I always tell people that I only feature music I like on YANP. “Why waste my time and my readers time with stuff that doesn’t interest me?” I ask. Well, consider this one of the rare times I’m posting about a song that hasn’t really grabbed me. My jury’s still out on whether or not Pearl Jam’s new song is going to rock out or not, but I know that its debut on Conan most certainly did not.

Everything about the first Conan show was golden (especially the opening sequence), but the mix on the Pearl Jam song was just the definition of wonky. Normally I’ve got some very forgiving ears, but both my roommate and I immediately shot glances at each other within the first few seconds of this song. The lead guitar (Mike?) was way too loud — especially for such a wandering guitar part — and we could rarely make out anything Eddie was saying. And not in the “what the hell are any of the frontmen in the early 90s saying?” kind of way.

So to summarize: Conan was hilarious, Pearl Jam’s new song might not be bad but you’d never know it from this performance and I haven’t yet made up my mind about having Andy Richter back on Conan (is it because I’m too young to remember him being on there in the first place??). Here’s hoping NBC figures out how to mic/mix the new studio. It looks great, now let’s hope it eventually sounds the same.

Video thanks to Culture Bully, who also has the MP3 of the performance.