Cashing In

I am not going to go on a rant about how record labels are pillaging their archives and re-releasing old product as newly enhanced material with a bevy of bonus tracks and extra collectibles before the compact disc fully surrenders to the digital age and takes its place in the grave next to 8-tracks and laserdiscs. No, I'm above that. Let the record companies do what they do best - make money. What pisses me off is when it's done with no regard to the original product.

Pearl Jam's Ten, along with Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger and Superunknown, Nirvana's Nevermind, and Alice in Chains' Facelift and Dirt, transcended their grunge (I'm still not a fan of that word) trappings and brought a heavier, stripped down style of music to the rest of the country. Seattle had already become a strong scene before Nevermind exploded, albeit on a much smaller scale, due to Sup Pop and its bands like Tad, Screaming Trees, and the aforementioned Soundgarden and Nirvana carving out a musical niche that would spark an uprising and the inevitable backlash. These bands' early albums were bucking the trend of popular music long before the great revolution of 1991 began; their sound as grey and murky as the weather of the city they called home. It's this sound that influenced Ten, and unfortunately, it's this sound that has become a victim of remastering for the sake of cashing in on nostalgia.

Paul's Boutique, the Beastie Boys' landmark sophomore release, while brilliantly creative in its use of samples, sounded like it was recorded in a closet. The newly re-released Paul's Boutique 20th Anniversary Remastered Edition, ultimately cashes in on the album's now-legendary status, but does so while improving on the original's main fault - perhaps due to the technology of the day or maybe the Dust Brothers meant for it to sound muddled all along - its audio quality. Sure, the re-released version will make plenty of people plenty of money - I hope some of that trickles down to Ad Rock, MCA, and Mike D - but it improves on the original. This is where Brendan O'Brien's remastering of Ten fails.

Placed in its original context, Ten broke form from the sludge of other Seattle bands with its arena-ready, classic rock vibe. Pearl Jam didn't strive to be Journey or Boston by any means, they merely shot for the fences while maintaining that early nineties motif of tortured-soul lyricism wrapped in reverb. Like the rest of grunge's oeuvre, Ten was meant to sound like it didn't give a damn about high-gloss production values or what the rest of the country was listening to. That it became a huge smash and enabled Pearl Jam to continue making records, hanging out with Neil Young, and fighting against Ticketmaster, I believe, was a coincidence despite myriad contrarian claims. Ten is a snapshot of the Seattle sound circa 1991, of a pronounced disinterest in musical trends, and most imporantly, an album borne from the desire to carry on in the face of adversity - namely Mother Love Bone's dissolution as a result of Andrew Wood's overdose death.

To remaster an album so perfectly constructed as Ten is an exercise in indulgence, not respect for the source material. O'Brien, one of the most successful producers of the last 20 years, brightens up the snare drum and cymbals and renders the rhythm guitars crisper than before, neutering Eddie Vedder's lyrics in the process. Where the original album featured (more often than not) Vedder's vocals at the forefront where they rightfully belonged while the music swirled behind him, the Legacy edition of Ten buries Vedder's earnest delivery, one of the selling points of the band to begin with, underneath the rest of the band, tampering with the original's impact and intention. The old saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The songs on Ten, while not all five star masterpieces, were some of the most moving examples of early nineties rock, inside or outside of grunge's scope. I'll save my money, go back and listen to the original (which I wore out on CD several times over), and revel in the greatness that was Pearl Jam's introduction to the world.