Ten - Twenty Years Later

Pearl Jam is reissuing their seminal debut Ten in a deluxe package to include a remastered version of the original mix (which probably means brickwall limited, over compressed mastering) and a companion remix of the record done by Brendan O'Brien which is supposed to be a much rawer, earthy feel to it.  Now, I'm kind of hit-and-miss with Brendan O'Brien's production.  He's produced a lot of records I've liked but also has made a few records with good songs sound like complete crap as well.  He did produce my favorite Pearl Jam album record of all-time Yield with awesome success (I haven't liked an entire Pearl Jam record since that one).  So, when I heard this guy was going to helm the remix, I was pretty skeptical.  Surprise, Surprise!  He may have done a good job.

On Pearl Jam's MySpace their streaming songs off the various discs/cassette that comes in the package.  I listened to the remix of Once and it sounds pretty freakin' good!  I'm now intrigued to hear the rest of the remixes.  They're also releasing their MTV Unplugged performance as well.  I caught only a part of it when it aired originally and would love to have this on my iPod to bump as it features PJ when they were rawer and aggressive.  They're also releasing some live tracks in addition to these gems and duplicate of their original demo that snared Eddie Vedder as their singer.

Overall, it's nice to see a lot of value-add to this reissue.  Good job guys.

Currently listening: Ten (Deluxe Edition) (2CD/1 DVD) By Pearl Jam Release date: 2009-03-24

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=16074757&blogId=471475473