Pearl Jam’s ‘Ten’ Sells 10 Million Copies

Pearl Jam’s landmark album Ten has officially sold 10 million copies.

Ten, originally released in 1991, was led by singles Jeremy, Even Flow, and Alive. The album helped define the music scene at the time. Now it’s only fitting on the day Kurt Cobain would have turned 46, Nirvana’s grunge counterpart reaches a major milestone.

The company that records album sales, Nielsen Soundscan, started charting sales in 1991. Since that time only 21 album have reached the 10 million club.

Pearl Jam‘s Ten makes it 22. Billboard announced today that Ten sold 4,000 copies last week, bumping its total sales to about 1,000 over 10 million. Not bad for an 22 year old album.

Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready sounded surprised when Billboard told him the good news:

“I’m happily shocked to hear that. Wow.”

Pearl Jam’s Ten joins a pretty elite club with 10 million albums sold. Of the 22 albums in the club, Metallica’s, Metallica, is the highest seller with 15.86 million copies sold.

Other notable rock bands in the 10 million club; Linkin Park, The Beatles, Creed, and Santana.

Ten might be most famous for its single Jeremy. The song and accompanying music video were based on the true story of a high school student who shot himself in front of his classmates. The controversy surrounding the music video for Jeremy helped Pearl Jam gain national attention.

Surprisingly, Ten never reached number one on the album charts. Sales started slow and it peaked at number two.

Here is the video for Ten’s lead single Jeremy:

http://youtu.be/MS91knuzoOA

Did you know Pearl Jam’s Ten had sold 10 million copies?

[image via kobac | Wikimedia Commons]