If you don’t know already, Pearl Jam are gearing up to celebrate their 20 years as a band (in 2011) with re-releases of their albums. The first is the re-release of Ten, which is their biggest selling album to date (and to some, their favourite album).
I love this album and am excited when the Super Deluxe Edition hits my doorstep next week…filled with remastered, remixed copies of the album on both CD and vinyl, along with a vinyl copy of a concert they held, a demo cassette of the first songs Eddie Vedder submitted to the band…there’s a lot of stuff in this set and I’m pumped!
The remixed album did leak onto the Internet this week so I downloaded it to take a listen. Now, I’m more excited about the remixed album as it will give the listeners a fresh listen to an album they love. Brendan O’Brien has mixed all the Pearl Jam albums except for the first one and the band never really cared for the glossy 80’s style production that was on the album so they asked their friend to come in and remix it for this release. This is quite the daunting task as he says that he did not want to mess with what people felt to be ‘the definitive version’ of the song…the album that kids listened to 100 times in a week…the album that you threw into your car on a road trip. That’s why they released both the original and remixed versions in this set so that we would have the choice.
After listening to the album this morning on the bus, I must say that I think the remixed version is superior to the original! It sounds more…Pearl Jam! They’ve got rid of a lot of the reverb that was all over the album. The instruments are more clear…you can pick out guitar bits better with the ear and certain songs resemble how they are in their live incarnation (like Porch. Mike McCready soars with his lead guitar work near the end of that song…something that I never really picked up with the original version).
The album also comes with a few bonus tracks which consist of some leftover songs (Brother, Just a Girl), some demos (Breath and a Scream, State of Love and Trust) and some outtakes (2000 Mile Blues, Evil Little Goat). The demos are interesting to hear as they are rough compared to the their final versions…
If you are a fan of Pearl Jam, I really encourage you to pick up their rerelease of Ten next week. The remixed album is amazing and let’s be honest, Ten is just a killer album from the birth of the alternative era. I don’t think there’s one person in Kapuskasing who was a teenager in the early 90s who doesn’t own this album.
To those fans who have liked Pearl Jam over the years but never listened to their studio albums (Mike, this is for you), give Ten a listen. It’s still their best album and it just got better.
iplaying: Why Go – Pearl Jam (Ten)