The “Seattle Scene” is dead. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Presidents of The United States have all vanished, but one Seattle band is missing from the lineup of the deceased. Grunge may be dead, but Pearl Jam’s still “Alive.” “Yield” proves Pearl Jam can still produce powerful albums, while avoiding being swallowed up by the over-commercialization of the music industry. The band hasn’t produced a video for MTV since 1992, with the release of its first LP, “Ten,” and has avoided playing shows in venues with exclusive contracts with the mass ticketing agent Ticketmaster in 1994. “Yield,” with the obvious absence of music-video hype, shows that the band doesn’t need mass commercialization to have a great sound. Pearl Jam’s most recent show dates in November found them opening for the Rolling Stones, a great influence on Mike McCready and his bandmates during childhood. Throughout their four opening dates at the Oakland Colosseum with the Stones, Pearl Jam debuted a few of the new tracks to a crowd of more than 45,000 people. Among those tracks, “Do the Evolution,” the seventh track on “Yield,” was well-received and seems a likely candidate to be the second radio single from the album. The song is a classic Pearl Jam tune with loud guitars, an upbeat tempo and poetic and sometimes amusing lyrics from Eddie Vedder. The album’s first track, “Brain of J,” starts off with a Ramones-esque 1-2-3-4 count before kicking in at a racing pace and later decelerating into a guitar solo by guitarists McCready and Stone Gossard. “Wish List,” the fourth track on “Yield,” is one of the simplest tracks Pearl Jam has written, yet Vedder’s “I Wish” lyrics are powerful and obscure. Vedder wishes to be everything from a neutron bomb to a brake pedal in a car — giving his listeners another look inside the ways and thoughts of one of the most intriguing personalities in music today. The eighth track on the album was written by drummer Jack Irons — who wrote music and lyrics for the first time on “Yield.” The song, which has no title, is a 1:00 minute steel-drum solo. It has an oriental feel with one simple lyrical contribution from Vedder, “We’re all crazy.” The complete craziness and the band’s sense of unity and chemistry on “Yield” leads to a complete hour of solid listening. McCready, Gossard and Montana-native bassist Jeff Ament all have deep roots in the Seattle music scene. Pearl Jam’s spiritual leader is vocalist Vedder, originally a surfer from Southern California. The band’s lineup is rounded out by former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons, who joined the band in 1995 following the departure of Dave Abbruzzese. Pearl Jam may not be the most popular band of 1998 — nor the “grunge rock stars” they were once made out to be, but “Yield” is Pearl Jam’s most complete album since “Vs” and shows that they are as fresh as they were in 1992. Pearl Jam has done what few bands in the ‘90s have managed — they’ve stayed alive. |
