Yield

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Seattle band once notable for its arena rock anthems is now remarkable mostly for its hushed melodies. On Pearl Jam's fifth album, the rockers seem slapdash ("Do the Evolution", "Brain of J"), and the arty experiments sound self-conscious (especially the 67-second knockoff, "-"). That leaves the ballads, especially the lovely lilt of "Low Light" and the clear-eyed lament of "Wishlist". On the latter song, Ed Vedder (as he now calls himself) yearns to be many different things, from a neutron bomb to a souvenir key chain. However, the line that sticks out is, "I wish I was as fortunate, as fortunate as me." Instead of considering himself lucky to be a rock star, Vedder sounds relieved to have moved beyond it. --Keith Moerer

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-03-27 rating:
my least favourite PJ record
This album just failed to excite me. I cannot find a stand out track. It's not necessarily terrible. It's just i find my self with no reason to listen to this album again

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review by: date: 2007-09-12 rating:
a bit rambling nonsense...
I'm surprised at how many 4 and 5 star reviews this record has received, cos I remember when it came out. A lot of my friends were BIG Pearl Jam fans at the time, and we were all disappointed. I guess this marked the point where we realised they weren't going to release great albums every time.

Anyway, I listened to it again last night. That must be the 1st time in 6 years (maybe more) - and it sounded better to me. Though that's probably because I'd already formed my opinion a long time ago, and that opinion wasn't favourable, so this time I wasn't disappointed; I was slightly more pleasantly surprised. Mind you, I'm not going to give this more than 3 stars, cos it's just not that good.

My main problem with this record is that it's just too cerebral. I don't mean "it's too clever for me" or anything like that. What I mean is that the band seem to be playing the songs with their heads rather than with their hearts, and therefore there is a severe lack of fun and excitement.

There are some interesting musical ideas, and some of the guitar parts are as interesting as ever, but equally there are times when the band seem to have run out of ideas - particularly on the interlude section of "No Way" which is a song that most reviewers here seem to love. I think it sounds far too much like Status Quo.

By a mile the standout track here is "Do the Evolution". It's a classic Pearl Jam riff, with a brilliantly understated chorus and excellent middle 8. The "hallelujah" bits are terrific. Elsewhere though, there is little here that I would say is better than average. "Pilate" is almost fun, but it's also annoying lyrically: "Like Pilate I have a dog" - yeh, so? What Pilate is he on about? The one in the bible? I don't remember anything about him having a dog... he could have put anyone's name in there, I mean LOADS of people have dogs. In other hands, on other records things like this are charming and amusing, but here it's clunky and er... beguiling.

Vedder opens the album with, "Whooooo's got the brain... of JFK - what's it mean to us no-oowww?" and again, instead of thinking, "ooh, what an interesting concept you've found there Eddie, I mean Ed..." it just embarrasses me!

I think that I used to idolise Vedder a little when I was younger. He seemed to be wise and yet curious, a role-model. However, by the time "Yield" was released I'd grown up a little and I had started to question his validity. All this philosophising and wordplay started to seem less impressive, and Vedder seemed to be convinced that he knew better, was smarter than his audience. And he's not.

So where does this record stand in the Pearl Jam archives, and in the genre of rock in general? Firstly, let me tell you that I haven't bought a Pearl Jam studio album since "Binaural". I thought "Binaural" was a better record than this (still do), but I saw them live that year and it was disappointing. I started thinking I'd seen them 7 years too late. "Yield" is also worse than any of the other Pearl Jam albums I have - that is all of them up to Binaural. "Vs" is the best, "Vitalogy" and "10" joint 2nd, "Binaural" and "No Code" joint 4th. I might just give a more recent PJ record a try since seeing them at Leeds Festival last year - they were terrific - but I can't help feeling they've lost their vitality. I used to think they were cool, but they're not at all, and their records though well produced for the most part have dated quite badly. I guess the whole genre of 90s alt. rock has dated badly. Pearl Jam don't even seem alternative anymore.

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review by: date: 2007-08-21 rating:
The Uncomfortable Middle child
I must admit i was extremely disappointed on hearing this album, its good but it lacks something, notable tracks is one thing. the only three that stand out of the mire are 'brain of J' 'do the evolution and 'given to fly' the latter only because how god awful it is. tracks like 'low light' and MFC are just pointless 'push me pull me' is slightly amusing and experimental but this album lacks the 'wow factor' of their previous efforts and has a neither here nor there style. it tries to be fresh whilst not offending the fans and doesn't pull it off. it good to listen too but nothing compared to the rest of their collection.

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review by: tommo date: 2007-06-08 rating:
yield to the mighty pj
brillant the stand out songs for me were faithfull,given to fly which u just wait for it to kick in and grab u then backs off again.wishlist is a thought provoking song makes u think in general listen u will understand as soon as u hear it,also remindeds me of pink floyd in some of the guitar parts (thats just a personal note).i could go on all night theres not a bad song on this cd.


review by: Mr root-down date: 2007-03-10 rating:
My fave PJ album.
It's always a matter of degrees with Pearl Jam, but this is the album that I love the most. Apart from several absolute classics (No Way, Given To Fly, Faithfull, Do The Evolution) it just has the most consistency. Yield pulls together all of the experiments of Vitalogy and No Code, and you feel that Eddie Vedder isn't ashamed of choruses again! When you watch 'Single Video Theory- The Yield Sessions' you see a band determined to show how good they are. They proved it!

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