Pearl Jam
Twenty

"PJ20" (which stands for the twentieth anniversary of Pearl Jam's career since the release of "Ten" in 1991) is not a live album, nor a collection of b-sides, rarities, demos, or covers. But it is all of these put together. As a result, listening to it is not the easiest task, even for a band so globally appreciated. Not even the fact that it's being promoted as the soundtrack for the related film directed by Cameron Crowe of "Elizabethtown", "Vanilla Sky", and "Singles" helps to sweeten the pill, as it remains an incomplete work without the filmic part, losing much if listened to without an accompanying visual element. The director's initial idea was to replicate the way a band is treated, at the height of its maturity and success, as Jeff Stein did with the Who and his "The Kids Are Alright", in an attempt to understand the flow of moods created over the years between the band members and their audience. In the over two hours of this double album, we get the chance to listen to the Seattle five in their always high-level live performances, with some particular rarities performed in small venues or television studios like "Just Breathe", performed on Saturday Night Live, or the now-famous rendition of "Black" on MTV Unplugged, complete with chills. But Pearl Jam, as is well known, are a concert machine honed over decades, having widely demonstrated their qualities to everyone by releasing all their concert bootlegs for free download online for years. Therefore, in the end, an operation like this, detached from the film, adds little for the die-hard fans (except perhaps the interesting cover "Walk With Me" played alongside Neil Young himself), and it isn't a great starting point for newcomers, whether due to the sometimes low quality of the recordings or the presence of many unfinished tracks, the famous demos. For completists.