Backspacer

Backspacer is the ninth studio album by the American rock band Pearl Jam, released on September 20, 2009. The band members started writing instrumental and demo tracks in 2007, and got together the following year to work on an album. It was recorded from February through April 2009 with producer Brendan O'Brien, who had worked on every Pearl Jam album except their 1991 debut Ten and 2006's self-titled record—although this was his first production credit since 1998's Yield. Material was recorded at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California, and O'Brien's own Southern Tracks Recording in Atlanta, Georgia. The album—the shortest of the band's career—features lyrics with a more optimistic look than the politically infused predecessors Riot Act and Pearl Jam, something frontman Eddie Vedder attributed to the election of Barack Obama.

The band released the album through its own label Monkeywrench Records with worldwide distribution by Universal Music Group via a licensing agreement with Island Records. Physical copies of the record were sold through Target in North America, and promotion included a deal with Verizon, a world tour, and moderately successful singles "The Fixer" and "Got Some"/"Just Breathe". Reviews for Backspacer were largely positive, praising the sound and composition, and the album became Pearl Jam's first chart topper in the U.S. Billboard 200 since 1996's No Code, while also topping the charts in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Backspacer received mainly positive reviews from music critics, and is the band's best reviewed studio album of the 2000s according to Metacritic, where it received a score of 79 out of 100 based on reviews from 24 professional critics.

AllMusic staff writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album four and a half out of five stars, saying that "it sounds as if they enjoy being in a band, intoxicated by the noise they make."

Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times gave the album four out of four stars, describing it as "11 breakneck rockers and candidly emotional ballads, adding up to barely more than a half hour of optimally toned catharsis" and praising the "lightness and dexterity of the playing" and "Vedder's hard-driving, often playful vocals", and called its music "Accessible without sacrificing sophistication, aggressive without flailing".

Rolling Stone staff writer Rob Sheffield gave Backspacer four out of five stars, saying that it contains "the shortest, tightest, punkiest tunes they've ever banged out," and that "Eddie Vedder's heart-on-fire vocals are the main attraction, as always." He added, "After toughing out the Bush years, Pearl Jam aren't in the mood for brooding; at long last, surf's up."

This article uses material from the Wikipedia page dedicated to this album. No copyright infringement is intended.