featuring Williams on backing vocals and guitar, which had previously been issued on the 1993 tribute album, Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams. The three-CD Deluxe Edition features both the Legacy Versions of Vs. and Vitalogy with their bonus tracks and a copy of Live at the Orpheum Theater, Boston, April 12, 1994. ==Packaging==

The album's cover art, photographed by Ament, features a black-and-white picture of an angora goat from Lifeline Farm in Victor, Montana. According to Ament, the cover was a representation of how the band felt at the time, with Ament stating "we were slaves". The decision to change the album's name at the last minute resulted in a few different versions of the album. There are also different versions of the album that are unrelated to the title. Regarding the different versions of the album, some of the first pressings of the cassette still contained Five Against One printed on the cassette itself, the first couple of pressings of the cassette do not contain the title printed on the artwork at all, and the initial versions of the CD came in an Ecopak, which was a variation on the traditional CD-sized Digipak. While not rare, they went out of print quickly and are now hard to find. The song titles are not printed on the back cover of this version, but the artwork remains the same. The vinyl version has never had the title printed on it, and the cover art on the vinyl copies is different from the CD and cassette. The difference is easy to spot, as "the new and improved woman behind the counter" is printed below the picture. ==Tour==

Pearl Jam promoted the album with tours in the United States in the fall of 1993 and the spring of 1994. The fall 1993 tour focused on the Western United States, while the spring 1994 tour focused on the Eastern United States. Industry insiders compared Pearl Jam's tour to the touring habits of Led Zeppelin, in that the band "ignored the press and took its music directly to the fans". During this tour the band set a cap on ticket prices in the attempt to thwart scalpers. Several songs from the band's third album, Vitalogy, were premiered during this tour. The band's April 3, 1994, concert in Atlanta at the Fox Theatre was broadcast live on the radio in the United States. A few days later, the body of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was found in his home in Seattle due to an apparent suicide, which deeply affected Vedder. At the band's April 8, 1994, concert in Fairfax, Virginia, at the Patriot Center, Vedder proclaimed, "I don't think any of us would be in this room tonight if it weren't for Kurt Cobain." Vedder later said that "the day that we found out about Kurt ... I was just spinning. I was lost and didn't know if we should play, or if we should just go home, or if we should attend the services. I still have some regrets about that, even though in the end it was probably better that we played the last two weeks of the tour. I decided I would play those next two weeks and then I'd never have to play again." Pearl Jam was outraged when it discovered after a pair of shows in Chicago in March 1994 that ticket vendor Ticketmaster had added a service charge to the tickets. Following the tour, the band brought a lawsuit against Ticketmaster that accused them of being a monopoly whose anticompetitive practices allowed markup prices of more than 30%. The band's intention was to get ticket prices lowered for its fans. Pearl Jam's plans for a 1994 summer tour were cancelled as a result of a Ticketmaster boycott. On April 16, 2016, at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina, Pearl Jam played the entire album in order as part of the band's set. ==Track listing==

All lyrics are written by Eddie Vedder, except as noted. All music is written by Pearl Jam (Dave Abbruzzese, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, Vedder), except as noted. Reissue bonus material Vs. Tour bonus live CD Performed April 12, 1994, at the Orpheum Theater, Boston, MA. The penultimate show of the Vs. tour, this concert featured some songs from the upcoming follow-up album Vitalogy. The CD omits eight songs from the original performance: "State of Love and Trust", "Hard to Imagine", "Go", "Animal", "Alone", "Better Man", "Yellow Ledbetter", "I've Got a Feeling" (The Beatles cover). • "Oceans" (music: Vedder, Gossard, Ament) • "Even Flow" (music: Gossard) • "Sonic Reducer" (Dead Boys cover; guest performance: Mark Arm) • "Immortality" • "Glorified G" • "Daughter" • "Not for You" • "Rats" • "Blood" • "Release" (music: Vedder, Gossard, Ament, McCready, Dave Krusen) • "Tremor Christ" • "Once" (music: Gossard) • "Fuckin' Up" (Neil Young cover) • "Dirty Frank" • "Rearviewmirror" • "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" ==Outtakes==

Two songs recorded during the sessions but left off the album later appeared on the band's follow-up Vitalogy: "Whipping" and "Better Man". Both songs made their live debuts at the band's May 13, 1993, concert in San Francisco at Slim's Café, where the band premiered most of the newly recorded songs for Vs. "Better Man" was said to have been rejected because Vedder was not comfortable with the song's accessibility. which later appeared on the soundtrack for the 1998 film, Chicago Cab; however, that version was recorded during sessions for Vitalogy. The version recorded for Vs. appears on the 2003 rarities compilation, Lost Dogs. According to Gossard, "Hard to Imagine" was cut from Vs. because the band already had enough mellow songs for the album. Pearl Jam's cover of the Victoria Williams song "Crazy Mary" (to which Williams herself contributed background vocals and guitar) was also recorded during these sessions. "Crazy Mary" appeared on the 1993 tribute album, Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams, and later on the 2011 Vs. reissue, as a bonus track. The Pearl Jam/Cypress Hill collaboration "Real Thing" was also recorded around this time. "Real Thing" appeared on the 1993 Judgment Night soundtrack. ==Personnel==

Pearl Jam • Dave Abbruzzese – drums, percussion • Jeff Ament – bass, upright bass • Stone Gossard – rhythm guitar, lead guitar on "Rats" • Eddie Vedder – vocals, rhythm guitar on "Rearviewmirror" and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" • Pearl Jam – production • Nick DiDia – recording • Adam Kasper – assistance • Kevin Scott – assistance • Ames – artwork, black-and-white photography • Lance Mercer – inside color photography • Bob Ludwig – mastering • Joel Zimmerman – art direction ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts Decade-end charts ==Certifications==