Pearl Jam – Yield
This past Sunday, February 3, was a pretty big day…and I’m not talking about the Super Bowl.
It marked the 10th Anniversary of my favorite Pearl Jam album, Yield.
Released on February 3, 1998, Yield was the band’s fifth album and marked somewhat a return to the band’s more straight forward roots, following the huge success of Vitalogy and the underestimated No Code.
Most of the album was influenced by Daniel Quinn’s novel Ishamael, most notably “Do The Evolution” and the recording was captured on the documentary Single Video Theory.
Yield kicks off with a bang during “Brain of J”, which is apparently about conspiracy theories, as if the title didn’t give it away. It segues perfectly into “Faithfull”, which seems to be about religion until it morphs into a song about relationships. From there the seldom live played “No Way” proves how great this band is.
Then the back to back hits enter with the beautiful “Given To Fly” and the simple, yet complex “Wishlist”. “Pilate” follows, which is one of the two tracks written by bassist Jeff Ament; which were also his first lyrical contributions on a Pearl Jam album.
“Do The Evolution” roars by next, which besides being a powerhouse of a song, is also remembered for the Todd McFarlane animated video. The band then gets a little silly with the untitled track, which seems to follow the more experimental tracks like “Hey Foxymophandlemama, That’s Me” from Vitalogy and “I’m Open” off of No Code.
“MFC” sneaks in next and proves to be a perfect driving tune, which is then proceeded by the other Ament song “Low Light”, which is one of my all time Pearl Jam favorites. “In Hiding” follows Ament’s gem of a song, and was influenced by the work of reclusive author Charles Bukowski.
The album comes to it’s conclusion with yet another experimental type track, “Push Me, Pull Me”, before ending with the splendid “All Those Yesterdays”.
Although Yield was the first Pearl Jam album since Ten not to debut at number one on the Billboard charts, it’s still become arguably a classic to fans. For those who have never picked the album up, you should be ashamed of yourselves, it’s damn good and should be in most people’s music collections.
Here’s “Faithfull” from Single Video Theory
Here’s the video for “Do The Evolution”
6 Comments
You know the 10th Anniversary of your favorite Pearl Jam album! You have officially gone too far. I’m not sure what to do with you. Actually, that’s a bit impressive. I don’t even know Joni album anniversaries. And I thought I was obsessed.
Yes, I am lame and obessive.
If only I could use my mind for other things instead of useless knowledge…
Well, lame is kind of a strong word. Useless trivia is great for conversation – some of it anyhow. Plus there are people who know nothing pop culture related. Now that’s strange.
My ex is like that. If you said to him, “I want my 2 dollars!” He’d say, “What?” If you played him the song Hurt, and asked if it was No Doubt or NIN he wouldn’t know. He was over and I was playing that Big Hard Sun and he was like, “Who is this.” Sigh. No reference at all.
True. And it’s fun when you play board games, mainly when you win : ) Yeah, those people who know little about pop culture kind of get on my nerves. It’s hard to connect with them.
Don’t know why, but that made me laugh, yet also a bit angry cause’ he didn’t know who Vedder was. WTF? Even if you didn’t know it was just Ed, you could probably still think it was Pearl Jam.
BTW, did you ever listen to the entire Into The Wild soundtrack? I got it on vinyl last week, it’s so sweet!
I am lame – I listened to it – but haven’t got it yet. I want LP too though. But the real reason I came back to comment is I realized I had something cool for you. I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about this. At Tree Hugging Family I did a post at X-mas time http://www.treehuggingfamily.com/last-minute-green-gift-guide-online-solutions/
And in said post I featured handmade soaps and one of them you have to get it’s Blue Pearl Jam soap! How about that! http://soaptopia.com/inc/sdetail/478 I’m thinking you’ll have to get them for all your friends and family.
1. Stop being lame and pick the album up : )
2. That soap is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while, I want boxes of it! Thanks for passing the link along.