best later Pearl Jam album (post-1995)

Gonna have to weigh this one. Gut says 'No Code', but damn, I can't stop stanning for Avocado.

No Code never clicked with me. Yield was quality even if I didn't like the singles at all, "Brain of J" was one of the best album openers they ever did.

Binaural also didn't click with me -- I could see they were trying to branch out sonically but it didn't always translate into memorable music, even though there were definitely some memorable tunes from it.

Riot Act wins my vote because I think they really streamlined the songwriting into catchy music and seriously rocking guitar riffs. Eddie was very restrained vocally which is the only drawback, but "Save You" was a great tune, as well as "Get Right". figures that this one had very mixed critical reception, but Pitchfork bashing it legitimizes it in my eyes.

self-titled one seemed like a step back to me, even though I liked a lot of it.

No Code - I have very strong feelings about this album, as outlined in this classic thread: Pearl Jam - No Code

Yield - this album has aged really well, all the singles are great and "MFC" is an all-time favorite, but the less exciting tracks on here are more tedious to me than the filler on almost any other PJ album

Binaural - pretty cool album that I don't love but probably like way more than most people, solid start to the Matt Cameron era with some nice solid grooves on shit like "Insignificance" and "Grievance" that made it feel like they were capable of some stuff they didn't do w/ previous drummers

Riot Act - this was the first time I really felt let down by a new Pearl Jam album after years of defending the previous 3 from detractors, in retrospect it's not so bad and I dig "Can't Keep" and "Get Right" and "You Are" but still kind of a downer imo

Pearl Jam - quickly supplanted Riot Act as my least favorite album, could live without hearing any of the songs besides "Gone" ever again

Backspacer - not a huge improvement over the couple before it, but being 20 minutes shorter than Riot Act helped a lot as far as it feeling a bit lighter and more enjoyable and "The Fixer" is a classic.

I don't know why I'm still mad that "Sad" was cut from Binaural

but I'm still mad.

(I mean. How do you put "Evacuation" on a record when you could put "Sad" on a record.)

this is a question that haunts me

anyway the answer is no code.

used to bury myself in that record in high school.

remember the specific way my whole body tensed when i first heard the drums on "in my tree."

yeah.

In My Tree, Red Mosquito, Smile, Mankind, Habit... I think Im ready.
Fuck, No Code is SO the shit. TITE!

I think I've talked about this in another thread, but No Code will always hold a special place in my heart. It was released three days before my 20th birthday and I had just moved into my first post-dorm apartment several days before classes. One of my roommates was supposed to move in that day as well, but he decided to head in the next day. All summer my grandfather had been in the hospital and I knew his situation was getting worse and worse and, as I unpacked the last of my boxes, I got the call from my mom that he had passed away. So I was stuck in a college town where I knew plenty of people, but none of them seemed to be around (this was pre-cellphone, so I couldn't just text around til I found someone). So I sat in my half empty room for a bit before deciding, fuck it, I'm going to go for a walk. As it turned out, the store (Discount Den) down the road a bit was having a midnight release sale for this and, since it was one of my favorite bands at the time, I figured it would be a nice diversion. I waited in line, met some cool people, bought the album, then went back to my room and laid down in the dark and put it on my stereo. Obviously the moment was loaded with a lot of emotions, but this just seemed to embrace everything going through my head - the loss of my grandfather, the excitement of a new chapter of a new school year, being away from everyone I cared about. When "Off He Goes" came on, I lost it and cried for the first time in years. But it felt really damn good.

So, yeah, as much as I love Yield, I can't vote for anything but No Code - the album really helped me through a rough patch.

No Code pretty far above the rest. Then Yield...
The rest I can pretty much take or leave.

No Code. The rest are great - and i seem to have more time for binaural than most - but No Code's a messy work of genius.

Yield. But I've only heard that one and No Code. No Code is fine but it's a bit disjointed. Yield is consistently good all the way through.

Feeling pretty embarrassed by my emo post now. :/

No way dude! Was just coming here to say how glad I was that you shared it! And when you get down to it, thats what it, music, is all about...at least to me...personal experiences that link you to the music. No shame in that!

yeah great post dude

And I'll give you mine: I met Mr Veg on a Pearl Jam usenet board back in 1995 :)

My rankings:

Pearl Jam
Yield
Backspacer
No Code
the rest

This era is by far their best.

Yield - this album has aged really well, all the singles are great and "MFC" is an all-time favorite, but the less exciting tracks on here are more tedious to me than the filler on almost any other PJ album

Very true. "Pilate," "Brain of J," and "No Way" are tedious and just sound ugly (the mixing of their late nineties recordings repels me). But "In Hiding" and "Faithful" kill me every time, and "Given To Fly" and "Wishlist" are my favorite one-two singles punch.

"In Hiding" is incredible -- i vaguely included that in my 'singles' praise since it charted. i like "Brain of J" though!

I keep meaning to make a mix of all of PJ's absolute barn-burner songs in the vein of "Do the Evolution" and "Breakerfall". It would be kind of a short mix, but it would be WOW.

Also, why are people dogging "Evacuation"?

I like how Vedder learned to ride a liquid guitar melody: from "Off He Goes" to "Faithful" is a nice trip.

subquestion: best PJ album opener?

i'd rank them like: Last Exit > Go > Can't Keep > Brain Of J > Once > Breakerfall > Sometimes > Life Wasted > Gonna See My Friend

Also, why are people dogging "Evacuation"?

I don't think I hate it as much as most, but that one has always been a weak link. The chorus just seemed so lazy to me.

Sometimes is one of my absolute favorites anyway, and Breakerfall is as well, so it's definitely those two...and then all the others.

"Evacuation" is OK, but kind of annoying and not as good as the other 2 fast songs that precede it on the album. my main memory of that song now is that last time I saw them live in '08, they tried to play it and Stone's guitar cut out and it kinda turned into a trainwreck, which is really amusing to listen to on the 'official bootleg' CD of the show.

like "Gods' Dice" is just killer, even if Jeff Ament totally made up the word "resignate"

i may have talked myself into voting for Binaural in this thread because, while i prefer No Code and Yield, i feel like one of Binaural's few fans

I like Binaural too, though for all the hullabaloo made about how it was recorded, it doesn't sound much different than any other post-1995 PJ album.

yeah i think the binaural recording methods were only used on certain instruments on certain songs, they just liked the word as a title. and Tchad Blake after 4 albums w/ Brendan O'Brien was kind of a big regime change but it mostly just sounded like a Pearl Jam record.

Yield - this album has aged really well, all the singles are great and "MFC" is an all-time favorite, but the less exciting tracks on here are more tedious to me than the filler on almost any other PJ album

this is v close to how I feel about Vitalogy...

Pilate is obnoxious as fuck, but I like most of the rest of the filler on here...even the Red Dot song and Push Me Pull Me, both of which are better at being werid/quirky than Bugs or whatnot...

No Way gets a little rmde, but it's pretty rad for what it is

maybe VegemiteGrrl is right; maybe it was the constant shifting of drummers that kept the weirdness feeling awkward instead of as a nice change-of-pace...

yeah "No Way" has some cool musical moments, i just can't get behind it as an overall song. red dot and "Push Me Pull Me" are kind of mildly quirky among more bland filler, whereas Vitalogy is like their best songs ever + some super goofy weird shit, some of which like "Aye Davanita" is actually really good too.

No Code (1996)
Yield (1998)
Binaural (2000)
Riot Act (2002)

^^ haven't heard any of these since high school. from what i recall i'd vote Binaural i guess?

not sure it's the "best" but it's the first one i picked up as a new release, so i spent more time w/ it.

I just listened to MFC, and it really is like PJ just took like a whole sound that was prevalent in the 90s, not grunge bcz too mellow & R.E.M.-derived, but modern-rock stuff like Cracker, Gigolo Aunts, Pete Droge and most of the rest of the bands on the Dumb and Dumber soundtrack...it's like Pearl Jam took that music, distilled and purified it and then poured it into this perfect two-minute pop song.

I really shouldn't like Yield as much as I do; it's basically a more flannel-y version of R.E.M.'s Document and I think that album sucks donkey balls, but there's something so bracing about this music, like cold water on your face; something so incomprehendingly beautiful that it just turns me into the dentist character played by Keanu Reeves in Thumbsucker.

I can see kind of why you don't like it though, some dude: it does kinda sound like the Dumb and Dumber soundtrack, and Vitalogy was I think their first album to break the Seattle mold, and there are some career-defining jams on there (Corduroy, Immortality, Nothingman, Not for You)...

well i called Yield one of my 2 favorite albums in this poll and said it "has aged really well" so i'm not sure where you got the impression i don't like it?

oh my bad...probably meant in comparison to Vitalogy and No Code...

I'm not voting because I haven't heard enough of these, but I just wanted the case to be made for Yield...

fwiw i see nothing wrong with people voting in a poll where they haven't heard every option as long as they have heard the option they're voting for

some dude otm, but don't try to pull that move in a film poll... they get a little touchy if you haven't seen everything on the list

yeah there are definitely situations in which it can be obnoxious that the one option most people are familiar with skates to an easy win. but in a lot of polls, particularly this one i created, i'm fine with it.

haven't heard enough of these = have only heard Yield

but if you guys are totally cool with it, then I guess I'll vote it...

I checked out after Binaural so now I'm wondering should I actually give Backspacer or whatever a try? The horrid cover art and such put me off of the two in between, plus I think I was in college and got kind of indie-fied and Pearl Jam suddenly seemed like stodgy dinosaurs of a different era. I think the cover-art to the self-titled was a bit problem with that actually just because it made them seem like a generic corporate band, whereas NOT being a generic corporate band was something that would have really appealed to me at that moment in my music-fan evolution. Now I don't think I'd care, but I don't listen to a lot of radio rock whatever generally at this point - - - - I suspect this may be a somewhat common path for ex-grunge fans to have tread? Sorry, this post is kind of ill-formed. I did love "The Fixer"....

The s/t and Backspacer are actually decent fwiw, though you're not missing anything by avoiding Riot Act altogether.

Sad that Riot Act was the only time I ever saw them on tour, but the setlist wasn't dominated by its material or anything (plus I got to see Sleater-Kinney open, and that was the only time I ever saw them as well).

I stumbled across a Polish ALL PEARL JAM radio station on the TuneIn radio app and I've been playing it a ton, revisiting a bunch of these albums' songs.

I tend to group "No Code" with the first three albums, really.

"Smile" is in my top 5 PJ songs.

yeah i thought about making 97 the cutoff point since No Code at least had the most post-superstardom afterglow but it's still kind of an underdog here

i'm actually if the Vitalogy/No Code/Yield represent some sort of creative peak for PJ

actually wondering if, just in case you were wondering...

they do imo

Ten and Vs. have some great songs and obv huge hits but i don't really love them as albums

There are a couple of SNL rehearsal clips on youtube, but the broadcast performance is here: http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/3vGwY0h4on0/

yeah it was only a week or two after Cobain's death (and way before Vitalogy was out). Eddie had a "K" written on his shirt and at the end of "Daughter" sang a bit of the Neil Young song referenced in the suicide note, so I don't think of the "Not For You" performance so much as being the eulogy, and supposedly "Immortality" is the song that really alludes to Cobain.

Oh yeah, that's what it was! I hadn't heard "Not For You" before that night and it made me think it had been written to somewhat eulogize Cobain (watching it back, I didn't get the same impression as I did in 1994, but it was really all about context).

shit that SNL performance is hottt t t t

Oh yeah, Merkin Ball was huge. I don't remember ever being so excited for a two-track single in my life! Also, that whole era was my entry point for Neil Young, who has become pretty much a lifelong love at this point.

I voted No Code kinda lazily fwiw; I love that album a lot & gave Yield & Binaural the old post-college try but by then I was deep into alt.country & wasn't receptive to PJ anymore. Those days are long gone & I should revisit those albums & the later ones too.

Yeah man, do it :)

'i got id' is amazing... especially neil's solo, so very haunting.

"Holier-than-thou (How?)/Surrendered, executed anyhow" is the lyric on Immortality that remind me most of Kurdt: there's a mini-rant on the printed lyrics inside the How? parentheses that I think almost addresses him directly. I don't have it with me, so I couldn't tell you exactly what it says offhand...

Somewhere in storage I think I have the first draft of a novel titled All Good Truants Must Decide.

I remember getting into a huge argument with a friend about "Spin the Black Circle", no matter how much I pointed out the vinyl references, he insisted it had nothing to do with listening to records and was solely about heroin. I tried pointing out that some of those allusions were on purpose, but it was about loving records. He would never cave though.

lol

first time i heard it i was amazed that they blatantly ripped off husker du and noone noticed.

^I prolley would've noticed if I had heard Du at that time...

I had just got into them in 1992 (just before i heard of sugar) and bought Metal Circus & Zen Arcade. So by the time STBC came out i was well versed in all their catalogue and spotted it right away. I even took zen arcade down to the record shop in Hamilton to let them hear for themselves (Pearl Jam was their favourite band)

God damn it, I don't have any Pearl Jam on my iPod right now.

>:(

This is one of the downfalls of switching from my 160GB classic to a 32GB touch. I'll have to remedy that tonight.

should we do a POX for the albums in this poll? mine would be like:

In My Tree
MFC
Grievance
The Fixer
Given To Fly
Mankind
In Hiding
You Are
Insignificance
Gone

ooh good idea

right now my wife is reading The Face by Dean Koontz and apparently that guy is not a fan of Pearl Jam:

Here on December 21, the Muzak play list included no Christmas tunes. Most likely, the mall management worried that "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" or even "Jingle Bell Rock" would deeply offend those shoppers of non-Christian faith, as well as alienate any highly sensitized atheists with money to spend. Currently the system broadcasts an old Pearl Jam number. This particular arrangement of the song had been preformed by an orchestra with a large string section. Minus the shrieking vocal, the tune was as mind-numbing as the original, though more pleasantly so.

Well that's just mean

When I think of all the Dean Koontz novels that wouldve made perfectly good toilet paper...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

No Code by a mile. But I usually think of Yield as the dividing line for Pearl Jam eras.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I'm completely fine with the top two, but it kinds of pains me to see Backspacer ranked below the s/t.

eh this is totally fine to me, i like Backspacer more but it's not like it was ever gonna get many votes.

I'm blown away that Yield got as many votes as No Code.

i'm not! Yield has always seemed pretty warmly regarded by most people, whereas No Code seems a little more divisive.

Like i said earlier, No Code has always been the PJ fans pick.

in my experience, obviously

yeah but ILM is not a total hive of typical Pearl Jam fans.

Jack Irons is so great on both those albums, though, has he recorded much with other bands that's worth hearing?

What Is This? and Uplift Mofo Party Plan with RHCP, if you like the punky Chili Peppers stuff from the early years. I haven't dug much into his other outings.

yeah i like some of the early RHCP stuff i know from the What Hits comp, should check out those records.

apparently Irons also has solo albums! interesting

All my Pearl Jam loving friends like Vs. best.

haha i probably shouldve actually voted

a small part of me still thinks the video to 'do the evolution' is totally meaningful & cool

All my Pearl Jam loving friends like Vs. best.

Yeah, sure, but this is post-1995 we're talking here.

I still love the Do The Evolution video

I remember getting into a huge argument with a friend about "Spin the Black Circle", no matter how much I pointed out the vinyl references, he insisted it had nothing to do with listening to records and was solely about heroin. I tried pointing out that some of those allusions were on purpose, but it was about loving records. He would never cave though.

― rendezvous then i'm through with HOOS (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, February 16, 2011 6:13 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahaha, same exact experience here! Jury's out on "Blood" though.

yeah it definitely took me a while to realize what that song was about. PJ are pretty good at making some of their happiest songs ("Spin The Black Circle" and "Smile" particularly) sound really dark and tortured.

i would be curious to see a poll of pearl jam's 4 post-'yield' LPs but it might seem redundant w/this poll having already occurred.

Of those four, I'd pick Backspacer.

wouldn't really be too redundant since those four albums got less than 20% of the votes in this poll, fwiw

would pick Binaural

i might pick riot act

i have no idea what i think about riot act now but it seemed pretty underestimated at the time. "save you," "thumbing my way," "green disease," etc.

Riot Act has some songs that i'm pretty into but it was really their first album i felt genuinely disappointed by and couldn't get excited about even initually, left a bad taste in my mouth

Riot Act/Binaural my least favorite. There are standout tracks but as albums they don't hang together well at all. imo

Avocado/Backspacer by FAR more complete, enjoyable, energetic albums.

Divergent opinions already!

Binaural, then Backspacer. Riot Act and Pearl Jam might be great records, but I've just never felt compelled to revisit them enough to uncover their true charms...

No Code and Yield are such great records. I don't know why I didn't bother to check anything that ame out after