Yeah that's a shame. At least they have Leatherman on there

I love Hummus, underrated as f*ck.

I can see people referring to Yield as Vs 2.0.

I absolutely can.

U is the superior version full stop.

Yield is easily my favorite album of theirs. It’s the one I’ve returned to the most over time.

What makes Yield such a delight? It’s all in the timing. For one thing, there’s the matter of the band’s internal dynamics. They had actually become friends. (Given their brush with blinding stardom, it’s forgivable that it took them seven years.) This combined with their musical familiarity lends the record a tightness that comes across totally effortless.

Mike McCready and Stone Gossard truly find a great blend as a four-armed guitar monster. Gone is the standard division of labor (Stone’s arena-sized riffs driving Mike’s blues-drenched soloing). Instead, you have a record stacked with great guitar parts woven into a perfect tapestry. They spent Vitalogy and No Code dismantling the Pearl Jam™ guitar logic and Yield is the fruit of good labor.

Eddie Vedder’s voice is also at its on-record peak. He had matured past the soaring baritone that made early Pearl Jam so iconic (and then so imitated, and then so parodied), and he hadn’t yet reached the point where years of screaming his lungs out on tour took their toll. He’s singing at the peak of his dynamic and tonal range and it’s like a vintage tube amp—ranging from warm and rich to a broken-up growl depending on how hard he hits it. If the last time you heard Eddie Vedder sing was “Daughter”, you owe it to yourself to listen to “Brain of J”.

Then there’s the rhythm section. Admittedly, this is the area in which I am least articulate, but I will say that Jack Irons is my favorite of Pearl Jam’s many drummers. Instead of Dave Abbruzzese's always huge all the time playing or Matt Cameron’s overly-intellectual approach, Jack Irons is expressive, a little off kilter, and always locked into exactly what the song needs. Faithfull is probably the best drum track on any Pearl Jam record. Then there's Jeff Ament. He isn’t putting on a bass technique clinic. He’s just laying down a bottom end that’s so consistently spot on that it’s almost subliminal.

Fantastic post.

Faithfull and In Hiding are so fun to play on guitar

Do the Evolution & Brain of J too

I loved the Yield tour
This album was probably the peak of my PJ fandom

lvc, do you like neil young? this and no code are the era where it feels like he is trying out neil young as a vocal inspiration moving away, as you say, from his earlier signature soaring baritone

Nailed it. ”effortless tightness” is a great way to describe their playing on this record. Everything feels flowy, even the harder, more angular songs like BOJ and DTE. This is the album with the most layers of sound, or at least, where each layer can be heard on its own without screaming for the spotlight.

Thanks for those fantastic analysis. Totally agree with Yield being the album with the most layered sounds. There is continuity and flow between songs (roads, wind, waves). Each song is good on it's own but it's a great, great album to listen from Brain of J to Hummus.

I had spoken about the album a bit. I think they got it right 100% with the song selection. B-sides here are fun. Leatherman is perfect as a b-side, and the correct U is in a similar vein. Last Kiss and Soldier of Love made their kicking around debuts on I think the US tour, and they too are covers that you wouldn’t have expected from them at the time.

Give Way, even though it is a bit short of the full show, is a really nice new addition to the club here. Brain of J and Evolution performances are spectacular here, though hearing Jack play and break into the final jam on Immortality makes the whole damn thing. They were just so good at this point.

I like electric Neil for sure. I can definitely hear it on No Code. I like that in Yield he brought back the angry vocal sound of Vitalogy but on a song like Brain of J which at least has something approaching a sense of humor. Also, Brain of J is the song that taught me that nobody knows where JFK's brain is.

i kinda hate steel drums

well, okay...

we're all crazy at war

All Those Yesterdays is such a beautiful song...this studio version is perfect and i love how Ed sounds and appears on a side when you are listening on headphones.

I've been listening to some PJ albums straight through for the first time in a while in the lead up to hearing the new one later this week, and this album's still a minor miracle. I don't know if this is Ed's best album vocally, but it may be where he has the most dexterity. He can do the soaring anthems (GTF, In Hiding), he can do Stone's odder offerings (No Way, Yesterdays), he can do extremely hushed ballads (Wishlist), as well as throat-rippers like Brain of J and Evolution. It's still a wild album, that luckily I feel has finally started getting the acclaim it deserves in the past number of years.

Yield was pretty much loved from the beginning i think, it was not a divisive album at all, and got hits too so new crowds...Maybe the old guard of PJ fans kinda hated it when it came out? but it was way beloved than No Code

I think I was meaning that I hear about it (and No Code) more outside of the PJ bubble than I used to.