The “All-For-One” Story Behind Pearl Jam’s Album Cover, ‘Ten’

By now, most rock fans have heard the story about how Pearl Jam, the budding rock band from Seattle, was once called Mookie Blaylock.

Named after a popular All-Star NBA basketball player (signed to Nike) from the ’80s and ’90s, the band had an affinity for Blaylock, who was a hard-nosed player who could score and dish out passes.

[RELATED: 5 Deep Cuts From Pearl Jam]

But fewer people know that Pearl Jam’s album is named Ten because that was Blaylock’s number with the New Jersey Nets and throughout his career, later with Atlanta and Golden State. It’s with that same athletic, team-focused mentality that the band, which features Eddie Vedder on vocals and Mike McCready on lead guitar, conceived its debut LP’s album cover.

Let’s dive in.

Cover Art

The album is distinctive yet shadowy. With a red-pink-fuchsia background, there is a group of people in the center of the image celebrating, triumphantly, like a sports team—hands in the air.

The image is of the members of Pearl Jam at the time of the album’s recording. They’re together in a group and, as you look closer, you notice that the hot pink background is letters of the band’s name (itself a funny story that may or may not involve Vedder’s actual aunt, Pearl).

The name cut-out was created by band member and bassist Jeff Ament, who told the Seattle P.I., “The original concept was about really being together as a group and entering into the world of music as a true band…a sort of all-for-one deal.” Like the Three Musketeers, Pearl Jam went into musical battle.

Ament, who is officially credited with the cover design, said there were issues with Sony about the direction, adding, “The version that everybody got to know as the Ten album cover was pink and it was originally intended to be more of a burgundy color and the picture of the band was supposed to be black and white.”

Just goes to show you, iconic images can still not feel right to their principles at the moment.

Final Product

While the band changed its name from Mookie Blaylock to Pearl Jam and acquiesced somewhat on the color of the album’s background, the result remains recognizable for anyone who’s followed the career of the grunge giants.

They kept the spirit of their original group by naming the LP, Ten, to celebrate Blaylock’s jersey number. On some versions of the LP, the art went even closer in on the band members. While the whole cover is meant to be the band, some CDs in the ’90s only included a close-up of the band’s hands, looking like the top of Washington’s famed Mt. Rainier.

Photo by Michel Linssen/Redferns