Yield (1998): Yield was the beginning of what I like to call Pearl Jam's "Black Period." Now, this is a confusing term, and I don't believe anyone else has adopted it (or employed it, to my knowledge), probably in part because Pearl Jam has a very popular song called "Black," and that's not what I'm making reference to here. Check it out and make your case for Riot Act in the comments.Ĩ. It starts here, ranked from worst to best. This list only takes into account those nine studio albums I didn’t include the thousands of live sets they have released or their B-sides or their EPs or their expanded reissues or the album they made with Neil Young (although FWIW that last one would probably rank pretty high on my list). And as I thought about them, I tried to put into context their music - nine studio albums since 1991. But once every few years, a new Pearl Jam record is produced, and the response is always the same - on one side, you’ve got the “This is their best album since Vitalogy” camp on the other, you’ve got everyone else, who stopped caring after Vitalogy.īut I’ve been thinking a lot about Pearl Jam recently - I wrote about the 20th anniversary of the Singles soundtrack a few weeks ago, and then, about a fan who was given the opportunity to craft for the band his dream setlist, which they then performed live. (The only credible band I can think of who claim PJ as an influence are the Strokes.) Another part is by design: The band has gone to such great lengths to erase itself from the public eye (seemingly wary of success early on, and perhaps embarrassed by their spawn in later years) that it has succeeded in disappearing completely. Part of that is because Pearl Jam’s musical influence has been limited almost exclusively to some of the worst MOR rock in history. (By comparison, imagine the reception that might greet, say, a new Radiohead or U2 album then think about the last time you even realized Pearl Jam were still releasing new music.) Those disparities make considering the band’s catalog an interesting challenge - it’s been a thorny, uncomfortable couple decades with the band, who remain one of the most successful live rock acts in the world, yet have all but disappeared from the cultural conversation. Die-hard fans are almost unusually protective of the band and their albums casual fans more or less dropped off entirely by the mid ’90s critics frequently overrate the band’s new material as it is released, then revise (and downgrade) their opinions when the next new material is released haters, meanwhile, are (naturally) gonna hate. The songs are sharper, the production is layered, and the performances are as compassionate as ever, resulting in their finest album since Vitalogy.More than many other bands, it’s hard to rank Pearl Jam’s discography. Instead, the difference is focus - though Pearl Jam is trying a lot of different styles, certainly more so than on Yield, they pull it all off better. Maybe the addition of a new drummer, former Soundgarden member Matt Cameron, has kicked the band to life, but that unfairly dismisses Jack Irons' worthy contributions.
Ranking pearl jam albums code#
This should come as no surprise, since that's what they've done since No Code and, perhaps, Vitalogy, but the real surprise about their sixth studio album Binaural is that it finds the group roaring back to life without dramatically changing the direction they followed on No Code and Yield. Not surprisingly, they chose to persevere, ignoring trends, completely in favor of being a classicist rock band.
No peers, and too sincere to even consider fitting into a pop scene dominated by 'N Sync on one side and Limp Bizkit on the other. They were the only one of their old grunge colleagues still standing intact, and they were genuinely alone. Even with "Last Kiss," their first big hit single since Ten, under their belts, they were an anomaly on the pop and rock scenes.
If anything, Pearl Jam was even more in the wilderness - at least as far as the mainstream was concerned - at the beginning of 2000 than they were in the second half of the '90s.