As rock stars, Pearl Jam had to learn on the job. They got turned into icons before they ever 
got to come on as human beings, and they were stuck in the role of grunge poster boys before 
they had a chance to get their own voices together. From the beginning, Pearl Jam knew how to 
whip up a big, blustery rock sound. But they sounded confused about what to do with it. They 
never had much knack for high-speed punk-rock riffs, and their song writing got boggeed down 
in overblown, chest-beating angst. For all Eddie Vedder's sincerity, he was always auditioning 
too hard for the Troubled Childhood All-Stars. Like the rest of the band, he seemed stiff, as 
though he was afraid no on would take him seriously if he got caught having fun. Eddie wasnn't 
only the Low Self-Esteem Club president; he was also a client.

But Pearl Jam started to lighten up on 1994's "Vitalogy" and 1996's "No Code", and "Yield" is 
the payoff. They want you to hear "Yield" as an album rather than as a pop-culture event, 
distancing themselves even further from their anthem-mongering, trauma sharing, flannel-flaunting
youth. Pearl Jam might not be the generational spokesmodels they used to be, but they've grown 
up to be a looser, livelier band, writing sharper tunes to fit their dense, intricate guitar 
fuzz. Before, the band's best songs were the change-of-pace ballads: the brawny acoustic 
strumming of "Daughter", "Nothingman" and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter ina Small Town". 
"Yield" marks the first time Pearl Jam has managed to sustain that mood for a whole album.

There's not much bluster on "Yield", and even the rockers have an uncommonly easy touch that's 
new to Pearl Jam. Ever since they hooked up with ex-Chilli Pepper drummer Jack Irons on their 
excellent Neil Young collaberation,"Mirror Ball", they've gotten more nimble at revving up the 
tempo. Rave-ups like "Brain of J" pile on the guitar-magazine effects without overpowering the 
power chords. But the ballads are the real attention getters on Yiled: Slow-motion melodies like 
"Low Light" and "In Hiding" give Vedder a chance to luxuriate in the nooks and crannies of his 
ruggedly handsome voice, the band's trump card. "Given to Fly" even takes its tune straight from 
the ultimate album-rock radio ballad, Led Zeppelin's "Going to California", an audacious bit of 
pop recycling as clever as a prime Puffy sample. As you'd expect, Eddie Vedder is still the star 
of the show, and "Yield" offers plenty of new chapters in the ongoing story of Eddie and his 
tortured soul. The big difference in these songs is that Vedder is singing more frankly than 
ever about his life as an adult. He's always been one of the few males on the radio who can sing 
about women without coming off like a jerk, and on "Yield" he even tries to sing a few earnest
love songs. The amazing "Faithful" begins as a fairly conventional critique of religion and 
turns into passionate testifying about a marriage. The gentle power-pop nugget "Wishlist", a 
silly love song that Vedder composed solo, might be the simplest song Pearl Jam has ever done. 
But it's also the most moving. As the guitars buzz and hum around him, Eddie rolls out some 
outrageously playfull valentine couplets: "I wish I was the souvenir you kept your house key 
on/I wish I was the pedal brake that you depended on".

Pearl Jam's old-school audience might not forgive them for wanting to grow up. "No Code" was a 
relative commercial flop, suggesting that lots of their fans were waiting for "Jeremy Part II", 
"The Wrath of Jeremy", "Jeremy Goes to College" and "Jeremy Takes Manhattan". New-jack-grunge 
merchants like Live and the Verve Pipe have been only too happy to move in on the 
hell-is-for-children market. If Pearl Jam's smaller place in the universe bothers them, though, 
you wouldn't know it from the confidently graceful craft of "Yield". They've always conducted an 
uneasy public dance with their audience, desperatly building up their pop myth when they aren't 
desperatly backing away from it. By stripping down their mammoth riffs on "Yield", they show that
they're smart enought to remember what happend to windbags like the Alarm and Big Country. But 
"Yield" also shows that Pearl Jam have made the most out of growing up in public, and that 
they're leaving lumberjack chic behind.