Friday, January 8, 2010

The reissue of Pearl Jam's Ten


I am sure a lot of people will disagree with me. I HATED the Seattle music scene of the early 90's. I hated Nirvana, I hated Soundgarden, I hated Mother Love Bone and all things associated with the Seattle scene. There were SO many other bands in the country that were trying to take punk to the mainstream that were SO much better, so much better. There were so many of us who had already invented that scene and left it by the time it got popular. In fact I thought it sucked before it got popular.


I did not hate Pearl Jam, but they were to me a top forty hard rock band. I thought their sound was a lot more original than all the other horrible crap from Seattle. Primarily because I could tell that they had a great understanding of classic rock. I thought that the really great bands of the modern and indie rock era had a great understanding of two things 1) Punk & 2) Classic rock. Needless to say, I did not ever buy any of Pearl Jam's albums. I knew that their catalog was going to be re-issued in 2009 of course starting with Ten.


Pearl Jam is intimately familiar with Punk and Classic Rock. Lo and behold for my birthday this year, a friend of mine who is a Pearl Jam fanatic bought me the reissue of Ten. Quite frankly, it is a brilliant example of modern pop rock. Heavy and tuneful with none of the stupid-ass ego of talentless hacks like Kurt Cobain (I will never understand what people saw in such an utter mistake of humanity) haunting their mix. The Ten reissue also known as Ten Redux has great packaging too. Inside it is the original issue of Ten, the second CD is Ten Redux which is a rough mix of the original plus six extra cuts. I really like this, it is too bad they did not issue this album as the original. The rough unmixed of this is the superior recording. The last disc is a DVD from MTV Unplugged. Predictably forgettable unless you are a true fan and believer. In any event this is a classic album and must be owned.

1 comment:

  1. Just a quickie: I think that Ten holds up better than Nirvana's Nevermind.

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