Pearl Jam: Yield [LEGACY/EPIC]

Why you'll love it

This remastered edition keeps the original die-cut jacket, with the Yield traffic sign printed on the coloured inner sleeve. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, went platinum and was hailed as a return to the band's straight-ahead rock sound.

This edition

• Remastered
• Die-cut jacket
• Coloured printed inner sleeve

About the album

By 1997 Eddie Vedder had spent two albums carrying most of the words on his own shoulders, and he politely suggested the rest of the band bring in finished songs. They took him at his word. Yield became Pearl Jam's most collaborative record, cut through 1997 at Studio X and at Stone Gossard's own Studio Litho in Seattle, with no deadline in sight and plenty of time to get each sound right.

Brendan O'Brien produced again and mixed it in Atlanta. Mike McCready's "Given to Fly" soars on a long, rising swell, "Do the Evolution" snarls along on a riff from Gossard (and got the band back into the music video business), Jeff Ament's "Pilate" and "Low Light" bring a quieter warmth, and "Wishlist" is about as tender as Vedder gets. "Faithfull," "In Hiding" and "Brain of J." round out a record that sounds like a band enjoying each other's company.

Yield went on to outsell its predecessor and sent the band back out on full-scale tours. Track B2 is titled with a small red dot, which has made it the hardest song in the catalogue to request at a gig.

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Tracklist

Listen

On Epic / Legacy (cat# 88985303661), a reissue of the 1998 album.