Formed after the demise of Ament and Gossard’s previous band Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with its debut album, Ten. One of the key bands of the grunge movement in the early 1990s, Pearl Jam was criticized early on—most notably by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain—as being a corporate cash-in on the alternative rock explosion. However, over the course of the band’s career its members became noted for their refusal to adhere to traditional music industry practices, including refusing to make music videos and engaging in a much-publicized boycott of Ticketmaster. In 2006, Rolling Stone described the band as having “spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame.”[1]

Since its inception, the band has sold over thirty million records in the U.S.,[2] and an estimated sixty million worldwide.[3][4] Pearl Jam has outlasted many of its contemporaries from the alternative rock breakthrough of the early 1990s, and is considered one of the most influential bands of the decade.[5] Allmusic calls Pearl Jam “the most popular American rock & roll band of the ’90s.”[6]

“It’s actually terrifyingly obvious,” said FDA spokesman Grant Morris at a packed press conference Friday morning. “First of all, we have a scarcity of wood capable of destroying a vampire’s heart. Sorry Ikea, but a particle board stake has very little chance of piercing the chest of a crazed succubus. Second and most important, years of insecticide and hormone treatment has significantly weakened the vampire-fighting properties of most of the garlic produced in the U.S. This isn’t just my own personal belief, it’s simple science, folks.”

“Why do you think we’ve been pushing the importance of eating organic vegetables and soy milk and all that crap,” said Treehugger.com CEO Lars Matthews. “Because of your health? Please! We’re in a Cold War with these vampie bastards. In a Cold War you need to convince the other guy that you have more organic garlic than he has bloodthirsty followers. That’s how we beat the Soviets and it’s how we’re gonna beat the vampires.”

In light of the report, President Obama has issued an executive order forbidding the sale or resale of non-organic garlic as well as Count Chocula cereal, the latter of which is a popular propaganda tool of vampire sympathizers. Whether this embargo will continue once the Vampire Crisis is over is unclear at this point in time.