Pearl Jam partners with Target. Keep your sellout accusations to yourself.
June 4th, 2009 by Joel Weiss in News
Ever since the phrase “pull a Radiohead” entered the music blogosphere’s lexicon, we’ve watched as a diverse list of acts such as Nine Inch Nails, Saul Williams, Pennywise, and Portishead explore ways to reinvent the music business wheel. One of the highest-profile free agents is Pearl Jam – a group unafraid to fight corporate giants like Ticketmaster head-on. But Eddie Vedder and company don’t fear partnering up with a big box store either.
Billboard reports:
[Pearl Jam manager Kelly Curtis] confirmed that deals were also finished or in the works with an online retailer, a mobile partner, a gaming company and with a network or possibly networks of indie retail stores. “Target ended up allowing us to have other partners. We’ll be able to take care of all levels of the Pearl Jam fan…We wish we could tell the whole story right now, but all the deals aren’t done. Target was cool enough to realize that little independent record stores are not their competition.”
Pearl Jam will follow in the footsteps of AC/DC, Prince, Guns n’ Roses, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, and many other famous names that granted exclusivity deals with big box retailers. But Pearl Jam’s deal with Target is not quite as odious. Details after the jump.
Pearl Jam’s manager said above, “Target ended up allowing us to have other partners.” That sets Pearl Jam apart from the aforementioned big names, as the most popular disagreement to big box exclusivity deals was the lack of involvement on the independent record store front. Unlike Prince’s triple album LOtUSFLOW3R, you won’t be forced to buy the album from only Target.
In addition to the album, director Cameron Crowe — already filming the band for projects relating to Pearl Jam’s 20th anniversary — shot a Pearl Jam/Target commercial with the new song, “The Fixer.”
While it certainly comes as a surprise that a band with the working class ethos of Pearl Jam would partner with a big corporation, Mp3s, iPods, and piracy changed the game. Yes, Pearl Jam has the ability to succeed at any of the possibilities the likes of Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails have put forth, if they can partner with a company like Target in a way that doesn’t compromise artistic integrity and still fill the pockets of everyone involved, why not go for it? Their manager, Kelly Curtis, justifies to Billboard why fans shouldn’t take it too hard:
Curtis says it was important to him and to the band to redefine the notion of an “exclusive” retail partnership. “I appreciate the efforts of bands like AC/DC and Radiohead,” says the manager, alluding to two of the bands that have self-released albums recently. “But I wanted our plan to be multi-dimensional to address old and modern ways of fans accessing music. It will allow all of our fans to have the same access.”
Rumored to be titled Backspacer, the new Pearl Jam album will hit stores sometime in the fall.
“Get Some” from The Tonight Show (2009)
“Porch” from MTV Unplugged (1992)
Leave a Reply