The 25 most essential Pearl Jam songs

Pearl Jam isn’t quite the last band standing from the glory days of grunge—their Seattle brothers Mudhoney still fight the good fight, delivering good new records every few years—but they are among an elite group of alt-rock bands who survived the 1990s unscathed. Although they’ve had the inevitable ups and downs that come from being rock & roll lifers, they’ve never succumbed to the allure of fast fashion, nor have they ever embarrassed themselves, partially because they’ve always kept their eyes on the horizon.

Dark Matter, their twelfth album, which arrived earlier this week, continues this unimpeachable track record yet it also offers something different: here, Pearl Jam takes a long look back at their 1990s. Encouraged by producer Andrew Watt, the group embraces the anthemic rock that made them superstars in the early 1990s, dodging nostalgia by keeping the sound bright, open, and lively. The nods to the group’s roots can’t help but send us on a journey through Pearl Jam’s past. Here, we offer 25 of the band’s prime songs—the songs that form the core of the group’s legacy and have grown over the years. If this list leans heavily on the 1990s, that’s merely a testament to their furious creativity during the height of alternative rock; there’s plenty to explore beyond these 25 tunes.

1. “Black” (1991)

“Black” was Pearl Jam’s original word-of-mouth sensation—a song that worked its way into the upper reaches of Billboard’s Rock charts despite the band’s decision not to release it as an official single. Pearl Jam’s reluctance suited the emotional tenor of the song. A paean to the melancholy of love lost or never won, “Black” glides along to a delicate guitar part by Mike McCready, eventually cascading to a heavy minor-key chorus—a moment where it feels like Eddie Vedder’s sadness over his departed love becomes too much to bear. Vedder’s words are clearly etched yet “Black” doesn’t play as a solo track: it’s a testament to Pearl Jam’s chemistry. By the time “Black” builds to its conclusion, complete with Vedder vocalizing wordlessly, the band seems as one.