I grew up listening to Pearl Jam's Ten, Vs and Vitalogy, with Ten still being one of my favorite albums some twenty years later. I've also watched & loved their MTV Unplugged performance, placing it as one of the best musical performances I've heard bar none.

That said, their music was definitely changing over the course of their first three albums, at times feeling a bit confused and lost, and that impress continued with their later albums. I didn't like many songs on No Code, Yield or Binaural and gave up on them. When I finally gave in and picked up Riot Act and their self-titled 2006 album in some garage sales I just didn't like any of the songs on either album.

And then I heard Unthought Known off their Backspacer album during a Saturday Night Live show and I'm a fan again. It is an infectious and brilliant song which feels much more positive than the rest of their work from the last decade, much less of the "world is going to hell" noisy fury. Honestly it feels like lead singer, songwriter and composer Eddie Vedder finally grew up, got over his inner turmoil and looked to the future for his (currently) two young children, which really resonated with me as a father of two myself.

Thanks to this one song, for the first time in a dozen years I'm looking forward to their future work. Rock on Eddie!