The Alternative Number Ones: Pearl Jam’s “Who You Are”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones. The column is now biweekly, alternating with The Number Ones on Mondays.

This column is so fucking weird. Sometimes, I feel like I'm writing these things right from the pit of my soul, flashing back on songs that were omnipresent when I was in high school and that have either developed into canonical classics or into barely remembered historical blips. Sometimes, though, the Billboard Modern Rock Songs chart diverges completely from my lived reality, or at least from the stuff that I can remember. The divide is never more stark than when it comes to Pearl Jam.

Pearl Jam were huge! They were bigger than Nirvana! They were easily, by far, the biggest alt-rock band of the early-'90s alt-rock crossover moment! That's not just my memory. Numbers back it up. The sales of Pearl Jam's first three albums were absolutely out of control. Eddie Vedder was the guy who Time put on the cover when the magazine wanted to run a big story on what the "alternative rock" hubbub was all about. Pearl Jam's various ethical stances — their support of charitable initiatives and political causes, their refusal to make music videos after their "Jeremy" clip went supernova, their noble and failed battle against Ticketmaster — were gigantic news stories. My memory tells me that Pearl Jam were an inescapable radio presence for the first half of the '90s. The charts, however, tell a different story.