Pearl Jam Released Yield 25 Years Ago Today

Back in the nineties, I got obsessed with Pearl Jam. Much like many, many other people when the band reached the height of their popularity in the earlier part of the decade, I was probably swept away by everything that helped them reach such rather astonishing levels of popularity at the time. Being young and full of energy, and needing some music to be an outlet of that, their intense music naturally appealed to me. But so did their lyrics, which seemed at once poetic and thought-provoking. There was also just a sort of buzz about them, an excitement.

That began to go away once the band deliberately tried to sabotage their own success and unplug some of the machinery of that wild attention with their fourth album, "No Code." Many rats jumped off the ship, so to speak. But I enjoyed that album, which felt introspective and quieter, somehow, while still maintaining some of that old intensity.

On this day in 1998 - 25 years ago - Pearl Jam released their fifth studio album, and the last one for the band in the nineties, the decade that the band first came into existence, and then into dominance. This, of course, was "Yield."

I do not remember when or how I first obtained their first album. But I got their second album at the old Price Club (now known as Costco), and even remember that they were selling those albums for something like $11.99 or so, which was an awesome price at the time. Don't remember when I got the third album, but the fourth one I got in Chicago while visiting that city for the first time, obtaining the album on the very day when it was first released. Later that year, on September 29, 1996, I finally saw Pearl Jam at the now famous Randall's Island show (second night). 

Perhaps the most interesting story that I have of obtaining a Pearl Jam album, however, came with "Yield." On that night, a friend of mine (and my girlfriend) went to the Virgin Megastore at midnight to be among the first to get copies of the new album. Each album purchase came with a lithograph, which itself has come to be a relatively rare and valuable souvenir piece now. Not sure why I did not give my girlfriend money to obtain her own cd and lithograph, but I didn't. Still, I have both the original lithograph, as well as the original album. In fact, the album is pictured here.

This will not be a review of the album. After all, a quarter of a century has now passed, and my first, and frankly, second and third and so on, impressions are now long gone. But I liked it. Probably not as much as "No Code," but I enjoyed it very much nevertheless. And so it seemed appropriate to recognize this anniversary here, with this blog entry in honor of that album.