Pearl Jam, “Pearl Jam”

Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam (2006)
J Records
Photographer: Brad Klausen

Sometimes, you feel so tired after recording an album that you could care less what the artwork is. Take, for example, Eddie Vedder and his sliced avocado.

Pearl Jam wrapped up production on their eighth album in 2006, and they were exhausted. The album art was the last thing to go and band just didn’t care. Vedder suggested, just put an avocado on it. Vedder says the idea must’ve came from a Super Bowl party in which they were eating guacamole. Thus, Brad Klausen photographed a sliced avocado with the pit inside for the album art. The interior booklet contained imagery from the album’s second single, “Life Wasted.”

The self-titled record has become known as “The Avocado Album” or simply “Avocado” due to the cover. In reality, Vedder said of the cover: “In the end, we thought there was enough there with the title of the songs, so to put another title on the album would have seemed pretentious. So, really, it’s actually Nothing by Pearl Jam”