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Pearl Jam cuts out the middleman with "Backspacer"
Tue Sep 1, 2009 1:16am EDT
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By Jonathan Cohen
NEW YORK (Billboard) - "Super poppy."
"Just plain fun."
"Surprisingly optimistic."
"Catchy as hell."
These are not phrases often used to describe Pearl Jam, the 30 million-selling purveyor of angst-ridden guitar rock now approaching its 19th year of existence. And yet these are the words being used on blogs to describe "The Fixer," the first song from the Seattle rock band's ninth album, "Backspacer."
The track is a surging, '80s-style rocker written by drummer Matt Cameron.
You can't blame Cameron, singer Eddie Vedder, bassist Jeff Ament or guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready for smiling wider than usual. President George W. Bush, who the band vilified in song and onstage for eight years, is out of office. The group remains a huge touring draw and A-list festival headliner, having grossed nearly $42 million from 51 shows reported to Billboard Boxscore from 2006 to 2008. Vedder won a Golden Globe for his soundtrack to the 2007 movie "Into the Wild." Life is quieter on the homefront, too: Four of the five band members have children.
But Pearl Jam is also celebrating because it finally made good on a longstanding desire to release its music on its own, without the aid of a major label. "Backspacer" will come out September 20 in the United States through a creative patchwork of deals with physical and digital retailers, the most prominent of which is a one-off, big-box exclusive with Target. Internationally, Universal Music is the label for the release.
The Target partnership threw fans for a loop when the news leaked in June. At first glance the move seems at odds with a band whose DIY, fan-first business ethic has set it against corporate behemoths like Ticketmaster and AT&T. But as details began to emerge, it became clear that Pearl Jam struck a deal that rewards the band and its fans as much as it does the stores that sell its music.
MORAL BAROMETER
Target agreed to let independent music retailers carry "Backspacer," a first for one of its exclusives. "Backspacer" will also be sold on Pearl Jam's Web site and at Apple's iTunes Music Store.
"We've put a tremendous amount of thought into this, and we've done it in a way that we think will be good for everybody," Vedder says. He understands why some fans may be confused about the deal, but he says, "I can't think of anything we've ever done without putting it through our own personal moral barometer. Target has passed for us. The fans just have to trust us."
As Gossard puts it, "If somebody would have said 15 years ago that they were going to give us a great chunk of money and let it be a one-off and not hold us to any strings, we would have said, 'Come on! This is the best deal ever!' We fought our way through eight records at Sony and J to get ourselves in a position where we could cut a deal to get paid $5 a record, rather than $1.50 or $2. It was the right compromise for this record, and I think it will give us even more flexibility in the future. The fact that we cut out a few other chains -- I think it's our prerogative to do that. We're bringing a lot of smaller stores with us."
The Target discs will link to a virtual "vault" of 11 concerts spanning Pearl Jam's career, from which fans can choose two. The band will also create an organic cotton T-shirt to be sold at Target, with proceeds earmarked for the hunger relief charity Feeding America. And in September, a Cameron Crowe-directed TV ad will air featuring footage shot during a private performance at Seattle's Showbox in late May.
For Vedder, an avowed vinyl junkie who still savors memories of buying Jackson 5 records as a preteen in Chicago, Target isn't exactly his preferred music purchasing environment. "Maybe it will change, but I'm not going to find Thee Headcoatees at a Target," he says, invoking the obscure British band with a hearty laugh. "But if they only have 300 records at Target, and you can be one of them, and that's how people are going to hear your music, you have to think about that." Continued...
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