What is Each Album's Major Flaw?: Yield

[darth_vedder]

Yield is definitely one of my favorites by this band.

BOJ is up there with their best hard rock songs. Really love Stone's lead and Jack's drumming too.

Faithfull. stip is crazy, this is top-shelf PJ. It's the Lagavulin of PJ songs.

No Way. Like this one a lot, but it's not top tier for me, but damn good.

GTF, what else can be said? A classic.

Wishlist, I like it, always have. Not my favorite by a long shot, but a nice little ditty.

Pilate. Hmm, one of the weaker tracks on the album, but the "stunned by my own reflection" part is just fantastic. Solid 3 star song for me, and I definitely don't skip this one.

DTE, really cool song. Both the Yield version and the LO2L version are great. The LO2L version is a very rare case where I may actually like it over the studio version, and where I think Matt is on par or better than Jack.

Red Dot. Eff the haters, I love this one, and never skip it.

MFC. One of my favorites. I know people think it's a step down, but not to me. An underrated gem in my book. I love the play of guitars in this one and how they pan from left to right speaker.

Low Light. How this one is even considered a low point is beyond me. One of the best on the album to these ears. It's just such a nice chill song. The acoustic guitars, Jack's flowing drums, Jeff singing along with Ed, and that Caribbean thing going on in the background are all such nice touches.

In Hiding. Meh, it's ok, but it, Pilate, and PMPM are the lower points on this album for me.

PMPM. It's ok. I would have rather this been a Christmas single or b-side and HWIC replacing it.

ATY. My favorite album closer, and also top-shelf. It's the Buffalo Trace of PJ songs.

[darth_vedder]

Oh, and I have an irrational love for the gem of a hidden track Hummus. I would definitely be down with PJ revisiting some of the ideas from this era, but maybe that was mainly Jack's doing (Whale Song, Red Dot, Hummus, HWIC, PMPM)?

[Tuolumne]

I am really really digging Yield right now. I've gone back to it for some reason after listening to other bands works, and I think there's a mainstream (in the best way possible) aesthetic combined with their sideways/weird stuff that makes it hold up really well. It's an album I'd describe as "Quirky Anthemic". They were simply trying to make the best music they could make as a collective unit. As good as I think Vitalogy and No Code are, Ed atleast is definitely trying to impress his underground rock friends there. Yield finds the perfect middle ground between all the bandmembers sensibilities and discards any pandering but manages to use their "weird" ideas as flourishes rather than centerpieces. A few things I've realized:

- this is an interesting guitar record. No Way has some cool sounds going on underneath that make it worth going back to. They really put thought in the guitar leads on this album, Mike's leads and solos on Wishlist, In Hiding, and Lowlight are fanstastic, and Stone's leads on MFC, DTE, BofJ and others are just as good. They found really cool tones on the songs here that give each song it's own identity.

- this album is the best collaboration they've ever had with BoB. This is BoB's high water mark as far as finding that middle ground of accessibility and allowing the band members to be creative. It's all of their strenghts placed in the right parts of each song.

- There's no way this album is a retread on their earlier work. Their songwriting in this era was growing by leaps and bounds. Just because there are certain anthemic qualities that are reminiscent of classic PJ doesn't mean they were giong back to some cliched songwriting well. Listen to this next to Ten and then Vitalogy and you have a starkly new band vision. Contemplative but positive tones on the lyrics and music that are in no form present on their first 3 albums.

- The anthemic songs are weird subject matters. In Hiding is about taking a break from life, hardly something that screams "anthem" to me. Faithful is about the uncertainty we live with everyday, same thing. Pilate has a screaming chorus but it's about hangin out with your dog. No Way is about NOT diong something and pulling back and recoiling, but it's shouted in the oppostie way. These are pretty weird subject for anthems. It's like they are masking very odd subject matters to be screaming in a chorus about, but somehow Ed retains the oddball sensibility he had during this time while having very obvious choruses. Given to Fly is an obvious straighforward anthem, but really it's the only one like that. Otherwise they are sort of weird oddball choices for songs to be anthemic about. It works.

- They still leave in some really weird stuff here. Nowadays the "Halleluja" in DTE seem normal, but that's a weird tangent of a bridge, Red Dot, Hummus, and Push Me Pull Me take the "weird" to Vitalogy-like levels, but we don't bat an eye b/c we have these anthemic choruses to shout along with.

- A truly unique record that another band couldn't replicate b/c there are 5 really different songwriting sensibilities giong on here. Jeff, Stone, and Mike really bring in their own vibes here and Ed is still being Ed, while being pushed to sing anthemic choruses, which is what only happens when those guys are playing like that behind them. Jack sounds like he's really at home here.

Ask another band to replicate Yield, they'd never be able to do it. That's the test of really good material.

[harmless]

Yield songs I don't care for:

Red Dot
In Hiding
MFC

It's a much stronger album without these. I'm someone who wouldn't take anything off Vitalogy, even the "filler" non-songs (if that's what you want to call them) but "Red Dot" really is pointlessness personified. I don't see how its lyrics fit, for a start, and lyrics would be the only way to defend its presence on there. As far as off-kilter sound experimentation goes, "Push Me Pull Me" and "Hummus" are so much stronger. I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm not the only one who finds "In Hiding" and "MFC" very pleasant but pretty average and probably too long to sustain interest. On the other hand, "Pilate" is a song that could've made the list if it wasn't so structurally interesting. It's quite like "Evacuation" in that way: it could've been a clunker except that it's just so beautifully composed.

[resonance of distance]

I love YIELD. Yes return to hard rocking Ten style yes, cleaner and more grown up. I really can't think of a song I don't like on this one. GTF not a LZep rip, just borrowing for inspiration, which is what all bands do. BTW Chris Jericho's WCW song - now there a blatent rip of Even Flow. So I don't see that as a problem. GTF is excellent to my ears. I guess Pilate is the low point here bc the chours sorta isn't making sense to me. Yes. I do very much like this record. No sure how MFC is like Green Disease at all as one poster said.
It's major flaw is that those card board boxes always get fuzzy on the corners and look crumby on CD wall. And that screwball song Hummis doesnt count outside a spanish polka in the Balkins or somethin. Used to bc called at my old restaraunt "Carlos sneaks into work." because yield is what 45 mins long or so, and thats about how many mins that Hondurain was late for his own dinner service - a real on the ball kitchen manager.

I love how everyone here has different songs they dont care for. That's pretty cool- one man's least favorite is another mans all time favorite! Thats why pj is neat. We like to say how much better they could be, and really we cant even agree which songs are the not up to par ones. One mans snowman is another mans raddishes in the mud. Or one mans trash is other fellow in the corner's gold (record).

[epilogue]

Yield took a long time for me to warm up to. It was a fantastic first listen, but then I got bored with it fairly quickly and put it away for a while. I'd still spin my favorites, but the thing didn't seem to have much depth.

I needed to be in my 30s to really appreciate the album. Now is one of my favorites. Just a gorgeous record. And so full of little jewels and secrets. I just adore it.

Biggest flaw? Man... probably Red Dot. I don't mind it necessarily. It's never bothered me by any means. But I'm not sure that it's necessary either. It feels a bit forced. But I don't skip it either and I've included it on a few mixes as a transitional pieces. It has an odd charm, but I think the album is the same without it.

[McParadigm]

I wish Red Dot had gotten more of a "this is a track on the album" treatment, instead of being used to just mark the end of side one. If they had played more with it and layered some additional sounds, it could have been pretty fucking weird. As it is, I guess I just figure it's nice to have a palate cleanser after DTE manages to work itself up into such a lather at the end.

[bodysnatcher]

i've always liked the Red Dot > MFC combo. the lull for me is Lowlight > In Hiding. Welcome to Snoozeville. Population: Me.

[stip]

I have a small apt. in Snoozeville

[harmless]

"Lowlight" is fantastic.

[Coach]

Let's get this out of the way first about Yield and it's all positive:

1. It's the last great Pearl Jam album - I feel that every album after that has been worse;
2. GTF is the last 5-star song the band has produced.

NOW, with that out of the way, I gotta say that Yield's biggest flaw is Brain of J, a song that I absolutely LOVE. But here's the problem: Brain of J was debuted very early on in some "A" quality sounding bootlegs around 1995.

The famous "Anxiety" bootleg from that San Jose show was widely circulated (yours truly paid $50 for that) and it had Brain of JFK on it....so, it was extremely disappointing when Yield came out in '98 since I (and others) were already so familiar with Brain of J......it felt like an "old" song was taking the place of where a "new" song could be slotted.

I understand this happens with Pearl Jam all the time, but the "1998 version of Coach" was quite disappointed when he found out about the track list.

If that's Yield's biggest flaw, then you know it's a great album.

[tommymtcom]

Red Dot and MFC. Red Dot is just annoying and I find MFC to be pretty boring.

[Evvo]

Yield is the number one PJ record for me. GTF is possibly my favourite ever song and whilst it has some slightly lesser moments (Red Dot, maybe Pilate), it is remarkably consistent.

The production really works here, presenting a very warm and welcoming tone that is almost unthinkably removed from the band that released Vitalogy just over three years prior. Wishlist is a superb example of simple songwriting executed well and the solo on Low Light is fantastic. I don't think Mike and Stone have complemented each other so well on any other album. As someone stated above, there are really strong guitar lines throughout that play to the strengths of the song. Some of the playing buried in the mix in No Way is really interesting. Little things like hearing Ed shout before the final No Way chorus give a feeling of spontaneity and vibrancy that completely disappeared from studio output circa-Avocado.

It's the business - the only PJ album I keep in my car. SVT is the tits also.

[chewm]

I've probably seen many more people saying in hiding is overrated than people saying its a great song. It's one of my favorites.

No flaws in yield for me, easily my favorite from pearl jam.

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

I agree that "Pilate" is the weakest song on the album. It should have been a b-side. It actually WAS a b-side, I think, but it made it to the album as well. Still, I don't know what I would replace it with. I would argue that "U" is a little bit stronger, so probably that one. Doesn't matter though - it's a minor flaw if it is one.

[stip]

One of yield's biggest flaws is that it can't go vote in the best of the 60s tournament in OB.

[Heathen]

yield would never vote for you anyway

[stip]

Yakety sax is red dot and hummus rolled into one

[Heathen]

stop it

[stip]

you're right. Yakety Sax is much much better. But still.