old thread archived here

Share the story of the first time you heard this album

After my disappointing experience with No Code Yield had a lot riding on it, especially since some early reviews I read likened it as a throwback to the first two records (it is at this point you can argue that pearl jam became irrelevant and lost the pulse that it had, when they were now known for their past rather than their future, and the hope of all subsequent records (in the larger music community) was that they would return to that sound). So it had a lot of work to do

Early signs were good. One of the NYC radio stations decided to play Do the Evolution ten times in a row. At first it freaked me out a bit (like the first time I heard habit) since I was worried that Ed destroyed his voice but I loved the song (esp the little riff stone plays after the first verse and the hallelujah chorus). Soon after I heard Given to Fly, which I loved immediately (it was a top 5 PJ song for me for a while, long before DTE) and I had heard that early live version of Brain of J and liked it a lot

There was not a midnight madness chance to get the album so 10 am the morning it released I hopped in my car and drove to the record store. I bought the CD and then also bought a tape so I could listen to it on the drive back. I think I just rewound and kept listening to Brain of J the whole trip back. Loved it, and was hugely optimistic

Unfortunately, the first 3 songs I heard were my favorite 3 on the record. Yield was not quite as disappointing as No Code. In general I liked it a lot (still do) and there were plenty of standout tracks on the first few listens (the three above, wishlist, mfc, faithful, in hiding) but none of them quite grabbed me the way the best stuff from the first few records did. And there were also the dud tracks. Ignoring red dot, I was unimpressed with pilate, ATY (which has since grown on me a lot), lowlight, and push/pull. Not bad songs, but clearly a sign to me that Pearl Jam’s best days were behind them. I was willing to write off No Code as an ‘experimental’ album but this was billed as a return to rock and it was a bit disappointing—if only for the enormously high expectations I had for the record (Binaural would benefit from this disappointment)