{written with the dulcet tones of black in the background}

i am a big fan. who in their right mind would spend 1p short of a hundred squids on a reissue of one of rock’s seminal works? especially when the package comprise different versions/mixes of the same eleven songs.

it arrived on wednesday when i was away at work so it wasn’t til this morning i was able to pick it up from the royal mail depot. what it was was a black box with a small rectangular sepia image of the band with their arms up in the air. after removing the three sets of 180g audiophile vinyl of the original and remixed versions, plus drop in the park, i was greeted by a white envelope labelled with a cursive ‘pearl jam’ on its front.

{listening to the brendan o’brien remixed version of ten on 180g vinyl – it sounds fantastic!}



in it is a large poster of the band in the aforementioned pose together with some knick-knacks comprising prints of each member of the band, postcards (depicting the single covers for alive, jeremy and even flow), backstage passes and a mookie blaylock card. the next bit in the box is the piece de resistance, really – a replica of ed’s book. it’s a replica in cover only, as the content is pretty much scribbles of artwork, words and polaroids taken by jeff and ed. another cool bit is the replica of the original demo made by ed that contains the mamason trilogy (alive, once and footsteps).

{honest to god, the remix sounds superb!}


on top of the cassette tape is the CD/DVD box which houses both original and remixed versions of ten, plus 6 tracks, some of which you’ve heard of before (like SOLAT). despite being the definitive version, i’m surprised dirty frank and wash weren’t included (available in the japanese and european editions of the original release). the best bit of all in this is obviously the MTV unplugged DVD which i have in VHS format / muat turun version. it includes oceans which wasn’t in the original broadcast. one thing to note is the photo of dave abbruzzese strangely ain’t on the back of the DVD.

that’s all it is, all sembilan puluh sembilan sembilan puluh sembilan of my hard earned dough. tanggung puas hati, to paraphrase m zain from ali baba bujang lapok.