If Gen-Xers need any indications that they are at the early stages of middle age, just head down to a local record store. Realizing that Gen-X and Gen-Y may be the last generation to actively grow up with a physical piece of music, record companies have been repackaging and re-mastering albums that were defining recordings during many Gen-Xers college years. Capitol rereleased three of Radiohead’s first albums as well as the Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head, Paul’s Boutique and a little later on this year, Ill Communication. Now, Epic has followed suit by giving Pearl Jam’s debut album the reissue treatment.
With all reissues, a buyer has to ask: is this a nostalgia piece that a record company is trying to slap together to squeeze out another $15 out of my pocket, or is this a truly valuable reissue worthy of a record collection? Fortunately, Epic is savvy enough to spread out the reissue treatment to four different releases. The most readily available is the two-disc reissue of Ten, which features the original album and a “remixed” version by Pearl Jam’s go-to producer Brendan O’Brien. A three-disc reissue features a DVD of Pearl Jam’s “MTV: Unplugged” appearance. 
The re-mastered Ten package is a strictly fans-only purchase. Band members have complained in interviews that Ten, which sold more than ten million copies, wasn’t recorded to their liking. Brendan O’Brien’s remix does give the album a fuller sound that’s less muddy. His remix puts Eddie Vedder’s vocals more at the forefront and cleans up some of the guitar work of Stone Gossard and McCready. But unless you have an extremely high-end stereo, you’re going to be hard pressed to hear much of a difference. I could barely tell the difference when I compared the two on my laptop.
The B-sides included on O’Brien’s remix include six songs not on Ten. That is good. However, two of the songs are already featured on the Singles soundtrack, which is not so good. Chances are if you picked up the album when it first came out and went through a period where you swore it changed your life, chances are you probably picked up that soundtrack. Still, the “State Of Love And Trust” on the re-mastered version is a much rawer recording than the one on the soundtrack.
When this album was released, it was lumped into the “grunge” category, when in reality, it was just a absolutely fresh reworking of the classic rock framework. Arguably, the task of making classic rock sound new and vital is a much more daunting task than creating a new genre of music. But for many listeners and fans, Ten succumbed to the same trapping of classic rock: overexposure. The same album I bought in early 1992 and played until most of the writing on the cassette was worn off was the same album I couldn’t listen to two years later after seeing and hearing “Alive,” and “Jeremy” in near constant rotation on radio and MTV. The re-mastered version at least gives listeners a chance to listen to Ten with fresh ears and marvel at not only how great the songs were, but how they were laid out to create a masterpiece of an album.
Whatever your opinions are about reissues, there is a market. Billboard reported 55,000 copies of the reissue were sold in its first week of release. A jaw-dropping 10,000 copies were sold for their ultimate reissue package, which runs anywhere from $140 to $200. The fact that 55,000 copies were sold (it could have made the Billboard Top 20, but Billboard does not count reissues for their weekly chart) shows that people still care about the physical product for music and more than enough people still hold Ten dear to their hearts.