I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Ten [remixed] (2009).

Pearl Jam reissued Ten this year with a new mix by Brendan O’Brien, the producer who has mixed the bulk of their catalog.  So, this gives everyone a chance to hear what it would have sounded like if it were released after Vs., or something like that.

The great news is that he barely changed anything on the record.  In fact it still sounds fantastic and rocks just as hard as the original.  Really there are two notable differences: the guitars sound a lot cleaner (word is that the band has been displeased with how much reverb was on the original recording).  And cleaning up the reverb has the same effect as if you had a copy of the tape and listened to it 100 times and then bought a new copy…everything sounds clear and bright and amazing.

This clean up allows you to hear a lot of the subtleties that were lost in the original mix: acoustic guitars and some bass parts come through, as does Eddie’s vocal track.  And that’s another feature of the remix: Eddie’s vocals are very clear.  Some of those lyrics where you never quite understood what he was saying are now clear, and his voice is closer in the mix, like he’s in the room with you.

There’s a few other minor changes, mostly in the end of songs, where one aspect is louder than it used to be.  Or, for instance the harmonic notes in the beginning and end of “Jeremy” are a little quieter.

All in all, there’s nothing revolutionary about this mix, it just makes the disc sound better.  I listened to the disc several times this weekend, and I really enjoyed it.

[READ: April 14, 2009] “The Whole Story”

This is a brief story about writer’s block.  The narrator is spending time in an artists’ colony as a way to be away from the world and finish her novel.

As the writers’s block and procrastination sets in, she finds new ways to not write her novel: playing piano, drawing swans, wandering around the grounds.  It is only when she actively helps some of the other artists, that she feels that she herself is no longer broken.