Pearl Jam Celebrating 18, 19, and 20 Years With Re-Issues

We now have Rolling Stone's first guaranteed five-star review of next year.

Pearl Jam announced last week that they will be re-releasing their entire catalog between 2009 and 2011 in celebration of the band's 20th anniversary, starting with a remastered version of their debut classic Ten, set to be re-released March 24th. According to the band's website, there will be four different versions, with all manner of special additions, among them:

-Remixed album by Brendan O'Brien (some of these remixes appeared on the Rearviewmirror Greatest Hits album)
-DVD of the 1992 MTV Unplugged performance
-LP of the infamous 1992 "Drop in the Park" concert
-Cassette tape of "Alive", "Once" and "Footsteps" demos with Eddie Vedders vocals (only recently uncovered by Jeff Ament)

And that's just the beginning. The Super Deluxe Edition is available for pre-order now at the "What Recession?" price of 140 bucks, but shipping's free if you're a good ol' red-blooded American (or at least if you have an American address). Below is the full info on all 4 versions (I'm setting aside some cash for the Deluxe Edition).

1. Legacy Edition (2-disc set in mini-LP style slipcase):
· Disc 1: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered (original mix)
· Disc 2: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered and remixed by Brendan O’Brien, plus six bonus tracks: “Brother,” “Just a Girl,” “State of Love and Trust,” “Breath and a Scream,” “2,000 Mile Blues” and “Evil Little Goat”
· Re-designed packaging

2. Deluxe Edition (2-disc set plus DVD specially designed hardbound package):
· Disc 1: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered (original mix)
· Disc 2: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered and remixed by Brendan O’Brien, plus six bonus tracks: “Brother,” “Just a Girl,” “State of Love and Trust,” “Breath and a Scream,” “2,000 Mile Blues” and “Evil Little Goat”
· DVD of Pearl Jam’s previously unreleased 1992 MTV Unplugged performance including never before seen bonus performance of “Oceans” with 5.1 surround sound audio remix

3. Vinyl Collection (2-LP set)
· LP 1: original Ten tracklisting remastered for vinyl
· LP 2: original Ten tracklisting remastered for vinyl and remixed by Brendan O’Brien

4. Super Deluxe Edition (2-disc set plus DVD, 4 LPs and replica cassette in linen-covered, slip-cased clamshell box):
· Disc 1: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered (original mix)
· Disc 2: original Ten tracklisting digitally remastered and remixed by Brendan O’Brien, plus six bonus tracks: “Brother,” “Just a Girl,” “State of Love and Trust,” “Breath and a Scream,” “2,000 Mile Blues” and “Evil Little Goat”
· DVD of Pearl Jam’s previously unreleased 1992 MTV Unplugged performance including never before seen bonus performance of “Oceans” with 5.1 surround sound audio remix
· LP 1: original Ten tracklisting remastered for vinyl
· LP 2: original Ten tracklisting remastered for vinyl and remixed by Brendan O’Brien
· LP 3 & 4: Drop in the Park – Live at Magnuson Park in Seattle on September 20, 1992 (audio mixed by Brendan O’Brien)
· Cassette: replica of original “Momma-Son” Pearl Jam demo cassette featuring “Alive,” “Once” and “Footsteps”
· Package also includes an Eddie Vedder-style composition notebook filled with replica personal notes, images and mementos from the collections of Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament, a vellum envelope with replicated era-specific ephemera from Pearl Jam’s early work and a two-sided print commemorating the Drop in the Park concert.

Again, this is the first in a series of re-issues of every Pearl Jam album. Suffice it to say I'm glad I've held off on picking up the entire PJ catalog thus far.

Official Press Release on Pearl Jam's Website

Pearl Jam - Black [iTunes]

==TJ==

The Who Get Their Due At VH1's Rock Honors

Last night VH1 aired the newest installment of it's Rock Honors series, in which bands paid tribute to The Who. Said bands included the Foo Fighters (showing a bit of class allowing Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes to fill in for the temporarily vocally impaired Dave Grohl), Pearl Jam, Tenacious D and the Flaming Lips. Video from performances are below, and MP3s will be coming soon.

Pearl Jam - Love Reign O'er Me
<a href="www.vh1.com" target="_blank">Pearl Jam - Love Reign O'er Me Tribute Live From Rock Honors</a>

Pearl Jam - Love Reign O'er Me Tribute Live From Rock Honors

Foo Fighters - Bargain
<a href="www.vh1.com" target="_blank">Foo Fighters - Bargain Tribute Live From Rock Honors</a>

Foo Fighters - Bargain Tribute Live From Rock Honors

Tenacious D - Squeeze Box
<a href="www.vh1.com" target="_blank">Tenacious D - Squeeze Box Tribute Live From Rock Honors</a>

Tenacious D - Squeeze Box Tribute Live From Rock Honors

The Who - Baba O'Riley
<a href="www.vh1.com" target="_blank">The Who -Baba O'Riley Live from Rock Honors</a>

The Who -Baba O'Riley Live from Rock Honors

That's all. Back later.

Weekend WTF: Getting Into the Spirit of Election 08

In the grand scheme of things, a political endorsement from a rock band probably doesn't mean much, unless it's from the likes of Bob Dylan or Neil Young. The guys from Pearl Jam aren't at that level yet, but either way, their musical endorsement of Barack Obama is too funny to let slip.

Pearl Jam - Rock Around Barack

Let's see Hillary find a better endorsement.

==TJ==

What TJ's Listening To Now

Thanks to the help of some friends here at Arcadia and some online activity that would piss off the RIAA to no end, I now have 6 of Radiohead's 7 studio albums (only missing Hail to the Thief, which someone has already promised to let me borrow). After finally hearing what people like about In Rainbows, I decided to go back and look at the rest of their catalog, see how I felt about it. I've already listened to Pablo Honey and The Bends, and am relatively impressed, moreso with Pablo Honey (this is where I duck as all the hardcore Radiohead fans throw things at me). Expect a more thorough reflection next week once I've heard it all.

If you were to look at my last.fm stats for the last day or two, you would encounter lots of music from the following:
Radiohead (See above)
Nine Inch Nails (broke out Year Zero and Downward Spiral for another round)
Pink Floyd (long story involving a strange card game)
Pearl Jam (going through that Live at the Gorge box set)
Nirvana (currently playing through a bunch of tracks from With The Lights Out)

Clearly a very '90s alternative heavy set, and the weird stuff from that era, too. Not sure why I'm entering a premature crotchety old fart phase, listening to stuff from 15 years ago, but I am nonetheless. The question is, where is this gonna go? After I go through the Nirvana rarities, what's next? It'll probably be more Pearl Jam, as I continue trekking through the Live stuff, but I just thought my current taste has been a total reversal of what it's been in the past and worth noting.

Radiohead - Stop Whispering (AmazonMP3)
Nine Inch Nails - Heresy [iTunes]
Pearl Jam - Love Boat Captain (Live at the Gorge 9/1/05) (Not available online)
Nirvana - Polly [Demo] [iTunes]

Back tomorrow with Weekend WTF. Sneak preview; it feature one of the above bands.

==TJ==

Bonnaroo to Stop Sucking in 2008

The other day the REAL lineup for Bonnaroo hit the internet. Despite endless rumors to the contrary suggesting a Led Zeppelin appearance AND a botched report by NME that said they were in fact on the final lineup, the Zep sha'n't be playing. In their place will be all female tribute band Lez Zeppelin, as well as headliners Pearl Jam, Metallica, Kanye West, and Jack Johnson. Also on the lineup are OAR, Ben Folds, Rilo Kiley, and the Raconteurs, Jack White's side project when he's not dressed up like a matador.

In the past I've never been particularly impressed with the Bonnaroo lineup. Always a bunch of jam bands that you need to be positively shitfaced to appreciate. But this year there's actually something truly worth seeing in Pearl Jam and the strong likelihood of new stuff from Metallica (their new album is slated for a mid-2008 release). Don't know if this means I'll be hitchhiking down to Tennessee this summer (still holding out for a Foo Fighters concert...*sigh*), but definitely something to get intrigued by.

Back later with MP3s and stuff...just wanted to get that announcement out there.

==TJ==

Songs I'm Loving (Perhaps A Bit Too Much)

-A month after seeing the movie, I'm still loving the music from the August Rush Soundtrack. I went looking to see if Johnathan Rhys Meyers was ever in a band or had any other music out, and was sad to find nothing. Even his work in Velvet Goldmine was redone by other bands for the soundtrack. Rather unfortunate if you ask me, but then again the rest of the industry seems pretty bent on crucifying actor/musicians (look at the way other artists have trashed Jared Leto and 30 Seconds to Mars). At any rate, another sampling of Meyer's music ("This Time" was posted in an earlier entry)

Johnathan Rhys Meyers & Steve Erdody - Bach / Break [iTunes]

-As much as the rock fanatic in me hates to admit it, the new song by Avril Lavigne is too damned much fun. Say what you will about how 'corporate' she is or whatever, it's still ridiculous, upbeat pop that's got just enough in it to keep my brain cells from dying. At this rate The Best Damn Thing might end up getting a second spin before too long.

And just for the record, nobody is forcing me to write any of this, I promise.

Avril Lavigne - Hot [iTunes]

-There was once a time where I would trash anything that came out of American Idol. Then 2007 happened, and Kelly Clarkson released a rock album, Chris Daughtry did his thing, and most recent winners Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis both released great first singles (yeah I know I'm behind on this, but I've been hiding behind my rock music for awhile). Sparks' "Tattoo" is a version of "Big Girls Don't Cry" that guys won't feel as embarrassed to listen to, and as my friend Alex put it, Blake Lewis' "Break Anotha" is Justin Timberlake minus the annoying. Given the choice, I think I prefer "Break Anotha", but just the fact that I enjoy both is earth-shattering. A review of Lewis' Audio Day Dream will be coming soon.

Blake Lewis - Break Anotha [iTunes]
Jordin Sparks - Tattoo [iTunes]

-My rediscovered love for Pearl Jam that I talked about last week is still going strong. I've been in the process of uploading every Pearl Jam CD I own, which is surprisingly hefty given that I previously only gave them a passing glance. Given that I also watched Reign Over Me earlier this week, this song seems appropriate.

Pearl Jam - Love Reign O'er Me (Who Cover) [iTunes]

(One day I will post a PJ MP3 that isn't a cover...I promise)

-Shortly before naming Chase This Light the second best album of 2007, I uncovered this B-Side left off the album. Only heard it once so far, but its just as good as everything else on the CD, and I'm not quite sure why it was left off. Enjoy.

Jimmy Eat World - Open Bar Reception [Chase This Light on iTunes]

That's all for now. Back later.

Currently Listening To: Pearl Jam - Jeremy [iTunes]

==TJ==

Long Live The '90s

I feel as though the last sentence in the last entry needs explaining:

For Christmas I got (among other things) the Pearl Jam Live at the Gorge box set that came out earlier this year. 7 discs, 100 tracks, 69 individual songs. Also picked up with my iTunes gift card the U218 Singles collection, and have been enjoying both, but Pearl Jam far more for some reason.



My taste for Pearl Jam has been a strange one over the last few years. I tend to go long lengths of time without listening to them, and then when I pop a CD back in, it takes maybe 3 tracks for me to fall in love with them again and wonder why I ever stopped listening to them. I think it has something to do with the fact that, at least on their albums, Pearl Jam are never as glitzy or as clean as other bands. They never have been, and probably never will. Very few songs are immediately memorable for a good hook or a chorus that gets jammed in your head. Again, not what they do. What they do do is write a song or album that you can hear a few times and maybe acknowledge, or maybe it turns into background noise, but then when you hear one of those songs out of context, say, either when iTunes is in shuffle mode or on the radio and it's then that you say "Wow, THAT'S Pearl Jam, that's REALLY cool!".

As the Gorge box set proves and as millions of concertgoers would tell you, PJ put on one hell of a live show. I forget who it was that said that Pearl Jam can make a massive arena show seem like a small club, but it's true. I'm not even halfway through listening to all 7 discs and already the softer tracks like " I Am Mine" and "Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town" carry the same level of conviction and attention as crowd favorites "Even Flow" and "Given To Fly". One of my favorite moments on the set so far is after a particularly up-tempo performance of "Severed Hand" when Eddie Vedder talks to the crowd and tells them, referring to the heat "Y'all take care of yourselves, each other out there, we'll try to do the same."

Also unique about Pearl Jam's live show are the covers. Not many current rock bands have the balls to play a cover that came out before a fan's lifetime. Covers of classics like The Who's "Baba O'Riley" and Neil Young's "Rockin' In The Free World" are mainstays of a Pearl Jam live set, as commonplace as their own slew of hits. I don't know what halted my last round of Pearl Jam enjoyment, but it's not likely to happen again.




U2 has a slightly different situation. It's a known fact that Bono's constant preaching drives me nuts, and generally tends to turn me off to his music. But what's lost in that is the fact that more often than not the music is good. Not on the same level as Pearl Jam, but there's no denying that U2 is in fact a good band, in spite of its overzealous lead singer. If I have to choose one, then advantage: Pearl Jam, but either way, my love for the 1990s and its music is reborn.

Pearl Jam - Baba O'Riley (Live in Albany 4/29/03) [Who Cover]
U2 - One

==TJ==

Kanye, 50 set to do battle

For starters, I just started playing a leaked version of Graduation by Kanye West. I'll tell you what I think when I blast through the whole thing, but you should know that "Stronger" has been getting frequent play on my iPod for the last week or so. Both this album and 50 Cent's Curtis are slated for a Sept. 11th release, creating much fanfare and rivalry in the hip-hop world. In a very shady coincidence, both albums also leaked within hours of each other early last week. Fiddy has claimed that he will retire if Kanye sells more albums, a bet I sincerely wish we got in writing. Rolling Stone had the two appear as their cover story, and while the pieces are well worth the read, I was kind of disappointed to find out that the West/50 rivalry isn't nearly as heated as everyone would like to believe. I kind of enjoyed the image of Kanye holding his hands up in victory as he stands on a crying 50 Cent's body curled up in the fetal position. Maybe he's handing 50 a gold watch to help commemorate his retirement too. I dunno.

Last night my roommate handed me a mix of Okkervil River's stuff. I had heard of them insofar that their the new indie band du jour, but don't know much of their stuff. I'm gonna give it a shot a little later, see if maybe the indie kids got something right this time around.

Till then, I offer you a little taste of what I've been listening to in the last week or so:

Matchbox 20 - How Far We've Come
Kanye West - Stronger
Linkin Park - Shadow of the Day
Velvet Revolver - The Last Fight
Finger Eleven - Paralyzer
Pearl Jam - Daughter (Live at Lollapalooza 07) [The unedited version that caused a shitstorm last month]

That's pretty much it. Back later in the week, probably with more info on the radio show.

==TJ==

Jack's Mannequin, Pearl Jam do stuff at Lollapalooza

Jack's Mannequin, the side project from Something Corporate frontman Andrew McMahon, played a new song at the Lollapalooza concert this past weekend. The song, entitled "Cellular Phone" indicates the JM will be returning for another album, though McMahon has previously said that Something Corporate has not disbanded.

The video quality isn't great, but there's also an MP3 below.



Jack's Mannequin - Cellular Phone

Pearl Jam also made waves at the festival; during their hit "Daughter", Eddie Vedder started singing Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall", interjecting the line "George Bush, leave this world alone". AT&T, which was streaming the weekend-long concert on its website, had a wonderfully convenient audio glitch during the song, so that fans watching on their computer heard nothing. Pearl Jam has expressed concern over the matter, and is encouraging fans to go to their website and report other politically motivated censorship incidents on the part of AT&T. On the other hand, AT&T swears that the glitch was not an act of censorship, and is working to correct the audio problem on the stream. Vedder made other politically charged statements in the concert that weren't edited, so I'm inclined to tell Pearl Jam to lighten up a bit, though I can see why they're so mad.

You can view both versions of Pearl Jam's performance of "Daughter" here.

==TJ==

It's Really Good To Hear Your Voice...

I was in a car earlier this week and while the radio was on I heard that song by Hinder, "Lips of An Angel". Normally this is where I rant about the fact that this song became a radio hit a year after the album's release and 10 months before Matt Nolan and I predicted its success. But no, there's a bigger issue here. The version of the song I heard was not done by Hinder, but rather it was a country cover done by Jack Ingram.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying there shouldn't be a cover of this song and I'm not necessarily saying a country artist shouldn't be doing the cover. My issue is in the fact that Ingram didn't even take the time to let the song drop off the Billboard Charts before trying to capitalize off its success (Hinder's version is currently #26 on Billboard's Hot 100). The song has been a hit for only 4 months and the likelihood of future success for Hinder is pretty high. Jack Ingram's success over the past few years has been marginal at best. For the record, Ingram's version isn't outright bad; its basically the same song without the electric guitar and Blower's raw, scratchy voice. Not a terrible cover, but lacking the originality I expect in a good cover (See: The Used and MCR's rendition of "Under Pressure"). My biggest problem here is the fact that a mostly established country artist is piggybacking on the success of an up-and-coming rock band that deserves a fair chance.

Anyway, the Grammys are this weekend, and quite frankly, I don't care. They've become predictable of late. While I'm happy to see the streak of posthumous recordings getting gratuitous praise, does anyone think that someone NOT named John Mayer, Jack White, or Corinne Bailey Rae has a chance? And where the hell are the noms for Pearl Jam's album? That thing was genius, and a hell of a lot better than The Raconteurs. It's official; I should be running the Grammy Association from now on. Someone get me the papers, please?

==TJ==