A Free-Reprint Article Written by: Ryan Hogan Article Title: Pearl Jam Sells Out
See TERMS OF REPRINT to the end of the article. Article Description: When fans, especially those of the casual variety, think of Pearl Jam they generally conjure up an image of a "fight the power" type of band who's politically active and bent on not succumbing to the "Man" running the music industry. Additional Article Information: =============================== 772 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line Distribution Date and Time: 2009-08-28 15:36:00 Written By: Ryan Hogan Copyright: 2009 Contact Email: mailto:[email protected] For more free-reprint articles by Ryan Hogan, please visit: http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/recent/author/ryan-hogan.html ============================================= Special Notice For Publishers and Webmasters: ============================================= HTML Copy-and-Paste and TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of Article Are Available at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/h/pearl-jam-concerts.shtml#get_code --------------------------------------------------------------------- Pearl Jam Sells Out Copyright (c) 2009 Ryan Hogan Click It Ticket http://www.clickitticket.com/ When fans, especially those of the casual variety, think of Pearl Jam they generally conjure up an image of a "fight the power" type of band who's politically active and bent on not succumbing to the "Man" running the music industry. That's pretty much the band's reputation, just ask anyone with Pearl Jam concert tickets. In 2006, Rolling Stone magazine wrote that Pearl Jam had "spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame. " The band stopped making both television appearances and music videos. Meanwhile, they unsuccessfully took on Ticketmaster. The band has always been politically active. They support the pro-choice movement, environment and wildlife protection groups (the band has a carbon neutral policy), and the Green Party (suppress chuckle now). This may come as a shock, but they weren't fans of George W. Bush. In addition, Pearl Jam has performed in concerts benefiting the U.N.'s fight against world hunger, victims of Hurricane Katrina, Habitat for Humanity and the American Red Cross. It's clear that Pearl Jam is all about saving this and protecting that and fighting this injustice and battling that travesty. However, if you look around, this seemingly socially progressive juggernaut is in cahoots with a plethora of big-time corporations. In fact, Pearl Jam is hawking more products than Peyton Manning. Their upcoming ninth studio album, Backspacer, set to be released September 20th, is being sold exclusively at Target (and indie retailers but who goes to them anymore). You can also download the album from the iTunes Music Store (Apple). Overseas, album is being distributed by Universal Music (Vivendi). Recently, the band has joined up with Verizon's V Cast platform to offer fans access to Pearl Jam content. Backspacer uses Sony technology to house extra material and the entire album with get the full DLC Rock Band 2 treatment, possibly paving the way for a Pearl Jam Rock Band game (Electronic Arts) in 2010. In the 1990's, Kurt Cobain accused the band of being sellouts but he probably didn't imagine the band would ever sell out to an army of corporations. Cobain was referring to the way the band was selling albums, t-shirts and concert tour tickets. He was not referring to the band's vertical commercial integration with consumer oriented media synergy (okay, we made that up but you get our point). Now you might argue that using Sony's software or being immortalized by Rock Band doesn't make one a sellout. That's true, but the more corporations you do business with and the more politically active you are, the greater the risk of biting the hand that feeds. What is the target of most political activism? It's the government and corporations. Take the environment for example. It's not being polluted by orphans and puppy dogs. It's being polluted by big business. Some of which would love to have Pearl Jam pimp their products. The only difference between bands that sell out and bands that don't sell out is the bands that didn't sell out were never given the chance. Face it, selling out is as American as apple pie and a 401k plan. If I was in a band as big as Pearl Jam I would be selling out faster than you can say "I'm going to Disneyland." I would allow my songs to be used as jingles for enriched uranium if they paid me enough. If my manager didn't have my cheesy, pensive single playing at the end of every emotional episode of every two-bit drama on television I would have her fired. If they gave me a good enough deal, I would get a Ticketmaster tramp stamp. Before you start accusing me or Pearl Jam of being greedy "you know whats," stop and think for a moment how expensive it is to live. Then think of how expensive it is for Pearl Jam to live. They have kids, mortgages, college tuitions, wives who have to shop, mistresses who need apartments, and those prescription drugs don't buy themselves. Sure there are bands that walk the walk and wouldn't take a dime from a corporation to save a spotted owl. But those bands sell 11 albums a year and play for 100 fans at a venue that doubles as a furniture store. The best way for Pearl Jam to spread their message and affect change is by reaching as many people as possible. Sometimes that involves producing albums, sometimes that involves selling concert tickets and sometimes that involves working with corporate America. After all, the best way to bring down the machine is from within. Fight the power and pass me my iPhone. Copyright 2009, ClickItTicket.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ryan Hogan is a writer for the ClickitTicket sports and music blog. At ClickitTicket.com you'll find concert tickets to purchase like Pearl Jam tickets. Find a huge selection of event tickets and a wealth of original entertainment content at: http://www.ClickitTicket.com/ --- END ARTICLE --- Get HTML or TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of This Article at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/h/pearl-jam-concerts.shtml#get_code ..................................... TERMS OF REPRINT - Publication Rules (Last Updated: May 11, 2006) Our TERMS OF REPRINT are fully enforcable under the terms of: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281.ENR: ..................................... *** Digital Reprint Rights *** * If you publish this article in a website/forum/blog, You Must Set All URL's or Mailto Addresses in the body of the article AND in the Author's Resource Box as Hyperlinks (clickable links). * Links must remain in the form that we published them. Clean links should point to the Author's links without redirects having been inserted into the copy. * You are not allowed to Change or Delete any Words or Links in the Article or Resource Box. Paragraph breaks must be retained with articles. You can change where the paragraph breaks fall, but you cannot eliminate all paragraph breaks as some have chosen to do. * Email Distribution of this article Must be done through Opt-in Email Only. No Unsolicited Commercial Email. * You Are Allowed to format the layout of the article for proper display of the article in your website or in your ezine, so long as you can maintain the author's interests within the article. * You may not use sentences from this article as an input for any software that steals sentences from others in order to build an article with software. The copyright on this article applies to the "WHOLE" article. *** Author Notification *** We ask that you notify the author of publication of his or her work. Ryan Hogan can be reached at: [email protected] *** Print Publication Reprint Rights *** If you desire to publish this article in a PRINT publication, you must contact the author directly for Print Permission at: mailto:[email protected] ..................................... If you need help converting this text article for proper hyperlinked placement in your webpage, please use this free tool: http://thephantomwriters.com/link-builder.pl ***************************************************************** * * This email is being delivered directly to members of the group: * * [email protected] * ***************************************************************** ===================================================================== ABOUT THIS ARTICLE SUBMISSION http://thePhantomWriters.com is a paid article distribution service. thePhantomWriters.com and Article-Distribution.com are owned and operated by: Bill Platt 3010 E Raintree Stillwater, Oklahoma USA 74074 Learn more about our article distribution services by visiting: http://thephantomwriters.com/x.pl/tpw/info/article-distribution/index.html The content of this article is solely the property and opinion of its author, Ryan Hogan http://www.clickitticket.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ---------------------------------------------------------------------
