Pearl Jam originally named their second album “Five Against One.” The title was taken from a lyric in the song “Animal” (“One, two, three, four, five against one.”) Eddie Vedder explains why there was a last minute name change to “Vs.” instead…
“They were writing all these articles…Our band against somebody else’s band. What the hell are they talking about? You know, don’t try to separate the powers that be. We’re all in this together.”
The band left the Five Against One photo (above) inside the album but the last minute change resulted resulted in a few different versions of the album. Some of the first pressings of the cassette still contained “Five Against One” printed on the actual cassette.
Also, the vinyl version cover art is different from the CD and cassette.
Stone Gossard, speaking about the original album title said,
“For me, that title represented a lot of struggles that you go through trying to make a record…Your own independence—your own soul—versus everybody else’s.”
Yahoo Music did a really cool breakdown of Pearl Jam album cover that linked us. Check it out…