WSJ Article - The Most Corporate Band - PJ Reference
Indifference
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... Lead+Story
"The fiscal realities facing music acts hit home when anti-establishment alt-rockers Pearl Jam struck a retailing deal with Target that included a TV commercial. Josh Rabinowitz, a senior vice president at ad agency Grey Group, calls it an "über shocker. They had sworn off that stuff with a venom. Then they gave in. They had to." It was strictly business.
"The fiscal realities facing music acts hit home when anti-establishment alt-rockers Pearl Jam struck a retailing deal with Target that included a TV commercial. Josh Rabinowitz, a senior vice president at ad agency Grey Group, calls it an "über shocker. They had sworn off that stuff with a venom. Then they gave in. They had to." It was strictly business.
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Comments
Why is he an idiot? They absolutely were anti-establishment for years.
WERE is the key word... As the article points out, Time's have changed... And the PJ reference is one of quite a few top selling acts they reference as doing pretty much the same thing. Partnering with the corporate world to advance the band's interests
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2010: Hartford
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needing - or rather wanting - to have a big company distribute their music is not the shock.. the shock (the surprise would be a better way to put it) is that they've now started to kow-tow to the big company in ways the never did before. when they were with sony, they didn't do cheesy commercials and they didn't play at manager's conventions with pop acts like the jonas brothers. they just made some amazing music, and let that speak for itself. if people liked and bought it? great.. but they weren't going to resort to the things mentioned above in order to try to push a few more units.
times change, people change, and that's their prerogative. but is this kind of thing keeps up, pj is going to have to cool it with the "we're so anti-corporate" stuff. and a few of their songs might start sounding a bit hypocritical.
i just don't want to see them start to turn into U2..
They say every sin is deadly but I believe they may be wrong...I'm guilty of all seven and I don't feel too bad at all
The simple fact is, they have WAY more control over their music and what they do in the deal with Target than they had with Sony. They also can sell the music independently. Technically, Backspacer is their first Indie album. Target is just helping distribute it.
The band has explicitly said the last 2 records they wanted to be huge hits. and to do that you cant do what they used to do, which was avoid press, not do videos, not do tv shows, not liscence their songs, etc... To sell alot of records, you sort of have to play the game. Hell, even RATM, did press with MTV and Rlling Stone and Spin.
and whatever your feelings on that are, whether you find that morally or ethically okay or not, its indeed a huge change, in fact a 180 from 1993 or so.
ultimately though, and this has been my main gripe since the target deal, is that wanting listeners to hear the music, wanting to expand the fan base, wanting to attract new listeners thats one thing. its quite another to want to move units. I got the sense they wanted to move units. and thats their right. but i dont really think that means much of anything. if its a money issue, you aint gonna sell millions of cd's in 2010, i dont care if you are elvis reincarnated or whoever, it aint gonna happen. so i never understood the huge push to sell units.
I am all for the band trying to get their music heard. if ed and mike are wanting backspacer to attract a ton of new listeners, i am right there with them. the problem is of course, the marketing push behind backspacer was the cd sales. drumming up marketing for a physical album just doesnt work these days. We can argue til we are blue in the face about the ethics of illegal downloading, but the facts are facts. you market to the real world, not to some world that existed in 1993. and thats the problem.
There are many ways to increase ticket sales without raising prices, many ways to increase attendance at shows, many ways to get more people to listen to your music, but i think its rather pointless right now to even be discussing album sales. its a non issue.
if they wanted to market backspacer they should have done so. they didnt. they marketed it as if this was ten and the year was 1991. essentially in 2009 we saw what pj would have looked like if they were a establishment band in 1991. you want to sell units in 1991, you do everything the band did to promote backspacer. doesnt work in 2010 though. the band blew it.
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I don't mean to sound like an asshole, but if people want to talk about how the band is starting to sound "hypocitical", or how their in "Cheesy" comericals then why are you on this board????
Sometimes the negativity of people blows my mind. 95% of the poeple on this board are all united by our love for the band and it's musiv. The other 5% should give up their memberships and quit spreading negativity on the board. Its annoying.
"Dont want them turning into U2"??????????????????????????????? Makes no sence...... Who gives a shit how they market their money. Im gonna buy it no matter what, just as im gonna get concert tickets no matter what. And I got a feeling that same 5% that does nothing but bitch will also be first in line for tickets...
i love the band as much as anyone, and have since i was a kid. i can't wait for the shows next month, and i love backspacer. my point is that you can't argue that the way the band does things now, as opposed to the way they did things 6, 8, 15 years ago, has changed markedly. even they would admit that. i mean, in one interview, stone talked about how much money the band will get per cd sold compared to their previous deals. i am all for them getting their just compensation, but show me an interview prior to that where stone or any band member mentioned the money their new record would make them. that, along with what musicismylife78 brought up about the band wanting to "sell records" as opposed to get their music heard, prove that the band has different priorities now.
and that is totally fine. i'll never jump ship.. never even thought about it. but i think i, and anyone else here, has every night to voice opinions on the band - positive or not.
gotta sell cds thru some kinda outlet.
ok, anti establishment all the while signed up to sony music, then.
sony music:
guilty: cd price fixing
guilty: hidden trackers on cds
guilty: mariah carey
that's 3 strikes
selling distribution rights to target to get your music out there, to test the waters, doesn't even come close to the corporation"establishment"they WERE involved with
not directed at anyone specifically...but i find most people just don't have the smarts to figure out what it must be like to be your own record company for the first time in your 2o year career. people should not be slagging on pearl jam
they are the true heroes
and kudos to ato (aka-dave matthews) records. it can be done.
and sony music sucks
yep. putting out records with an insanely huge major label totally screams anti-establishment