Pearl Jam hasn’t been cool since the early 90s, and even then they weren’t talked about so favorably. As The Lawrence Arms’ Brendan Kelly so succinctly put it for Noisey in 2015 , Pearl Jam was “the lame-ass number two of grunge.” The dichotomy between Pearl Jam and Nirvana was in place in 1992, as Nevermind snagged the top spot on the Billboard charts, whereas Ten only ever made it to number two. Pair this with Kurt Cobain saying “ I’ve always hated their band ” when asked about Pearl Jam, and the lines were clearly drawn, even if it was largely a media-driven feud . This rivalry has always hampered Pearl Jam’s legacy, but that wasn’t the only thing, as the denizens of truly awful bands they inspired didn’t help matters either.

Vocalist Eddie Vedder’s distinctive growl was Pearl Jam’s calling card in the early 90s, becoming the affectation every post-grunge band would gleefully steal less than a decade later. Vedder’s overly enunciated vocal approach was run into the ground by second-rate rock singers to the point where it became hard to dissociate Pearl Jam from what followed in their wake. But what if, against all odds, Pearl Jam was actually good? It sounds impossible given the information presented, but once you let those biases melt away, Pearl Jam’s catalog becomes incredibly rewarding.

Since their commercial heyday, the band has effectively become the grunge sect’s Grateful Dead—a designation that, to be clear, is also not cool. Starting with 1994’s Vitalogy, Pearl Jam started making less consumer-friendly albums, outright refusing to make music videos or do interviews. But it was their protracted lawsuit against Ticketmaster that took them out of the spotlight entirely, making it all but impossible to see one of the biggest bands in America during their most successful period. It’s hard to imagine a band that’s sold over 32 million albums in the United States, and an estimated 60 million worldwide, functioning as a cult act, but since the mid 90s, that’s what Pearl Jam has been.

Through their own doing, Pearl Jam shunted themselves into their own world, allowing themselves to be seen as the de facto dad rock band by not actively courting any new listeners. But that’s exactly why they are so worth exploring: They’ve existed in this space for so long, they’ve all but forced themselves into creating something that’s now their own. Through sheer force of will, Pearl Jam has endured, proving that, in the long run, there are some advantages to being in second place.

Pearl Jam as Grunge’s Classic Rock Band

1991’s Ten put Pearl Jam on the map, so much so that including all of their big hits here is a little foolish. You already know them, and you’ve already decided whether or not you like them. But even if you’ve been averse to Ten your whole life, know that the band has felt the same way. They famously hated the album’s production from the very start, and while the 2009 remix known as Ten Redux improved the sound, it didn’t fully make up for the material. The writing of Ten was largely driven by guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament, the pair that spun Pearl Jam out of their glam-inspired band Mother Love Bone. While that glam influence always clouded Ten, the Ten Redux versions of “Once” and “Release” showed that they were slowly shaking off the remnants of their 80s hard rock ambitions, and with less cheesy production, the songs truly shined.