Customer Reviews

Ten (2 Vinyl LPs)

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Remaster the original 1991 album to perfection,add a second disc which features a great 2008 Brendan O'Brein remix that strips away the dated reverb of the original mix and makes Eddie Vedder's vocals clearer and more upfront,gives the guitars additional bite and edge and adds kick and punch to the bass and drums.Include outtakes and demos,"Brother" being the standout with the slowed-down "State Of Love And Trust" being a close second.Contain all of the 1992 "MTV Unplugged" performance (availble for the first time on DVD)and compliment it with stellar picture and sound quality.(BTW, all discs were mastered by the talented Bob Ludwig.)Finish off with a nostalgic,colorful booklet and you've got a great,entertaining package worth its high price.Bravo!

To be perfectly honest, I've never had a problem with the production of Pearl Jam's classic debut album. It's always been a little slicker than the albums that followed, but I feel like it gave the cd its own unique texture within their catalog. But, for years, the members of Pearl Jam indicated they'd like to revisit the album, and now they have. The original cd (included here) sounds great. The "redux cd" sounds great. Brendan O'Brien's production is immediate and well-balanced. He's a great producer, and he's got a great feel for Pearl Jam, having worked with them numerous times. So, while I don't know that I'd describe it as "better" or "worse," it's another take on how the album should sound. So now there are two versions of one of the best albums of the 90s (or any decade). Cool.

Better still is the addition of extra tracks from that era and the fantastic MTV Unplugged performance on dvd.

The important thing to note is that this is a well-put-together and well-considered reissue, not just some cash-in. As a long-time fan, I'm really happy to have a new way to revisit this masterpiece.

Ten was & still is one great album. The "Redux/Remastered" version gives us a mix closer to Vs. & Vitalogy (i.e., the reverb/echo is gone). I really appreciate having both mixes because the original sounds closer to a concert and the Redux is closer to what we are used to from the later albums. Kudos to Brendan O'Brien's work.

Now the bad news - both the remastered CD and Redux version CD are hyper-compressed to make them sound louder - while reducing the overall music dynamics. Take a look at the comparision between the original Ten and the 2 newer discs at http://forums.pearljam.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=94732&sid=9e79a91b0c7b267c5b8ccf46f04071c9&start=45 (thanks to Dave Mack for the link).

As you can see, the newer versions look like a "brick" (i.e., white noise). If you think that music should look like a brick, then stop reading now. I really need to know who decided to do this to the CD versions. Bob Ludwig from Gateway Mastering handled the master and his position on the ridiculous "loudness war" is clearly stated here http://www.gatewaymastering.com/gateway_LoudnessWars.asp

Brendan O'Brien's work is so good he had to know that compressing the mix to get it louder just ruins the overall sound. I have to believe it was the producers and that Pearl Jam simply trusted them to put it together.

Maybe Pearl Jam really only listened to the LP. The good news is that the LP versions are not hyper-compressed (the LP had a separate master compared to the CD); however, the LP versions does not ship w/ the Unplugged DVD, which is an amazing and long sought after session. The DVD sounds great and as with most DVDs, it is not hyper-compressed.

For more information regarding the "Loudness Wars", check out the above links and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_wars

IF you go 27 seconds into "Alive" on the remastered disc, the audio clearly drops down to a dull a slighty muted/muffled sound, then for the next minute goes back to sounding ok again. How did they miss that?

It's great to have the dvd of the Unplugged performance but after listening to both discs, I don't hear any difference (other than loudness) in the remastered version over the original release.

The remixed versions are interesting at first to listen to, but they certainly are not any better. In some songs, it's much worse. Yes it's good to hear Vedder more clearly but in so many songs the guitar solos are pulled back and get drowned out by other instrumentation. Other times Vedder sounds so separate from the music that it's almost like he's singing in a closet.

Oldtimers know that Pearl Jam would never rip off their fans with unnecessary reissues, so rest assured that this package offers special goodies to its intended audience - hardcore fans with a collector's mindset. If you have a few hundred of the official bootlegs then you're in the market for the upcoming wave of reissues of the original albums. Here the immortal TEN definitely gets the deluxe treatment.

The item that excited me the most here is the DVD of PJ's memorable 1992 appearance on MTV Unplugged, in which the longer-haired, better-dressed, and much moodier young PJ brought down the house. Last I saw this it was on a grainy and distorted old VHS tape a whole mess of years ago. Recall that TEN didn't become truly huge until nearly a year after it was released, and was still on the upswing at the time of the broadcast. The MTV Unplugged show is a unique historical memento showing a soon-to-be-enormous band at a crucial moment, and their talent and passion were already roaring out of the gate.

The other item of interest here is the new remixed version of TEN by later PJ producer Brendan O'Brien. The reason TEN has always sounded different than all the later albums is the reverb-heavy original mix from producer Rick Parashar, which sounded a bit murky but gave the album the huge anthemic sound that appealed to the masses. I agree with many fans that you shouldn't mess with history, and if it ain't broke don't fix it. It would help if everyone viewed the TEN remix not as a replacement for the original, but as a variation. O'Brien's remix removes a lot of unnecessary sludge, which brings the contributions of Mike McCready and Jeff Ament into sharper relief and makes Eddie Vedder sound more human. The sound is crisper overall and the remix is mostly pretty subtle. The only truly substantive changes I can detect are in "Once," "Why Go," and "Porch" which sound less metallic and more garage-y. I'm not sure if those songs actually sound better in the new remix, but they are cleaner.

As for the six leftovers added to the remix CD, there is some historical interest to be found. "Brother" (with vocals - an instrumental version appeared on the Lost Dogs compilation) and "Just a Girl" are intriguing for historically-minded PJ fans. There's a little less interest in early demo versions of the great soundtrack items "Breath and a Scream" (later re-titled "Breath") and "State of Love and Trust." The final versions of those songs are better. And you can avoid the cheeky studio jams "2,000 Mile Blues" and "Evil Little Goat" - serious fanatics already know about PJ's improv habits from all of those collectible bootlegs.

But in the end, the true greatness of this reissue is the love that PJ have for their fans. This may or may not be better than the original, but it's surely more of an awesome thing. [~doomsdayer520~]

This DVD is a revisionist version of reality. "Oceans" has been edited to remove Eddie's ex-girlfriend's name and there's an entire song missing, an amazing rendition of "Rockin' In The Free World" written by Neil Young.

So many fans have waited years for this performance to come out on DVD. Thanks for nothing. I'll stick to my bootleg copy with the TCR timer; suggest you save your hard earned money and do the same.

This review is in reference to the VINYL set ONLY!

Where do I start? WOW. An amazing pressing. Two heavy-duty 180 gram records. A heavy gatefold cardstock sleeve. New pictures to dress up the inside, accompanied by the lyrics and detailed liner notes.

As for the music- record 1- you know what you're getting- the classic record, remastered for it's 20th anniversary. Nothing else needs to be said. The second disc (aka Ten Redux) is quite astonishing. The recordings are stripped of the layers of reverb and cheesy early 90's sounds to reveal the power of the songs. Guitars are panned and spaced out, so you can distinctly hear the parts (Mike is a god), the drums have more presence instead of being lost in reverb, and the bass punches through to reveal Jeff Ament's highly underrated playing. Eddie's vocals are so intimate- it feels he's in the room singing to you. The mixes also reveal alot of secondary vocal tracks that are now brought to the forefront for added effect.

Honestly, the new mixes are likely to be the new way I listen to "Ten"- they are that good! (and this is coming from someone who has heard the original pressing a few hundred times, dating back to '92 when I first bought it on cassette!) Seriously, this is the way to go- if you're on the fence, get this, it will NOT dissapoint (besides- whatever your opinion on the remixes, you'll be owning Ten, the original version, on vinyl)

And to anyone who is complaining in these reviews about the "Redux" version- this isn't some money making scheme to push the same product on us- this is a band who HATED the original mixes (see Jeff's recent interview in Rolling Stone for full details) and commisioned their producer to fix the record- to give it a more immediate, less polished feel. No, it's not what you grew up with, but that's the point. And that's why you get BOTH versions here.
Viva la vinyl!

Great re-issue of possibly the greatest album from the 90's. The remix CD is great, but the bonus DVD of the live MTV Unplugged is worth the price of the package alone - catching the band at their heyday back when there was only one MTV station still and they played music some of the time. Great 5.1 mix on the show too.

Worth it for the long overdue MTV Unplugged DVD alone, not to mention a number of great outtakes from the recording of their first album. The alternate versions of the two 'singles' soundtrack songs are amazing, as is the very underrated 'Brother.' A great collection.

I am not writing to convince you that the original CD of Ten from 1991 is one of the greatest of all time. The reviews for that version already speak to this fact such that I cannot contribute anything knew to the discussion. My goal is to help you decide if you should care about the Legacy Edition of Ten.

I am generally against it when artists do audio polishing of their previous work and essentially submit an upgrade for their fans to purchase. However, I am willing to make an exception for one of the greatest CDs ever released. Many of you already have the original CD, but you have probably noticed that the sound quality just isn't there when compared to other CDs that you buy today. Disc 1 of Ten Legacy Edition solves this problem. I found that the improvements easily discernable in comparing "Once" between the two versions.

Disc 2 is where things get a little more interesting. This is dubbed Ten Redux. I listened to the first 11 songs on Disc 2 just to get a rough feel for what the changes were. Then I transferred a playlist to my mp3 player that alternated between the two versions in order to do a more thorough comparison. None of the songs undergo a major transformation. You will easily recognize "Alive" as being "Alive". If I were to characterize the difference in sound between the two versions of Ten, I'd say that Redux is bigger, rawer, and crunchier. The changes are mostly noticeable in the guitars while the vocals have the least done to them. I thought that these were most apparent on "Why Go", "Black", and "Porch". Who is likely to find this interesting? If you are someone who appreciates subtle differences, then there's a good chance you'll like Redux. It will be similar to comparing different roasts of coffee, brands of the same wine varietal, or brands of the same style of beer. For example, I like to compare the characteristics between two different pale ales from different brewing companies. While they are both pale ales, they accent different characteristics. This is the kind of approach that you need for Ten (Legacy Edition) to be worthwhile.

I hate to even mention the additional tracks on Disc 2. These were all outtakes from the original Ten recording sessions. You've heard the two that are worthwhile on the Singles Soundtrack back in 1992 - "Breath and a Scream" (recorded then as "Breath") and "State of Love and Trust". "Brother" is not bad, but it is definitely a notch below anything that actually made the cut for the original Ten. Further, if it or the other remaining tracks were all that, they would have been released previously.

So, I think that Ten (Legacy Edition) is worth having, and I hope that I've given you something to help you decide if you agree.

Download this: Black (Redux Version)