Pearl Jam - Ten (super deluxe edition)

Last November when I read about Pearl Jam's debut album - Ten - being remastered and released, I knew I HAD to have it. It is a brilliant album, but has always sounded a bit hollow to me. 2004's greatest hits album - rearviewmirror - has a few Ten tracks remastered and showed promise of what would come one day if/when the band released the rest of the remastered tracks.

Then I saw the above picture of the package for the super deluxe edition and I was floored. How cool is that? Look at all that stuff. Its a merd's (Music Nerd's) wet dream. Im a big vinyl fan. I love unreleased tracks. I applaud bands that reach into their vaults to give the crazy fans items such as tour journals, riders, passes, etc. So yeah, wet dream stuff.

I ordered it in Dec when it went on sale - $140 for the box and $50 for the shipping. $190 US dollars that is. The Australian dollar was on its rapid decline, so with exchange rates and currency fees, it cost me $291. Then came the slow three month wait. I got an email from UPS on Tuesday 17th March saying it was leaving Seattle. By Thursday 19th it was here. That's fast. And considering the release date wasnt until March 24th, im pretty lucky to get it so early.

It was shipped to a safer address than my place, and picked it up a few days later - still 5 days before it was due to be released.

Here's the short review:

wow.

Here's the usual Adam crap on for half an hour review:

Arriving at my safe house I was greeted with a large cardboard box with a Seattle shipping address. Woohoo!! Opened up to reveal sweet sweet Pearl Jam box set goodness. Id waited about 4 months to get my hands on this thing, so decided to wait a couple of hours to "savour the moment" till I got back to my place. And besides - there's no turntable at the safe house. Boo.

When I got back I decided to listen to the bands live recording of the November 7 2006 show at the Acer Arena in Sydney. Great show with a few great mates at a very fucked up time in my life. There's one song I couldn't bring myself to listen to, but besides that its a rockin show.

So here's the box;

So I then cut the plastic and opened it up. The first thing I grabbed was the double LP of the bands 1992 Drop In The Park show in Seattle. Ive read about this show. I’ve seen the photos. I’ve seen the footage on YouTube, but to now finally have the show in full mixed soundboard audio on vinyl?? Man that's impressive!

Front cover

Rear cover

Front / Rear  - awesome photo

Inside the gatefold - some great b&w / sepia photos.

Thats Dave and Krist talking to Eddie

 
And heres the label on the vinyl

Heres where it all started - Ten. This is the front cover of the remastered album.

Rear cover

 
And a side by side comparison to the original vinyl of Ten

 
The vinyl label for the remaster

Front cover of Ten Redux - the Brendan O'Brien remixes and bonus tracks

Rear cover of Ten Redux

 
Vinyl label for Ten Redux

At this point I just had to put the boxset into the Pearl Jam vinyl section of the music room. I have all but two of their official LP's - im missing Live On Two Legs and Benaroya Hall. There's a story linked to me not getting these records. Maybe one day ill tell it. Maybe one day Ben will sell me his vinyl copy of Benaroya Hall.

So on to the goodies box

Goodies box spine - hmmmmmm silver embossed....

The poster, passes, postcards, etc are in a cool tracing paper type envelope. Nice touch.....

....that opens up to reveal a photo sheet from the Ten era......

.....and a stack of reproduced collectable's from the early days - including a Mookie Blaylock basketball card. Nice!

And heres the book containing old setlists, photos, tour notes, etc

Underneath the book is some foam that holds the CD/DVD pack and a replica of Eddie's demo tape. Again - nice!

Cover of Ed's demo tape

This tape is the stuff of legend. I always thought id see it in the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame one day. Even though its a replica its totally awesome to have my own copy. Fuck this band rocks.

And the CD/DVD slip case

The covers for the CD's are the same as the vinyl. The Unplugged DVD has a great photo from the taping of the show

The rear of the DVD case has some classic live shots of the band. Interesting to see the exclusion of one particular member though.....

To top it all off theres a nice series of 12" x 12" prints to make up the liner notes about the box.

Some of the other pages have handwritten notes as well.

This is my favourite photo from the liner notes. A great Eddie photo.

So that's the boxset. Now onto the audio and video;

Mtv Unplugged

Like most Pearl Jam fans, i have a few versions of the bands Mtv Unplugged performance in various formats. I have crappy mp3s from a 5th gen vhs. I have a dvd thats made from a 5th gen vhs. A dvd from a 3rd gen vhs that doesn't have the full show. And then theres the various mpegs, divx, youtube downloads, etc ive found on this here interweb thing over the years. All have one thing in common - a great performance. And now its great to relive the great performance with the full show in fantastic audio quality.

Ive read comments from the band over the years mentioning when fans come up to them and ask "when are you guys going to release the unplugged show?" and the band are amazed that people actually like it. Maybe they thought it was an off show or some other stuff was going on at the time? Me?? I love it. But then again I love most unplugged performances - even when im not a big fan of the band. I feel they show the true talent of an artist - the songs are raw and stripped back to their elements. I also like to see and hear little improvisations that a full amplified show hides the detail of.

The performances here are very similar to the studio or live versions of the songs. Id prefer to see and hear more basic drums and a quieter sound, but that's my only complaint. Oh, and the guitars are low in the mix on a lot of the tracks. Again, a smaller and less amplified drum kit would have helped the mix.

Audio quality - Brilliant. Clear. I’m not a big fan of 5.1 live mixes, so I just listened to the stereo mix and its great. Again, all ive had is crappy low quality versions for the last 15 years, so this is perfection.

Video quality - Clear. Sharp. I have a HD tv and the DVD is connected via RGB HD enabled cables. Looks good to me. And again, the only other versions of this performance I own are copies of copies of copies with time codes.

Summary - the first thing I watched or listened to from the boxset. Off to a great start. This disc will be on high rotation at my place in the foreseeable future. Standout tracks were State Of, Black and Jeremy.

Ten - Remastered

Its great.

But heres a story. Back in 1995 i heard about Pearl Jam, members of Soundgarden, Mudhoney, what was left of Nirvana, etc running a pirate radio station. More info here. So anyhoo, early 1998 I managed to find a low quality (maybe 96kbps mp3) recording on a Pearl Jam fan website. Maybe a 60mb download - about 5 hrs to download. And it was awesome. Not the sound quality, but the performance. I played it all the time. Fast forward to 2005. Broadband is everywhere, i find a torrent of the pirate radio broadcast - i think either off the master tapes from the recording or a 2nd generation. Great sound quaity. I downloaded and the quality was great. But it just didnt hit me the way it did when I first heard it back in the day.

So theres my review of Ten remastered. Its even better sound quality. Its one of the best albums of the 90's. It now sounds better.

Ten - Remixed

Brendan O'brien knows a thing or 20 about mixing, engineering and producing records. I like his mix. It sounds warmer. But like my comment above, I think i prefer the original. Ive been listening to that version for almost 18 years. I guess if Brendan had produced it originally then id be used to that version. Yes - at 32 im a bit stuck in my ways when it comes to music.

The bonus tunes from the Ten era are great to hear. State Of Love And Trust has always been one of my favourite Pearl Jam songs. But im not into this mix of it. I much prefer the versions we have. Brother is great. The other tracks are ok. Im sure ill get hatemail, but the other songs dont jump out at me as being anything mind numbingly brilliant. It could be that im already overwhelmed by now with the greatness in this boxset - Unplugged performance, hearing Ten again (ive been in Ten blackout mode since December - havent listened to it except to play Even Flow on Guitar Hero 3), etc

 

Drop in The Park

WOW!!! I was really impressed with the DVD of Unplugged. And like Unplugged, I had low quality versions of this over the years. But here it is in high quality soundboard audio - on Vinyl!!! Yay for vinyl. The sound quality is clear, crisp and ROCKIN! Kicking off with Even Flow (what a way to start), into Once, bang into State Of... and then Why Go - one of my favourite PJ songs. Theres 4 live songs in a row from an era of the band id kill to teleport back to.

Deep is good. Jeremy is one of the best live versions ive ever heard. Then Black. This song was hard for me to listen to. I normally skip it when i have the iPod on with one of the many live shows from PJ on it. Its just too hard to hear the intro, the opening, the chorus, etc. Then theres the section towards the end;

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky, but why, why, why
Can't it be, can't it be mine

It just fucks me up - the emotion in Eddie's voice when he sings it live and the message in the words make me think of what could have been and isnt anymore. Ben was there with me in Sydney on November 7 2006 when i heard the song live and the fear of that time of our lives coming out of me when they played Black. Ben patted me on the back at the end of the song. No words were spoken. He knew. Thanks bro.

Back to the review....

Alive kicks in with that guitar intro. Its a brilliant version of the song. Garden and Porch finish off the (too short) set. Drop In The Park is all killer no filler. Its worth the purchase price alone. And then as an added bonus, a small piece of paper fell out of the vinyl cover with a code to download a 320kbps mp3 version of the show. Nice....

The only part of the box I didn’t listen to was Eddie's Mamasan demo tape. I didn’t want to open the shrink wrap around the tape, and im sure i have the mp3s floating around - ive heard them before.

So, there's the review. If you don’t have it, you want it, you can afford it - and still get your hands on it - then I thoroughly recommend it.