\nNo Code<\/i> is Pearl Jam’s answer to a concept album. A drastic
\ndeparture from the grunge\/stadium rock sound of its predecessors,
\nNo Code<\/i> is a mishmash of the weirdest ideas thrown out by
\nthe band on their worst acid trips.
\nNo Code<\/i> is undoubtedly Pearl Jam’s most insane effort;
\nhowever, it is a great record.<\/p>\n
Pearl Jam’s music always had an air of pretentiousness, with its
\nmacho yet sophisticated belligerence and a bloated ego.
\nNo Code<\/i> finds the band in a new light and in a completely
\ndifferent frame of mind.<\/p>\n
To begin with, singer Eddie Vedder sounds like an intelligent
\nfolk singer-songwriter this time around. He is more down-to-earth
\nand introspective than he ever was. On “In My Tree” — a track that
\nreeks of Greenpeace activism — he is at his earthiest, as he sings
\n“Wave to all my friends, yeah \/ they don’t seem to notice me, no \/
\nall their eyes trained on the street,” about the simple pleasures
\nof living in a tree. Vedder has never dared to be so
\nna\u00efve.<\/p>\n
Moving away from the band’s traditional bombastic songwriting
\nnature, the songs on this record are blatantly confessional and are
\nmore honest than on any of Pearl Jam’s earlier albums. On “Present
\nTense,” Vedder is most poignant, as he advises against committing
\nsuicide in Bob Dylan-ish poetic style and in the manner of an
\nenlightened preacher, whose only motive in life is to make other
\npeople’s lives better.<\/p>\n
Vedder’s vulnerability on “I’m Open” is almost scary, as he
\nspeaks in a brooding and meditative fashion on the false comfort of
\nliving in a dream world, and the difficult and almost inevitable
\ntransition to the harshness of reality.<\/p>\n
By the time
\nNo Code<\/i> was out, Pearl Jam had made some interesting
\ncollaborations with other artists\/bands, and the influences coming
\nout of these collaborations make obvious presence on the album’s
\nmusic. It is impossible not to link the infectiously rhythmic
\nhands-clapping (reminiscent of Qawwali music) on “Who You Are,” to
\nVedder’s famous duets with the late Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh
\nAli Khan on the soundtrack of
\nDead Man Walking<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Also, a glimpse of Pearl Jam’s full-time transition to folk rock
\non later albums is seen on “Hail-Hail,” “Smile,” and “Off He Goes,”
\nand it is but obvious that Vedder and co. took a few lessons from
\nNeil Young while collaborating on Young’s
\nMirrorball<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\nNo Code<\/i> is Pearl Jam like you’ve never heard before. This is
\nthe only album on the group’s entire catalog that neither sounds
\ngrunge nor folk rock. This experimental adventurism by the band may
\nbe a letdown for a lot of Pearl Jam fans; however, this album was
\ncritical in cementing Pearl Jam’s reputation as not merely grunge
\nrockers, but also a bunch of versatile musicians\/song-writers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":25043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5726],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-38615","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-pearl-jam","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38615"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}