Pearl Jam to Release 25 Albums Today

Pearl Jam fans will have their loyalty tested today. The rock band isn’t just releasing a new album--it’s putting out 25 of them.

In an unprecedented attempt to beat bootleggers at their own game, the Seattle-based band is selling two-CD sets recorded live at more than two dozen concerts during a European tour earlier this summer.

“We just thought it was pretty cool,” said guitar player Mike McCready. “If fans have to buy bootlegs, it can cost them $50. We wanted to do something that was cheaper.”

Each album carries a suggested retail price of $16.98.

No one can remember one act flooding the marketplace with so much music at the same time. Even Pearl Jam admits it’s not for everyone.

Most musical acts don’t vary their set lists much from city to city, making such a project redundant. But like Phish or Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam prides itself on being unpredictable in concert. Each show contains about two dozen songs; Pearl Jam played more than 80 different songs during the European tour.

Pearl Jam’s record company, Sony, had to be convinced to go along, band manager Kelly Curtis said. Pearl Jam records all its shows anyway, so the biggest expense was already taken care of, he said.

Virtually every Pearl Jam concert is made available on disc by bootleggers, he said. Curtis knows, because the band has collected most of them.

Curtis said Pearl Jam took this approach when it realized there wasn’t enough well-recorded material from the tour for a full album. “We’re not trying to talk people who usually don’t buy this stuff into buying it,” he said. “It’s more for the people who buy it already.”

Pearl Jam released no music from the June 30 concert in Roskilde, Denmark, where nine fans were trampled to death and three seriously injured.