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. This is also the first album since 1996's No Code for which all lyrics for the album were written solely by Vedder.

Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. The band's lineup consists of founding members Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, and Eddie Vedder, as well as Matt Cameron (drums), who joined in 1998. Keyboardist Boom Gaspar has also been a touring/session member with the band since 2002. Jack Irons, Dave Krusen, Matt Chamberlain and Dave Abbruzzese are all former drummers for the band. Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries from the early 1990s, and is considered one of the most influential bands from that decade, dubbed "the most popular American rock and roll band of the '90s".