Instead, this is a selection of the best B-sides, stray singles, and compilation tracks, enhanced by no less than 11 previously unreleased cuts and presented in a non-chronological sequence.
Completists, who likely have much of this material anyway, should note that this is not a complete collection of B-sides and non-LP tracks - there's nothing from the Singles soundtrack, the Merkinball EP is absent, scores of live B-sides are thankfully left behind. These two things meant that a Pearl Jam rarities collection was necessary, and when they reached the end of their contract with Epic ten years after Ten, the group assembled the double-disc, 30-track set Lost Dogs. Then, it being the '90s, the golden age of the multipart international single and benefit compilation albums, there were a number of officially released songs that never made it to a proper Pearl Jam album. This meant that there was a lot of material that was never heard (apart from the occasional concert or bootleg, naturally), or some of it drifted out on singles released through their fan club. If a song didn't fit the specific mood of an album, it was shelved.
The shift from world's biggest band to world's biggest cult band was a deliberate move, of course, one that came about through their precisely crafted, often humorless, deliberately idiosyncratic records that came after Vs. By the end of the decade, they were selling far fewer records and they had the occasional hit - such as the fluke Top Ten "Last Kiss" (included on Lost Dogs) - but they were a far cry from being the biggest band in the world, even if they retained a passionate following. in 1993, each subsequent record played to a smaller audience, partially because the group decided to follow an idiosyncratic muse while shutting out the outside world by doing few videos and interviews and then sinking into a long rather futile battle with Ticketmaster that sapped their strength, as well as their popularity. After following Ten with the effectively scattershot Vs. But, like all their fellow grunge rockers (though not like Smashing Pumpkins), they bristled at the notion of stardom, and ducked the spotlight. They defined the sound of the decade, at least in terms of mainstream alt-rock.
Nirvana may have kick-started the alt-rock explosion, but not long after Nevermind knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous off the top of the charts, Pearl Jam overtook their fellow Seattleites, selling many more copies of Ten than Nevermind, as the album achieved saturation play on radio and MTV, thereby setting off a wave of imitators, ranging from Stone Temple Pilots to Seven Mary Three and scores of bands that have been lost to time. At the peak of alt-rock in the '90s, Pearl Jam were the biggest band in the world.
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