Yield

Yield is the fifth studio album by American alternative rock band Pearl Jam, released on February 3, 1998. Following a short promotional tour for its previous album, No Code (1996), Pearl Jam recorded Yield throughout 1997 at Studio Litho and Studio X in Seattle, Washington. The album was hailed as a return to the band's early, straightforward rock sound, and marked a more collaborative effort from the band as opposed to relying heavily on frontman Eddie Vedder to compose the song lyrics.

Yield received positive reviews and debuted at number two on the Billboard 200. While like No Code, the album soon began dropping down the charts, Yield eventually outsold its predecessor. The band did more promotion for the album compared to No Code, including a return to full-scale touring and the release of a music video for the song "Do the Evolution". The record has been certified platinum by the RIAA in the United States. The album is Pearl Jam's last release with drummer Jack Irons, who left the band during the album's promotional tour. He was replaced with Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron.

Yield received generally favourable reviews from music critics. Rolling Stone staff writer Rob Sheffield wrote that while "before, the band's best songs were the change-of-pace ballads", Yield "marks the first time Pearl Jam have managed to sustain that mood for a whole album." He added that "Vedder is singing more frankly than ever about his life as an adult," and that the album "shows that Pearl Jam have made the most out of growing up in public."

Spin's RJ Smith said that Pearl Jam had "come back with an album full of gracefully ambivalent anthems. All commodities should be this unstable, and have this much blood pumping through them." In his review for The Village Voice, critic Robert Christgau said, "Like nobody less than Nirvana... they voice the arena-rock agon more vulnerably and articulately than any Englishman standing. Rarely if ever has a Jesus complex seemed so modest." Jon Pareles of The New York Times stated that the band "applies its introspection to spiritual possibilities and its guitars to chomping, snarling, exuberant riffs." He said "the songs sound bolder and more confident, even when they invoke private crises."

This article uses material from the Wikipedia page dedicated to this album. No copyright infringement is intended.