Backspacer is the ninth studio album by the American alternative rock band Pearl Jam, released on September 20, 2009. The bandmembers started writing instrumental and demo tracks in 2007, and got together in 2008 to work on an album. It was recorded from February through April 2009 with producer Brendan O'Brien, who was working with the band for the fourth time this was their first collaboration since 1998's Yield. Material was recorded in Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California and O'Brien's own Southern Tracks Recording in Atlanta, Georgia. The music on the album the shortest of the band's career features a sound influenced by pop and New Wave. The lyrics have a more optimistic look than the ones in the politic-infused predecessors Riot Act and Pearl Jam, something frontman Eddie Vedder attributed to the election of Barack Obama.
The band released the album through their own label Monkeywrench Records with worldwide distribution by Universal Music Group via a licensing agreement with Island Records. Physical copies of the record were sold through Target in North America, and promotion included a deal with Verizon, a world tour, and moderately successful singles "The Fixer" and "Got Some"/"Just Breathe". Reviews for Backspacer were positive, praising the sound and composition, and the album became Pearl Jam's first chart topper at the United States' Billboard 200 since 1996's No Code, while also topping the charts in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.Backspacer is the ninth studio album by the American alternative rock band Pearl Jam, released on September 20, 2009. The bandmembers started writing instrumental and demo tracks in 2007, and got together in 2008 to work on an album. It was recorded from February through April 2009 with producer Brendan O'Brien, who was working with the band for the fourth time this was their first collaboration since 1998's Yield. Material was recorded in Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California and O'Brien's own Southern Tracks Recording in Atlanta, Georgia. The music on the album the shortest of the band's career features a sound influenced by pop and New Wave. The lyrics have a more optimistic look than the ones in the politic-infused predecessors Riot Act and Pearl Jam, something frontman Eddie Vedder attributed to the election of Barack Obama.
The band released the album through their own label Monkeywrench Records with worldwide distribution by Universal Music Group via a licensing agreement with Island Records. Physical copies of the record were sold through Target in North America, and promotion included a deal with Verizon, a world tour, and moderately successful singles "The Fixer" and "Got Some"/"Just Breathe". Reviews for Backspacer were positive, praising the sound and composition, and the album became Pearl Jam's first chart topper at the United States' Billboard 200 since 1996's No Code, while also topping the charts in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.false2025-11-07 21:37:57Backspacer20092009-09-212009-09-2137Alternative RockGarage RockGrungeHard RockRock11134121111102fe339f1-dd0b-4694-b0d9-cab1f1126a1283b9cbe7-9857-49e2-ab8e-b57b01038103d37a0c9e-aff4-42e9-b5fa-9fc4e5a2a210/media/data/media5/Music/Pearl Jam/Backspacer/folder.jpgPearl JamPearl JamPearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. The band's lineup consists of founding members Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), Mike McCready (lead guitar), and Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, guitar), as well as Matt Cameron (drums), who joined in 1998. Keyboardist Boom Gaspar has also been a touring/session member with the band since 2002. Former members include Dave Krusen (an original member), Matt Chamberlain, Dave Abbruzzese, and Jack Irons, all of whom were the band's drummers from 1990 to 1998. Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries from the early 1990s, and is considered one of the most influential bands from that decade, dubbed "the most popular American rock and roll band of the '90s".
Formed after the demise of Gossard and Ament's previous bands, Green River and Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with their debut album, Ten, in 1991. Ten stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for nearly five years, and has gone on to become one of the highest-selling rock records ever, going 13× Platinum in the United States. Released in 1993, Pearl Jam's second album, Vs., sold over 950,000 copies in its first week of release, setting the record for most copies of an album sold in its first week of release at the time. Their third album, Vitalogy (1994), became the second-fastest-selling CD in history at the time, with more than 877,000 units sold in its first week.
One of the key bands in the grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam's members often shunned popular music industry practices such as making music videos or participating in interviews. The band had also sued Ticketmaster, claiming it had monopolized the concert-ticket market. In 2006, Rolling Stone described the band as having "spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame".
Pearl Jam had sold more than 85 million albums worldwide by 2018, including nearly 32 million albums in the United States by 2012, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 in its first year of eligibility. They were ranked eighth in a readers' poll by Rolling Stone magazine in its "Top Ten Live Acts of All Time" issue. Throughout its career, the band has also promoted wider social and political issues, such as abortion rights sentiments and opposition to George W. Bush's presidency. Vedder acts as the band's spokesman on these issues.