Pearl Jam Twenty Blu-ray – Short review

A quick look at the documentary ‘Pearl Jam Twenty’, made by award-winning director and music journalist Cameron Crowe in honor of the band’s 20th anniversary.

INTRO

As someone who was growing up with bands like Pearl Jam, I just had to get the documentary Pearl Jam Twenty on Blu-ray. Some inside looks of a band I really liked combined with the prospect of hearing Pearl Jam songs in surround was all I needed to get my credit card out .

CONTENT AND MIX

You get 3 audio options on this disc:

  • PCM 48/24 stereo
  • PCM 48/24 5.1 (bonus material is stereo only)
  • Dolby Digital 5.1 (640kbps)

The film starts out with a sort of collage of different interview snippets and songs, and the viewer is already immersed, as the audio is wandering through all 5 speakers. Once the voice over comes in, we are presented with a classic film mix, with the voice coming out of the center, ambience all around and the music typically from left and right with support from the surrounds.

The mix seems to work best with a cinema like speaker setup, where the surrounds are at the side of the listener. But that’s just personal preference.

Throughout the movie songs are fading in and out that are mixed in surround. Of course the music sounds best when it doesn’t have to compete with the voice over and the interviews, especially the live songs give a convincing sense of space. So the only problem I have with this release is that Sony Music dropped the ball here with the opportunity to put some surround mixes on the Blu-ray disc as a bonus feature (like Warner did with the soundtrack to Inception). At least we are treated with an almost uninterrupted full live performance of ‘Alive’ as a fitting end to the film.

SURROUND SOUND MUSIC VERDICT

Bottom line, this may not be a surround sound music disc, but it is a great documentary by award-winning director and music journalist Cameron Crowe with 2 strong lossless tracks (stereo and surround). So for any fan of Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam Twenty on Blu-ray comes highly recommended. It’s an intimate behind the scene look of an iconic alternative rock band, solidly mixed in surround by Eric R. Fischer.

You can get it here:


Comments

2 responses to “Pearl Jam Twenty Blu-ray – Short review”

  1. Pearl Jam, the only band I know that can take a song that was once sad, remake it, and make you want to dance to a sad song. The song was Last Kiss ornilialgy by J. Frank Wilson and The Cavaliers. They made it more upbeat and happy.

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