Unlike most career-spanning, multi-disc retrospectives, Rearviewmirror does not emphasize latter-day albums in order to achieve a sense of balance that's inherently phony. Spanning two discs, Essential, like Rearviewmirror: Greatest Hits, chronicles that journey and it does an expert job not only of capturing the moment when Pearl Jam were monstrously popular, but proves that they still turned out good music even when they were fading from the spotlight. Frank Wilson's teen tragedy classic "Last Kiss" that went to number two on the Billboard charts, but they were no longer the biggest band in the land. That hardcore following was still large, and the band could still have the occasional surprising crossover hit, like the 1999 cover of J. Most bands would have embraced such widespread acclaim, but the quintet bristled at this vein, and started to restlessly explore new musical territory, a move that eventually whittled their fan base down to just the hardcore by the beginning of the next decade. Nirvana may have ushered in the age of grunge and alternative rock, but Pearl Jam were the biggest band in the land during the first half of the '90s, dominating radio airwaves, MTV, and college dorms alike. Pearl Jam took the opposite tack: they purposely left stardom behind. Joe Strummer once claimed that the Clash had stardom in their hands, then they dropped it on the floor and broke it. The 2013 compilation The Essential Pearl Jam is a retitled reissue of the 2004 collection Rearviewmirror: Greatest Hits 1991- 2003.
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