Pearl Jam has always been a special band to me. Their music emerged in the early 90s, just as I was getting into music. It was vastly different from the declining 80s hair metal bands. While the first two albums are great, the Yield album represents a dramatic shift in the group's overall style. It's softer and more of a mature sound. I'd rather not review the album in this post, rather I'll share my memory of the album.
This album appeared in 1996. I had just graduated from high school and was attending Spoon River College, outside Canton, IL. I should point out that I owned the cassette, not the CD and certainly not the mp3s (this was 1996 afterall). The 'Alternative' music genre was in full swing at the time. I was driving a 1992 Nissan Sentra two-door. I fixed a Pearl Jam decal on the side-back window. I used to drive from Elmwood to Canton and then all the way to Peoria to work after class. I put a lot of miles on that car during that year. In retrospect, it feels like I had no idea what I was doing with my life. Who does at 20 yrs old? I think it was around this time that I began collecting a lot of Pearl Jam rarities, such as live concert footage or CD singles. Back in those days, you had to go to Co-Op Records to find bootlegs. No Internet. A few years later, I would sell a lot of those rarities to pay some bills. A year prior, my brother & I had seen Pearl Jam at Soldier Field in Chicago. I still have the t-shirt somewhere. Drumming-wise, I was just discovering things like how to properly do a double-stroke roll and other rudiments. Guess I was late to the game. Seems like I was wasting a lot of time then.
