Just days after the release of Pearl Jam's brand new 10th studio album, "Lightning Bolt," comes the 20th anniversary of its key sophomore set, "Vs," which hit record stores 20 years ago on Oct. 19, 1993.
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder once told Spin he had hoped the band's 1991 debut "Ten," would sell 40,000 copies. Instead, that now-classic album went platinum less than a year after its release, hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 after a months-long climb, and easily made Pearl Jam into one of the biggest bands of the era. Pearl Jam and Nirvana, who were falsely portrayed as rivals, seemed to blast from every radio and turn up every time you turned on MTV. The ever brighter spotlight, however, turned out to be a maelstrom that Pearl Jam found increasingly difficult.
In the first half of 1993, it was in this environment that the quintet made the follow-up to "Ten." Pearl Jam convened at Potatohead in Seattle and The Site studio in Nicasio, Calif. with producer Brendan O'Brien, who would come to work with the band on many of its albums over the next 20 years.
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