Formed after the demise of Gossard and Ament's previous band, Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with its debut album, Ten, in 1991. One of the key bands in the grunge movement of the early 1990s, its members often shunned popular music industry practices such as making music videos or giving interviews. The band 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."

The band sold nearly 32 million albums in the United States by 2012, and by 2018, they had sold more than 85 million albums worldwide. Pearl Jam outsold many of its contemporary alternative rock bands from the early 1990s, and is considered one of the most influential bands of the decade. AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine referred to Pearl Jam as "the most popular American rock & roll band of the '90s". Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 7, 2017, in its first year of eligibility. They were ranked at no. 8 in a reader poll by Rolling Stone magazine in its "Top Ten Live Acts of All Time" issue.