Thursday, September 19, 2013

For the Completist: The Essential and Long Strange Road

Two soon-to-be-released items have popped up onto Amazon this week.  For those of us who scour the Internet for all things even remotely related to Pearl Jam, these'll probably be purchased, but unless you own all three of the Pearl Jam lullaby rendition CDs, these are probably not worth it.  

Yeah, we totally made up this cover.
The first is, The Essential, which is expected to be part of a series by Sony's Legacy label.  According to Amazon, you can start looking for this 2-disc set October 22nd.  The listing was recently changed to say "The Essential (rearviewmirror 1991-2003)," but since the greatest hits album, Rearviewmirror, has a different Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN), and there is no tracklisting, we just have no idea what to expect here.  

The Ten Club has made no mention of the collection, so it's likely a greatest hits album compiled by Sony with little to no input from the band.  Unless we find out something different, this is unlikely to be worth it for someone who owns Rearviewmirror, Pearl Jam, and Backspacer.



The second item, a 2-DVD documentary called Long Strange Road, is even less likely to be worth the effort.  The studio, Chrome Dreams (you'll remember them from the fairly recent Pearl Jam: Under Review), describes it thusly:
Although initially seen as purveyors of the Grunge sound and occasionally referred to as 'everyone's second favourite band from Seattle', Pearl Jam have, across almost a quarter of a century together, now become known as one of the world's very finest rock bands, and indeed their 60 million plus record sales to date is proof positive of their huge appeal. Pearl Jam 
Long Strange Road is a 2 DVD celebration of this extraordinary band's longevity, talent and near flawless musical output. Featuring a DVD documentary tracing Pearl Jam's incredible story so far, and featuring interviews with Eddie and the rest of the guys, as well as contributions from close friends, colleagues and some of the finest rock critics around, plus plentiful archive, rare footage and seldom seen photographs, and with a second DVD featuring numerous filmed interviews with the group from different eras of their musical career, this double pack film collection is certain to delight Pearl Jam fans across the globe.
We can't believe this is much more than a lower-quality production of Pearl Jam Twenty, although it might be a fair compilation of interviews from over the years.  If you must have all things Pearl Jam, go for it, but unless you collected four No Codes so you could have all four Polaroid sets, just pick up the 3-BluRay version of Pearl Jam Twenty.