Track Listing

1. Sometimes
2. Hail Hail
3. Who You Are
4. In My Tree
5. Smile
6. Off He Goes
7. Habit
8. Red Mosquito
9. Lukin
10. Present Tense
11. Mankind
12. I'm Open
13. Around The Bend

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25622 in Music
• Released on: 2000-08-21
• Number of discs: 1

CD Description
Pearl Jam's ambitious and mystical NO CODE is no more a grunge album than Nirvana's MTV UNPLUGGED was a punk album, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody who's been listening all along. Even while helping to codify the droning heavy-metal blare of grunge, Pearl Jam has fought that code, breaking the rules of the music as defiantly as the band's business practices defy the rules of the music industry. By now,Pearl Jam can, and does, employ Indian drones, psychedelic rock, punk and folk without reaching.
NO CODE, the band'sfourth album, opens with "Sometimes", a prayer that slowly rises toward an anthemic chorus. But the song pulls back before it gets there, as if the band's goal is to embody the smallness of all of us. Pearl Jam still, clearly, believes in the awesome power of rock: In "Habit", Eddie Vedder nearly goes hoarse ranting at a friend who's picked up a dangerous one, and in "Red Mosquito", the band works up from a folk-rocky waltz into a '60s acid-rock whirl. But much of NO CODE finds Pearl Jam pulling away from such large notions. "Who YouAre", one of a few songs that seem directly inspired by Vedder's recent collaboration with Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (on the DEAD MAN WALKING soundtrack), features droning guitars, tribal drumming and a Buddhist lyric. Even within the Pete Townshend-like electric-guitar strum and vocalwailing of "In My Tree", Vedder seems to be searching not for rock and roll experience, but for spiritual innocence.

Customer Reviews

Pearl Jam realises it's time to lose the rage on NO CODE.
For those looking for another TEN, this is the wrong place to go. NO CODE is the key album to understanding Pearl Jam and is the turning point of their career, some say for better, others for worst. However, their progression is a journey, and this release is the one where Pearl Jam came to a fork in the road and chose a direction to follow.

Now, for those looking for another TEN, it's time to move on. You cannot expect an artist (a good one, that is) to go on milking the same formula. Where would we be had The Beatles kept singing songs like 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' instead of traveling to the majesties of 'Hey Jude,' and 'Revolution,' (the White Album version)?

Following Pearl Jam, in some ways, is like following Bob Dylan's and The Beatles' career. These three aforementioned are true artists, and so their evolution makes a very exciting one to follow. You can't really get the full impact of BLONDE ON BLONDE without knowing the six records preceding it, or RUBBER SOUL without hearing the five albums and myriad singles before that. With this album, you can't really get the full impact without having at least a passing knowledge of the three records before this one.

Commercially, this is Pearl Jam's worst release, and there are no 'biggies' in the song selection such as 'Alive,' 'Even Flow,' 'Daughter,' or 'Better Man.' However, just because a particular album does not get a lot of radio play does not necessarily negate it to the recycle bin. Almost all the tracks are very strong compositions. Sometimes the band falls down, such as 'Present Tense,' which seems just a little to preach to me, and 'Habit,' which says the same lines over and over and over for three and a half minutes. Some may really like them, but for me they're just so-so. 'Mankind' I still don't really know what to do with, because, although I like it, the song is a rather odd selection for the tone of this album. Only one song will take you back to their earlier grunge days, and that is 'Lukin', which is just over a minute and sounds like Eddie's vocal cords are ripped to shreds when he finishes. I have a live version of the song and I can't understand anything he says in it.

Pearl Jam, with their release of TEN in 1991, became one of the major players in the early 1990s along with Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. Of these bands, Pearl Jam has had the longest career, and amazingly did not self-destruct as Nirvana did. There is a reason for this, and this album becomes on of the keys in understanding Pearl Jam.
The first three albums are begin a descent into the hellish regions of rage and it's effects on the human psyche. VITALOGY, Pearl Jam's darkest album, almost plays as a concept album about paranoia, pain, and death. Eddie Vedder's emotions and struggle for understanding are laid out for all to see, and the all consuming rage will have to either be allievated or only more ill could come. The single most important moment on that particular album is 'Immortality,' where Vedder deals with Kurt Cobain's suicide. Had the rage been allowed to continue, Pearl Jam could not have continued for much longer. It's no conincidence that the first two albums sound like earlier extensions of VITALOGY. They begin a downward spiral and absolutely plummet in VITALOGY, and the reason for all the experiments that made VITALOGY so uneven was because Pearl Jam was already, in their rage and fighting their own personal demons, were trying to come up with a way to deal with it.

With NO CODE, their most varied and least accessible album on a commercial level, find Pearl Jam on the morning after. The first three albums represent the night before, drunken rage and struggle for understanding of this inherently insane world (or so it would seem) being night's only companion. From a musical standpoint this release takes the rather roughshod experiments of VITALOGY and builds an album out of them, resulting in the most sonically different album in this band's catalogue. Here, with all sorts of world vibes going down with mantra percussion and some of the softest songs of this band's career, instead of rage Vedder contemplates in a rational manner the problems facing him, and this record shows Pearl Jam finding solace in this course of action.

The experiments on VITALOGY borderline, at times, on the unlistenable with the likes of poorly executed sound collages (Foxeymophandlmama) or the inane ('Bugs'). Don't think it's because of a musical aversion to experimental music, because I really like 'Revolution 9'. Here, however, with the rage gone, the band focuses on this branching out more, and instead of half-realised thoughts on VITALOGY, we have full musical expressions. The chaotic and unrealised song fragments or experimental vibes help indicate Pearl Jam's searching, and while making an ascethic contribution, I always find myself skipping over them. The musical expansion on NO CODE, the maturing of a band, ties in with the band's personal growth as human beings. With the rage stripped away, instead we have a more subdued Pearl Jam dealing with problems in their lives with contemplation, which is one reason that it is the single most mellow album in their catalogue. It is sad the fan base couldn't see that.

In the end, this is Pearl Jam's turning point. From here on out, their releases (1998's YIELD and 2000's BINURAL) would reflect this and further expand this band's journey. It is a rather sad fact that, despite it being a very strong album, the fan base simply wouldn't rally behind this one. This album had to come out, or Pearl Jam would just continually be plagued with their demons and artistically they would begin to lose their momentum and eventually self-destruct. Without Pearl Jam making this choice to let go of their anger, I do not think they'd still be around today, and I think Cobain's death was a very sobering moment for them. With this decision to move on, we have Pearl Jam's most touching, heart-felt, and most fully realised album to date.

speaking as a child of the 90's.....
Apart from 'Ten' this is maybe their best record. (Ten isn't 'dated' - its an album of music.) No Code is like the healing process after all the rage and torment of Vitalogy (yet still has a lot in common with that record.) Like Vitalogy, it is innovative + diverse + uncompromising + above all (as ever with PJ) comes straight from the heart. Although No Code is their most meditative/expansive and mellow record, it also contains their 3 heaviest songs: Hail Hail, Habit, and Lukin. Still, the fact that this album alienated most of the conservative kerrang-type fans Pearl Jam somehow managed to pick up, is surely a bonus point. In summary, this album will expand your mind + soul (and is a whole lot less pretentious than this review.)

Unexpected, underrated - a high quality musical experiment
Pearl Jam's second foray into alternative styles is an even more successful experiment than the punk-ish Vitalogy. Proving the band is versatile enough to try its hand at just about any type of rock, No Code refuses to adhere to the grunge foundations Pearl Jam helped to lay. Collaborating with Neil Young on Mirrorball clearly extended their musical confidence and, as evident in the delicate guitar harmonies and wistful ramblings of 'off he goes', added a touch of country and western to their musical repertoire. There's also a bit of The Who in the superb 'in my tree', and healthy dose of The Ramones in 'Mankind', during which Vedder's vocals rather refreshingly take a back seat to rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard‘s - again exuding the impression of a band at the height of their confidence. The sublime Dylan-esque finale, ‘around the bend’ (a nod towards Creedence Cleerwater Revival perhaps, who recorded another track titled ‘Green river’?) finishes the album on the same high point it sustains throughout the hour. Whatever your opinions regarding the direction Pearl Jam took with their music post-Vs, this is worth the asking price for the last two minutes of ’habit’ alone, which contains some of the most assured bass playing Jeff Ament has ever recorded. It is fairly obvious that the hybrid-rock niche the band continued to carve itself was detrimental to their mainstream success, but No Code will always be my favourite ‘mistake‘. Anyway, if seven equally fantastic and diverse studio albums come hand in hand with chart anonymity, here’s to the second half of Pearl Jam’s career. Smile!