Pearl Jam Honoring 30th Anniversary Of ‘Vs.’ With Vinyl, Cassette Reissues

Pearl Jam‘s iconic sophomore Epic album Vs. turns 30 today (Oct. 19), and in celebration, the group is reissuing the album in new vinyl and cassette editions on Nov. 17. Vs. will also be available tomorrow in a new Atmos Spatial Audio Mix through Apple Music, in tandem with new visualizer videos for every song.

Pearl Jam’s Ten Club fan organization will offer Vs. as an exclusive two-LP “dreamsicle” in translucent orange vinyl with white swirls, as well as a clear cassette. Target is selling the album in an exclusive clear vinyl edition, with a separate clear vinyl available for international customers. Meanwhile, a black two-LP vinyl will be sold at as-yet-unspecified retailers. For more information, click here.

Produced by Brendan O’Brien and recorded at the Site in Nicasio, Ca., Vs. was already the subject of a 2011 boxed set in tandem with its 1994 predecessor, Vitalogy, which featured several never-before-heard session outtakes and a previously unreleased concert from Boston Garden on April 12, 1994, just says after Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain committed suicide.

During its first week of release, Vs. sold 950,378 copies, the most of any album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking point-of-sales data in 1991. The record stood for five years until Garth Brooks shifted more than 1 million units of Double Live in November 1998. Vs. includes several of the band’s most enduring songs, such as “Daughter,” “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town,” and “Rearviewmirror,” and was performed in its entirety as a one-off in April 2016 in Greenville, S.C.

To read SPIN‘s 1993 cover story about the album, click here.

As previously reported, Pearl Jam will release its 12th studio album at some point in 2024. It was produced by Andrew Watt, who also worked with frontman Eddie Vedder on his 2022 solo album Earthling and is a member of his solo band.