The reissue of Ten clearly falls in the latter category. Originally released in 1991 to relatively slow sales, it eventually overtook that other classic grunge album, Nirvana's Nevermind, and has been certified 12 times platinum. As a lead-up to Pearl Jam's 20th anniversary in 2011, the band is reissuing their entire back catalog, starting appropriately with their debut. Let's get the bottom line out of the way up front: if you don't own a copy of Ten, stop reading and go out and pick up (or load up iTunes, as appropriate) one of the reissues. (Frankly, if you don't have any copy of Ten, you probably want the Legacy edition, as I expect the other reissues will have more material than you're interested in.)

It's difficult to approach an 18-year old, classic album from an objective standpoint, especially if it's basically the same as the original. This is somewhat the case for the first disc of the set, which is just a remastered copy of the original. I compared several of the songs back-to-back against the original CD, and there's an improvement in the sound, but to my ears, it's mostly just a little louder. (This is confirmed by looking at the waveforms too--the peaks have been boosted as loud as possible, and the dynamic range has been compressed a bit.) That said, the music still has decent dynamics, and the songs are just as powerful as they were when it first came out.

The second disc in the Legacy edition, Ten Redux, starts off with a remixed version of the CD. Unlike what you might normally expect from a remix album (which is to say, electronica versions of the songs), the remix was done by Brendan O'Brien, the same guy who produced and mixed the original album (and remastered the first disc, for that matter). Brendan commented that he was hesitant to remix it, but ultimately was convinced and went for a more "direct" sound. The end result is a very subtle remix, largely boosting some instruments or voiceovers, such as on the bridge to "Even Flow" where we now hear singer Eddie Vedder playing the role of the homeless man in the song and asking for spare change. It might've been nice to hear something more adventurous in the remix department, the delivered product has a very nice sound.

Finally, the Redux disc offers up six bonus tracks from the original sessions. "Brother," which was previously released as an instrumental version, has been getting some radio play. Early versions of "Breath and a Scream" and "State of Love and Trust," both of which appeared in different versions on the Singles soundtrack and the Pearl Jam greatest hits CD, are included as well. "Just a Girl," "2,000 Mile Blues," and the "huh?"-inducing "Evil Little Goat" round out the bonuses. With the exception of "Goat," the songs are all strong and certainly could've been included on the original release.