Rates on bonds are meaningless without considering yield.

Rate and yield are the same thing. Whenever I’m paying a rate, somebody else is earning a yield. Whenever I’m earning a yield, someone else is paying a rate.

They are related but they are certainly not the same thing.

Yield is a normalised rate of interest, so that bonds of different characteristics can be compared. When people say a bond pays certain interest rate, they mean the normalised rate, i.e. the yield, otherwise they would make clear they're talking about the "nominal rate", which is different. Therefore in most contexts, rate and yield are the same thing.

Anyway, the thing is if the spot rate is x% you will certainly be able to find bonds in the market that pay x% interest (=yield), regardless of the fact that a bond's yield and price are negatively correlated (an irrelevant fact, for the purposes of this discussion).