“After years of persistent nudging from the band, I was able to wrap my head around the idea of offering it as a companion piece to the original - giving a fresh take on it, a more direct sound.” The Recording Industry Association of America has certified it for U.S. “The original ‘Ten’ sound is what millions of people bought, dug and loved, so I was initially hesitant to mess around with that,” says O’Brien of the album, which has sold 9.58 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and vaulted Pearl Jam to global superstardom.
Pearl jam bootlegs rearviewmirror trial#
After years of trying to live up to one of their early statements- "there ain't gonna be any middle anymore"- it's disappointing to find them steering the ship back toward the center.The O’Brien disc also includes six previously unreleased songs from the era: early versions of “Breath” and “State of Love and Trust,” “Brother” (with vocals, not the instrumental version from the 2003 rarities collection “Lost Dogs”), “Just a Girl,” “Evil Little Goat” and “2,000 Mile Blues,” a Stevie Ray Vaughan-inspired jam with improvised vocals from frontman Eddie Vedder.īand members have been asking O’Brien to take a crack at a complete remix for years, and he gave the idea a trial run when he remixed the “Ten” tracks “Once,” “Black” and “Alive” for Pearl Jam’s 2004 greatest hits album “Rearviewmirror.” Unfortunately, this nuance is steamrolled by the group's need for fan-friendly riffage. Instead of trying to rage against the machine, they're appealing to its intellectual nature.
Granted, Pearl Jam haven't lost the perspective they've gained through age- good luck trying to get their young selves to pen a Springsteenian working-class portrait like "Unemployable". But here, he even wails through the slower songs, killing "Parachutes" with his over-emoting and vamping unsuccessfully over the bluesy saunter of "Come Back". He often sounds best on the low-tempo songs, where the mood better complements his voice's strength- Eddie's a crooner, not a wailer.
On this album, though, he's back to the multi-line mulching, growling for all he's worth through its more aggressive tracks. The "weird" Pearl Jam albums found Vedder's singing improving ever so slightly, to the point that he was actually singing without any odd affectations- the uh-huhs, the oooh-yeahs, the arghs. That his mushmouthed mewling and moaning became the template for a slew of copycat chest-thumpers is the stuff that keeps vocal coaches up at night. One thing that has returned, unfortunately: An emphasis on Eddie Vedder's voice, an acquired taste's acquired taste. While there's no shirt-rending Jesus Christ poses to be had here, this is as close to the righteous bombast of their heyday as they're likely to ever get again, for better or worse.
On Pearl Jam, that's what you get from start to finish (barring one accordion cameo in the minute long reprise of "Life Wasted"). Of course, this choice is where they broke with the lion's share of their fan base- millions who bought into Pearl Jam's original MO weren't willing to put up with creative wanderlust.
Despite having the wide eyes of Alternative Nation turned toward them- selling 17 million copies of their first two records- Pearl Jam decided to take the road less traveled, and that seemed to make all the difference in maintaining the band's creative viability. Think what you will of the group, but there's no denying their growth.