Riot Act is the seventh studio album by American rock band Pearl Jam, released November 12, 2002, through Epic Records. Following a full-scale tour in support of their previous album, Binaural (2000), Pearl Jam took a year-long break. The band reconvened in the beginning of 2002 and commenced work on a new album. The music on the album was diverse, including songs influenced by folk, art rock and experimental rock. The lyrics deal with mortality and existentialism, with influence from both the political climate after the September 11 attacks and the accidental death of nine fans during Pearl Jam's performance at the 2000 Roskilde Festival.

The band supported the album with a politically motivated concert tour in 2003. Riot Act was the band's last album of all-new material for Epic. The album received mostly positive reviews, and has been certified gold by the RIAA in the United States.

Recording

Producer Adam Kasper was brought in to work with the band on its seventh album. Kasper had engineered other Pearl Jam albums, and was brought to produce following a suggestion by drummer Matt Cameron, who worked with Kasper on his previous groups Wellwater Conspiracy and Soundgarden. Riot Act was recorded in two sessions in February 2002 and April 2002 at Studio X in Seattle. The album was mixed by Brendan O'Brien at Studio X.

Similar to the process for Yield and Binaural, band members worked on material individually before starting the recording sessions together. According to Cameron, everyone in the band had "four or five" ideas coming into the sessions, and there was "a lot to just kind of weed through and work on." Gossard stated that "the process of letting go is constant in this band", adding that bandmembers would arrive with "a clear idea of what a song is going to be" but eschew for other musical ideas while discussing the song with the group. According to Gossard, bringing in Gaspar was about being "open to new things", while Vedder stated Gaspar "was able to find his place" and fit in easily with the band dynamics.

McCready described the recording environment as "a pretty positive one" and "very intense and spiritual." Most of the album was recorded live, with Cameron describing the album as "our anti-Pro Tools record."<!-- The cover of the November 2002 issue says they interviewed the following artists: Staind, Lifehouse, Bowling for Soup, Murderdolls, LA Guns, Reel Big Fish, The Coral and Puddle of Mudd -->

Music and lyrics

Riot Act features a diverse sound, including folk-based and experimental songs. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic said "Riot Act is the album that Pearl Jam has been wanting to make since Vitalogy—a muscular art rock record, one that still hits hard but that's filled with ragged edges and odd detours." and "Love Boat Captain" including a brief lyrical reference ("Lost nine friends we'll never know... two years ago today").

A few songs feature lyrical collaborations between Vedder and other members of the group: one with Ament ("Ghost"), one with Cameron ("You Are") and two with Gossard ("Bu$hleaguer" and "All or None"). Sole lyrical contributions from band members other than Vedder include Cameron with "Get Right" and Ament with "Help, Help" The album's lyrics tackle existential matters ("Love Boat Captain", "Cropduster" and "I Am Mine"), as well as social and political concerns ("Green Disease", "Bu$hleaguer" and "1/2 Full"). The lyrics of "Save You" represent the anger felt by anyone watching a close friend waste away his or her life. Regarding "Love Boat Captain", Vedder said, "Love is one resource that corporations aren't going to be able to monopolize." Vedder said that "Cropduster" is "about man's giant ego, that he's the most important thing on the planet." Regarding "Green Disease", Vedder stated he was "mystified" at corporate-management salaries and "how someone can justify taking that much at the cost of other people's livelihoods." According to Ament, the band had trouble coming up with a name for the album. After the artwork had been finalized and the tracks were sequenced, the band spent weeks trying to come up with a title. Vedder suggested Riot Act, and the band members went with it as they were tired with trying to come up with a title.

Tour

Pearl Jam promoted the album with tours in Australia, Japan, and North America in 2003. The tours were the band's first with keyboardist Boom Gaspar. The two legs of the North American tour focused on the Midwestern United States, the East Coast, and the West Coast, and had more concerts in arenas. The trauma of Roskilde led the tour to lack performances on festivals and open floor venues.

The band received much publicity for its energetic politically charged performances during the tour. At many shows during the 2003 North American tour, Vedder performed "Bu$hleaguer" with a rubber mask of George W. Bush, wearing it at the beginning of the song and then hanging it on a mic stand to allow him to sing. The band made news when it was reported that several fans left after Vedder had "impaled" the Bush mask on his mic stand at the band's show of April 1, 2003, in Denver, Colorado show at the Pepsi Center. Following a performance of the song at Pearl Jam's show of April 30, 2003, in Uniondale, New York, at the Nassau Coliseum, the band was met with boos from the crowd and chants of "U-S-A." Vedder responded by defending his right to free speech and the band followed with a performance of the Clash's "Know Your Rights". The song "Arc" was performed by Vedder at nine shows during the second North American leg of the tour as a tribute to the victims of the Roskilde disaster. The concerts were documented by a long series of official bootlegs, all of which were available through the band's official website, and six of which were released in record stores: Perth, Tokyo, State College, Pennsylvania, two shows from Madison Square Garden, and Mansfield, Massachusetts. Two concerts became DVDs, the Seattle one being issued as Live at the Showbox, and the first of two shows at Madison Square Garden was released as the Live at the Garden DVD. Pearl Jam also supported the album's material at a series of political rallies and benefit concerts while preparing for its eighth studio album.

Release and reception

Commercial performance

Riot Act reached number five in the U.S. on the Billboard 200 album chart, with 166,000 copies sold in its first week of release. The album would end up selling only 575,000 copies in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan, short of the 850,000 sold by predecessor Binaural. Riot Act has been certified gold by the RIAA. It became the band's first album not to chart in the top two on the Billboard 200. The international response to Riot Act was more positive. The album topped the charts in Australia, where it went platinum and ended among the best-selling records of the year in both 2002 and 2003. Riot Act also went to number two in both Italy, and New Zealand, three in Norway, and number four in Canada. While "Save You" was released as the second single for North America, "Love Boat Captain" was the second single for international markets.

"All or None" experienced a surge in popularity following its inclusion in "Left Behind", the seventh episode of the HBO series The Last of Us, with Spotify streams increasing by over 5,000% in the first 24 hours after the episode's release.

Critical response

Riot Act received favorable reviews from music critics according to Metacritic, where it holds a 73 after 20 reviews. NME gave Riot Act an eight out of ten. Reviewer Louis Pattison stated that "Riot Act is the sound of a band entering a powerful middle-age. They still deserve your attention." "Down" and "Undone" were B-sides on the "I Am Mine" single, and "Other Side" was featured on the "Save You" and "Love Boat Captain" singles. All three were included on the 2003 Lost Dogs collection of rarities, although "Undone" appeared in a slightly different form. McCready said that "Down" came out lighter than intended, and was ultimately left off Riot Act because it did not fit with the other songs on the album. Also recorded during the sessions was "4/20/02", a song honoring Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley that Vedder wrote the day that he heard the news of Staley's death. According to Vedder, "4/20/02" wasn't included on Riot Act because the band already had too many songs,

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!scope="row"| Japanese Albums (Oricon)

| style="text-align:center;"| 35

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!scope="row"| Polish Albums (OLiS)

| style="text-align:center;"| 6

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!scope="row"| Portuguese Albums (AFP)

|align="center"| 3

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!scope="row"| Spanish Albums (AFYVE)

| style="text-align:center;"| 20

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!scope="row"| US Billboard 200

|align="center"| 5

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!scope="row"| US Top Internet Albums (Billboard)

|align="center"| 2

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Year-end charts

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"

|+Year-end chart performance for Riot Act

! scope="col"| Chart (2002)

! scope="col"| Position

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!scope="row"|Australian Albums (ARIA)

| 62

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!scope="row"|Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)

| 125

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!scope="row"|Canadian Alternative Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)

| 38

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!scope="row"|Canadian Metal Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)

| 18

|}

Certifications

References

  • Riot Act information and lyrics at pearljam.com