AR: Yield

Pearl Jam - Yield (1998)

To cut to the chase: context matters. I don't remember exactly when I obtained my copy of Pearl Jam's fifth and arguably last great studio album, Yield, but I know exactly when I got it. Without entering into the unnecessary details, I am given not to fly but am mos def given to foul, dark moods, and Yield hit me at a needlessly upsetting time and saved the day. We're talking feel-bad afternoons assuaged by headphone sessions, couch therapy consisting not of recollections of childhood but simply closed eyes and concentrations on a workingman's rock album. Rock-solace, if you will. So be forewarned that perhaps even more than usual, my take on this album is terrifically biased and probably not worth trusting one bit.

Don't mistake my meaning. The album *is* top to bottom good, nary a hint of a bad moment, varied in a way that grabs interest but remains cohesive, and hits a resonant frequency of earnest rocking optimism. But I'm not really sure that any account of its objective merit could possibly capture what it meant for me at a relatively key time. I am sure I on some level got suckered; for all of Pearl Jam's grasping at gravity, this is really just a sweet-spot pop-rock disc, odd enough to keep the fan-base while straightforward enough to catch FM play. With a fairly damn plain "look up" theme, too - "yield" to the vagaries instead of railing against them, accept what you can't change etc. on some base level. It caught me when I just needed someone to be there for me. Turns out someone was a CD.

In by-this-point formulaic PJ fashion, the disc starts with a breakneck "1234,1234" and the full-speed-ahead punk song "Brain of J." Its descending riff and "Soon the whole world will be different!" chorus kick the disc off in epic fashion. A up-for-air slowed down bridge is followed by another PJ-staple, the pyrotechnics Stone Gossard guitar solo. Classic opener that uses a aural explosion as its close; the empty room drums and clean electric strumming over meandering bassline intro of "Faithful" that follows is a gorgeous segue. The would-be ballad claims "I'm through with / screaming" as it drops into the snarling chorus. "We're faithful / we all believe / we all believe." It's never been clear, given said snarl, how sincere this is, but the guitar-based affirmation that kicks in at 1:53 or thereabouts is transcendent enough to make me buy in. This tune follows a hill-shaped slope, and eventually comes back to a quiet close that is eerily backed by spoken words echoing Vedder's lines. In short, a sick 1-2 combo to open things.

"No Way" uses a fuzzed out streamlined guitar riff under a convincing brink of frustration Vedder to create reams of tension. The pleading lyrics of this song ("I just need," "it's so absurd," etc.) reek of desperation, but the real key is the mysterious chorus. "I'll stop trying to make a difference / I'm not trying to make a difference / I'll stop trying to make a difference / No Way" - hard to tell if this is despair or defiance, but the mood of the song is dark and appropriately enigmatic. It's probably clear, but this is the perfect type of "embrace the struggle" track and an exemplar of how this work helped me stare moods down.

The next couple tracks, "Given to Fly" and "Wishlist," are the singles from the album. "GtF" is borderline U2 in its bombast, but Eddie's sincere emoting stays well south of cheesy. It was the first song I heard from the disc*, and it's really in the archetypal Pearl Jam single catalog along with "Betterman" and "Black." Not to reuse a concept, but it's an affirmation tale against a classic rock, pretty guitar pattern and a polyrhythmic tom beat. One could make a reasonable case that it's a post-ironic work; the cynicism of disappointed youth is left behind for epic, accomplish-anything breath. A solid entry that, again, stays within the realm of the legitimate (read: not treacly) for me. "Wishlist" is also very straightforward / simple repetitive poem piece. What it lacks in lyrical originality it makes up in calming presence. There's additionally a good amount of regret that creeps through all the repeated "wishes."

* - I actually heard this on a TV commercial for the album. A real, "order now for $16.95 plus shipping and handling" style TV commercial for a rock album. Behold, the late '90s.

"Pilate" is a back-and-forth acoustic ballad that intersperses dissonant choruses against its silk verses. It allegedly refers to the Pilate scenes from Master & Margarita, a personal favorite novel, so that wins it points. The clash of its choruses rings well with the dissonant-through-and-through "Do the Evolution," a tune that evokes the weirdness of past Pearl Jam experiments like "Bugs." It's frantic and bristling, and also just happens to feature in-tense-city guitar parts at the 1:00 mark and one of the better self-referential song moments out there following the "sing in the choir" line at 2:00. The whole song is a giant, hair-raising crescendo; I still get slightly edgy to it on the 1000th listen.

The next track is a tempo experiment "called" "●." PJ pretty routinely throws left-field experiments on their albums; this is one of the better ones. It's a good break for the album, too, because as great as the first half is, the second half ups the ante quite a bit. "MFC" is straight-ahead rock with a good mix of guitar-poundage, backward effects and PJ-sound splash guitar effects. A favorite line from the disc: "They said that timing was everything / made him want to be everywhere / there's a / lot to be said for nowhere." The song blows by in 2:30, but ups the heart rate just enough for it (the heart rate, natch) to be knocked back down by the near-country ballad "Low Light." I go back and forth on this one - it sticks out from the rest of the album quite a bit, and sometimes I appreciate the break while others I just want the same wall of adrenaline that follows. Regardless, it's another one that finds the good spot of saccharine but not sticky, and even successfully pulls off a 3/4 time signature.

The closing trio makes the disc, really. "In Hiding" revisits the epic territory of "GtF," but this time dresses the struggle and triumph in interlaced guitar lines and perfectly-placed rough-edged riffage. I.e., this is just as o'er-the-top dramatic, but backs it with a quite Quadrophenia-era-Who-symphony. Importantly, whatever sent the narrator into hiding and led him to "swallow his words to keep from lying" is ultimately conquered - "It's funny when things change so much / it's all state of mind."Another line to latch onto. "Push Me Pull Me" follows as a spoken word piece over another chaotic, swirling rocker that uses found sound and feedback to mirror madness. It also contains the standout metaphor - standout in terms of "huh?" - that the narrator is "like an opening band for the Sun," also over a nifty song breakdown that falls right back into the nuttiness afterwards. It's on the shortlist for Nyet's favorite spoken word piece.The album closer*, "All Those Yesterdays," rounds things out with a near straight-ahead, close the bar down ballad. The "You've got time to escape" section is pretty much Beatles psychedelia redux; it's a surprising inclusion and is sort of doubly disorienting ("in a good way") given that the chorus so prominently involves "Yesterday." The general message - "when you gonna wash away / all those yesterdays" - again sits well if, say, yesterday did not go all that well. Great fadeout to a great disc.

* - Technically, there's a hidden track called "Hummus" that's an exercise in a Middle-Eastern genre. It's oddly entertaining given that it sounds like a trad wedding rip-off, complete with tambourines and hand-claps, and it's accelerando close works well. Still, I routinely forget that it's even on the album as I like "ATY" so much. So ... there ya have it.

Again, take it for what it's worth - sorry to be repeatedly vague, but this album is more about its cathartic prowess than its music for me, so your experience is nearly guaranteed to be different. I know some find parts, particularly the singles and the would-be punk tunes, a little too polished, going so far as to call it a relatively boring PJ disc. I disagree profoundly with all caveats that it's stubborn subjective disagreement - if it's not rough enough, turn it up. The description that's accurate is that Yield is largely a retreat from the frank wackiness of Vitalogy and No Code and a return (of sorts) to Ten days, so if you're a fan of the disc that broke them into superstardom, you'll probably dig this one, too. Just to give some kind of relative indication, I find this one less classic-rock-indebted than Ten and altogether more sincere; like I've indicated, it sits in a middle space amongst many pop-rock conventions that does the job well for me. Believe it, folks - Yield is a Nyet-treasured one and makes the trip for me regardless of what it does for you. But don't fret, I'll listen on some coconut headphones.

Status: Desert Island Recommended

Nyet's Fave: "In Hiding"