Yield (album) - Release and Reception

Release and Reception

Yield was released on February 3, 1998, on CD, vinyl, cassette and MiniDisc. Epic promoted the album more than No Code, with marketing vice-president Steve Barnett claiming it was the first time since debut album Ten that the label "had the lead time to do the job right." The album leaked on the internet in December 1997 as Syracuse, New York radio station WKRL-FM played an advance copy of the record, leading fans who taped the broadcast to release the tracks online. Two singles were released from Yield. The lead single "Given to Fly" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 21, reached number three on the Modern Rock charts, and spent a total of six weeks at number one on the Mainstream Rock charts. The album's other commercially released single, "Wishlist", charted on the Hot 100 at number 47. Album tracks "In Hiding" and "Do the Evolution" also charted on the rock charts. The band hired comic book artist Todd McFarlane to create an animated video for "Do the Evolution". It was the band's first music video since 1992. At the 1999 Grammy Awards, "Do the Evolution" received a nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance and its music video received a nomination for Best Music Video, Short Form.

Yield sold 358,000 copies during its first week of release, and debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 album chart. It was held off the top spot by the Titanic soundtrack. Yield became Pearl Jam's first album not to peak at number one on the Billboard charts since Ten in 1991. However, Yield has been certified platinum by the RIAA, and eventually outsold its predecessor No Code with 1.6 million copies in the United States as of 2003 according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Yield received mostly positive reviews from music critics, being proclaimed as a return to the band's early, straightforward rock sound. Rolling Stone staff writer Rob Sheffield gave Yield four out of five stars, saying that "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 gave the album eight out of ten stars. The review said that Pearl Jam have "come back with an album full of gracefully ambivalent anthems. All commodities should be this unstable, and have this much blood pumping through them." Critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A-, saying, "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." Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B, saying that "the overall tone is less pretentious than in the past, reflecting a looser, even marginally whimsical, worldview." Holly Bailey of Pitchfork Media called it "the most lyrically powerful album Pearl Jam have ever produced," and stated that "Yield proves that Pearl Jam, and even rock music, is still alive and kicking." NME gave Yield a score of seven out of ten. In the review, it is stated, "Here's where Pearl Jam put on their diverse boots and stomp across their bluesy roots, careering through various styles and pop-mongous strops."

However, Allmusic staff writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album two and a half out of five stars, saying that it "emphasizes the relative lack of exceptional material." Writing for Select in March 1998, Eddy Lawrence concluded that Yield is an abandonment of the "anthemic qualities" present in Pearl Jam's previous work, claiming, in relation to the band's grunge roots, that the album "makes you realise how '60s fans felt watching the first generation of rock heroes die." He went on to state that "Yield's retroisms represent no leap forward for the band as a whole, and the oft-times mildly diverting tunes are, ironically, less challenging than their strong-willed early output."