Pearl Jam: No Code (2021 version) [EPIC / LEGACY]

Why you'll love it

This 2021 remaster comes with nine Polaroid lyric cards, a nod to the album's famous Polaroid packaging. No Code debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Pearl Jam's third straight chart-topper.

This edition

• Remastered
• Set of nine Polaroid lyric cards
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

After Ten, Vs. and Vitalogy, Pearl Jam decided the most interesting thing to do next was to wander off the map. No Code was their first album with drummer Jack Irons, and with Brendan O'Brien producing again they recorded in a sweltering Chicago, a week in New Orleans and Stone Gossard's Studio Litho in Seattle.

Irons gave the record a new pulse, with tribal drumming driving "Who You Are" and "In My Tree." "Hail, Hail" and "Habit" bring the garage-rock noise, "Off He Goes" is one of Eddie Vedder's most tender songs, "Present Tense" builds slowly to a soaring finish, and "I'm Open" drifts into spoken word. Entertainment Weekly heard a wider range of moods and instruments than on any Pearl Jam album before it.

Vedder said making it was all about gaining perspective, and Ament called it the band's story of growing up. The mood in the studio lifted as the sessions went on, and the band credited Irons for much of it; every group should have a drummer who doubles as the counsellor.

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Tracklist

Listen

On Epic / Legacy (cat# 19439889161), a reissue of the 1996 album.