Pearl Jam's "Ten"

I just saw a sign that I am getting old. They just release a 20-year reissue of Pearl Jam's Ten. Granted they cheated - this album is only 18 years old, but this still seems too soon.

I think this has already clinched the "overdone reissue of 2009" award. You can get a 2-disc set with the album remixed ($17), a 2 CD/1 DVD set with their MTV Unplugged set ($40), or a 2-LP set ($30). Or, if this recession isn't bothering you at all, for the low price of $180 you can get all of this plus a reproduced notebook (why?), a live show, and a reproduced cassette of Eddie Vedder's audition for the band (again, why?). For $180, I think they should have included Vedder's hair or toenail clippings, but that's just me.

With all of these options, I did what many PJ fans probably did: I pulled out my worn old copy and listened to it every day this week. I still find the murky production charming. The drum part at the end of "Alive" sounds messier as it goes along, like the drummer might die before he gets through the song. Because they turned the amps up, "Black" and "Jeremy" never sound like the ballads they were probably meant to be. This was a garage band making a record that would be an underground record had it come out one year earlier, but instead it sold 13 million copies and became one of the defining records of the 90's. What's not to love?

Two decades later, I still am trying to figure out half the lyrics to "Even Flow". I still think of that creepy glare Eddie does for the video whenever I hear "Jeremy". I still think "Alive" has one of the greatest air guitar solos since "Free Bird". I still try to mumble and scream along with the vocals in "Once". This album is our generation's version of Led Zeppelin 4 and Back In Black. Every spin of this one takes us back to those few years where rock was revived, before Kurt Cobain killed himself and grunge was reduced to the Nickelbacks and Creeds of the world.

There are a lot of revisionist historian critics who will try to tell you that Pavement's Slanted And Enchanted is the "real" important rock record of the early 90's, and I understand - if screeching guitars and atonal singing are your idea of good rock music, that's your monument. Pearl Jam went on to do other great albums (actually, I thought Vs. was an ever better one), but after Ten, can you remember another rock album that changed American youth culture like this one did?

These reissues are great if you lost your old copy, but otherwise, there's no improving something that was perfect in the first place.