12 songs to introduce someone to Pearl Jam (and get them to love it)

This week on our podcast we’re tackling a new type of mixtape challenge: To create a mixtape to introduce a total newbie to a band, in this case, Pearl Jam. If you’re like me, sometimes there are bands that everyone loves and obsesses over — but for whatever reason, you missed out on them. Now they have tons of albums, and you’re unsure about where to start to be introduced to their music. Well, Matt (who grew up listening to the band) put together 12 songs to introduce someone (me!) to Pearl Jam.

As he said, there are some obvious picks here, and there are some less obvious ones. As the listener to this mix (and someone who only sort of knew about the band’s music and some of their radio hits), I can safely say I adored listening to this playlist. As a lover of rock music and hard rock (and grunge…basically all the rock genres), I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without listening to more of their songs! But as we always say, there’s no shame in starting to get into a band late, and there’s no better time than now to start!

Here are the 12 songs that Matt picked to introduce me to Pearl Jam:

1. Jeremy by Pearl Jam

2. Even Flow by Pearl Jam

3. Black by Pearl Jam

4. Alive by Pearl Jam

5. Go by Pearl Jam

6. Elderly Woman Behind the Counter In a Small Town by Pearl Jam

7. Corduroy by Pearl Jam

8. Better Man by Pearl Jam

9. Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam

10. Thumbing My Way by Pearl Jam

11. Just Breathe by Pearl Jam

12. Far Behind by Eddie Vedder

As you can see, he threw in a single by frontman Eddie Vedder there at the end off of an award winning soundtrack (Into the Wild).

Here’s the playlist on Spotify (below) and YouTube Music, so that you can listen to it as well: