What is Each Album's Major Flaw?: Yield

[EJ]

There's literally nothing wrong with Yield.

correct

[LoathedVermin72]

Low Light

[Norah]

Low Light is wonderful.

[LoathedVermin72]

Yeah yeah

[Let's all laugh at Rangers]

I love the start of red dot, but it loses its way. There are plenty of short tracks I like. Pry To sends out a powerful pro privacy message that just gets more and more relevant. Liked bugs at the time, not so much now. Aye Davinita is beautiful. Arc is good and obviously has its meaning as well which makes it even better. Life Wasted Reprise is great.

[Jorge]

Red Dot has an important message about how we're all crazy at war (or something, I can't really tell)

[chewm]

There's literally nothing wrong with Yield.

correct

yeah

[PHATJ]

The sequencing on side B is off. They should have lost In Hiding and included Happy When I'm Crying.

I love Happy When I'm Crying but this is fucking madness.

Seriously. Wtf, trag.

[PHATJ]

Happy When Im Crying should have been a pretty cool B side.

Thats it.

[PHATJ]

There's literally nothing wrong with Yield.

correct

It may not be my favorite PJ album, but I agree that there is nothing wrong with it.

[stip]

I used to hate red dot, but I hear Tom Waits really digs it

[Let's all laugh at Rangers]

Feel the same. Happy when I'm Crying=great. In Hiding=even better.

[bodysnatcher]

Never been a big In Hiding fan, and generally skip it when it comes on

[chewm]

I think "In Hiding" might be my favorite Pearl Jam song.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Leatherhead]

Yield is a good album, but not a great one. For most bands, this would be a high water mark, but for PJ it was a step backwards, their first. Whereas the previous three albums had, in some regards, topped each other (or at least spoke to one another), this was the first album where PJ seemed to be out of new ideas. In some ways it’s the more logical follow-up to Ten. But given that it was sandwiched between two of the group’s more experimental, boundary-pushing albums, it’s a head scratcher.

The production is pretty big and commercial. Not to the extremes of Ten, but a tasteful variation on that style. Lots of echo, big choruses, and songs that went down easy on the first listen. It’s a much more satisfying blueprint of the kind of records they make today. The two big rockers (Brain of J, DTE) were lesser versions of the type of thing the band did so easily on Vitalogy. The two chest-beating anthems (Faithfull, In Hiding) were lesser versions of the Ten era. The two quasi-experimental numbers (Pilate, Push Me, Pull Me) harkened to the weirder moments of No Code/Vitalogy, but should have been left on the cutting-room floor. Wishlist was a meandering track that collapsed under the weight of Vedder’s worst lyrics to date. Low Light was pleasant but forgettable. All Those Yesterdays and MFC are the two songs that sounded somewhat fresh but they weren’t centerpiece material. Which leaves us with the album’s fatal flaw: Given to Fly.

When your leadoff single is a blatant Zeppelin ripoff, folks, you’ve run out of ideas. I know people like this song, and it’s an okay live number (and better be because they play it at basically every show), but it’s the sound of a band that’s run out of creative gas. And ultimately that’s the fatal flaw of the album. There’s really nothing new here. It’s the sound of a band retreating. After three albums that doggedly pushed in new directions, even when that meant alienating fans, PJ blinked.

I disagree with most of this except the production.

[igotworms]

Yeah I agree with your disagreement. It's a horrible take IMO. Aside from possibly Vs, Yield is the only album that I struggle to find a major flaw.

[Ms Harmless]

Wish List is fantastic lyrically and Push Me is maybe the most underrated song in the catalogue

[Ms Harmless]

I'm not wild about In Hiding or Red Dot, other than that I think Yield is perfect; also I'm pretty sure it has the best 1-2-3 punch of opening songs

[liebzz]

Yield is a good album, but not a great one. For most bands, this would be a high water mark, but for PJ it was a step backwards, their first. Whereas the previous three albums had, in some regards, topped each other (or at least spoke to one another), this was the first album where PJ seemed to be out of new ideas. In some ways it’s the more logical follow-up to Ten. But given that it was sandwiched between two of the group’s more experimental, boundary-pushing albums, it’s a head scratcher.

The production is pretty big and commercial. Not to the extremes of Ten, but a tasteful variation on that style. Lots of echo, big choruses, and songs that went down easy on the first listen. It’s a much more satisfying blueprint of the kind of records they make today. The two big rockers (Brain of J, DTE) were lesser versions of the type of thing the band did so easily on Vitalogy. The two chest-beating anthems (Faithfull, In Hiding) were lesser versions of the Ten era. The two quasi-experimental numbers (Pilate, Push Me, Pull Me) harkened to the weirder moments of No Code/Vitalogy, but should have been left on the cutting-room floor. Wishlist was a meandering track that collapsed under the weight of Vedder’s worst lyrics to date. Low Light was pleasant but forgettable. All Those Yesterdays and MFC are the two songs that sounded somewhat fresh but they weren’t centerpiece material. Which leaves us with the album’s fatal flaw: Given to Fly.

When your leadoff single is a blatant Zeppelin ripoff, folks, you’ve run out of ideas. I know people like this song, and it’s an okay live number (and better be because they play it at basically every show), but it’s the sound of a band that’s run out of creative gas. And ultimately that’s the fatal flaw of the album. There’s really nothing new here. It’s the sound of a band retreating. After three albums that doggedly pushed in new directions, even when that meant alienating fans, PJ blinked.

I disagree with most of this except the production.

I think the idea of Yield being an amalgamation of all their previous work has merit, but disagree that is somehow a muted version. There isn’t much new here, instead it’s a record where they perfectly executed all the ideas that the first four albums conveyed. As I often note, it is the most Pearl Jam album. To see an album where they tried to do that again, but with a touch less success would be the self-titled album, which I love, but is the same idea less perfectly executed.