Vs. (Pearl Jam Album) - Packaging

Packaging

The album's cover art, photographed by Ament, features a black-and-white picture of a sheep from a farm in Hamilton, Montana. According to Ament, the cover was a representation of how the band felt at the time, with Ament stating "we were slaves." The album booklet contains additional drawings and writings by Vedder, including one page apparently doodled at a business meeting that says "I will never trust anybody again." The lyric page for "W.M.A." features a portion of a news story concerning Malice Green, allegedly a victim of police brutality.

Originally, the album was titled Five Against One (The song "Animal" features the lyric "One, two, three, four, five against one..."). Concerning the original album title, Gossard 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." The album title was changed at the last minute, first to a self-titled album and then to Vs., a nod to the general theme of conflict present in most of the songs on the album. Regarding the title Vs., Vedder said, "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 decision to change the album's name at the last minute resulted in a few different versions of the album. There are also different versions of the album that are unrelated to the title. Regarding the different versions of the album, some of the first pressings of the cassette still contained Five Against One printed on the cassette itself, the first couple of pressings of the cassette do not contain the title printed on the artwork at all, and the lyrics to "Indifference" are included in the cassette version. The first couple of pressings of the CD do not contain the title printed on the artwork at all, and the initial versions of the CD came in an Ecopak, which was a variation on the traditional CD sized Digipak. While not rare, they went out of print quickly and are now hard to find. The song titles aren't printed on the back cover of this version, but the artwork remains the same. The vinyl version has never had the title printed on it, and the cover art on the vinyl copies is different from the CD and cassette. For all versions, the picture of the "elderly woman" changed at some point after the first pressings. Allegedly, the original woman never gave permission for her picture to be used, so Pearl Jam changed the picture to another woman. The difference is easy to spot, as "the new and improved woman behind the counter" is printed below the picture.