Talk about going to town. For Pearl Jam’s twentieth anniversary we’ve had a glittering re-issue of the band’s ground-breaking debut (in a variety of formats), a more restrained re-issuing of ‘Vs’ and ‘Vitalogy’ (best purchased on vinyl), a live follow-up to ‘live on two legs’ (the nattily titled ‘live on ten legs’), a book, a movie and finally a soundtrack… and it’s fairly certain they aren’t done yet. If all this seems like overkill then you should remember that Pearl Jam, for their fans, are a communal experience. Their live shows are frequently mass sing-along rituals conducted between band and audience and their album releases treated as red-letter days – simply put, Pearl Jam’s twentieth anniversary is not just a celebration for the band, but for the hundreds of thousands of followers they’ve garnered across the years, seemingly in defiance of their antipathy towards commercial values.
So why should you buy ‘twenty’? Well, what you have here is a collection of odds ‘n’ sods, outtakes and curiosities that sits more comfortably alongside ‘lost dogs’ than any of the live albums the band have released, even if a good portion of what is included here is live. Generously spread across two discs there is overlap here with previous releases (the version of ‘black’ from unplugged, for example) but overall much of what is to be found here is new and while audio quality dips, especially on older recordings, the exclusivity of what is available will certainly have fans excited.
Sticking with Pearl jam’s grand ethos of providing their work in unique and worthy packaging, ‘twenty’ comes in a digibook that is beautifully presented. Housed inside you’ll find the two discs, although you’d be best to remove them from their designated housing as getting them out of the tight cardboard slips is a guaranteed way to wreck the discs over time, a card advertising the movie and a thirty-six page booklet which contains liner notes for all tracks, an introduction from Cameron Crowe and rare pictures. It’s a well thought out package indeed and one that nicely supplements the audio material.
There’s no point in a track-by-track guide here – Pearl Jam fans will be familiar with much of what’s on offer and the date, in most cases, of recording will give a rough guide as to the quality of the recording – but what is worth noting are the few rarities that are genuinely exciting and make this package essential for fans of the band. The first track to raise eyebrows after a slew of live cuts is a blistering rendition of Mother Love Bone’s ‘crown of thorns’ recorded back in October 2000 as the band celebrated their tenth anniversary (how long ago that seems now). Also on the first disc and of special note is a wholly unexpected collaboration with Neil Young on ‘walk with me’, the solo opening cut from Young’s masterly ‘Le Noise’ album. With a band behind him, Neil brings new light and joy to a song that was already mesmerising and for fans it is exciting to hear the artists collaborate on something wholly new rather than a retread of something from ‘Mirrorball’.
The first disc, then, offers little in the way of surprise, although it has to be said that the chosen live cuts, for all their raw aggression over production, are thrilling and well worth returning to. However, Disc 2 moves the goal-posts by heading off into the realms of ‘rarities and inspiration’ thus offering greater insight into the formation of the band. Hence you get a rarer-than- hen’s-teeth snapshot of Chris Cornell recording ‘say hello 2 heaven’ with a nascent temple of the dog, a demo version of ‘footsteps’ taken from the cassette that snagged Vedder’s interest, a gnarly cover of Alice in Chains’ ‘It ain’t like that’ reminding the listener how close the Seattle bands frequently were; and the original demo of ‘nothing as it seems’ (strangely, but aptly followed by a full-blown live rendition that conjures an odd ‘before and after’ effect). These are the highlights – the tracks that mark this out as a collection to pique the interest of fans – and whilst all the tracks have merit (an explosive rendition of ‘Bu$hleager’ for example) these are the ones to look out for.
Ultimately this is a collection for the fan first and foremost. For the casual listener there is too much to distract – the disjointed nature of the songs, spread as they are across the years, the all-too-frequent poor quality of the recordings and the emptying-of-the-vaults feel of disk 2. However, for the fan; for the listener who has been with the band since ‘ten’ and loves to know more about Pearl jam’s origins – this is manna from heaven which has been sensitively put together and beautifully packaged. Therefore if you are a casual listener I suggest you give this one a miss, but if you truly love Pearl Jam then this will put a smile on your face that will quite possibly last until the band’s next anniversary.
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