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September 09, 2009

A Look at the Notion of Selling Out Through the Prism of Pearl Jam...

Slate | Read Full Story >

The irony is obvious: “The Fixer” is a great song about integrity that comes to us courtesy of the Target Corporation. But this irony, rather than flatly contradicting Vedder’s principled position, complicates it. Is it meaningful to argue that a band that spent 14 years recording for Sony has, with a Target deal, sold out? Maybe. But maybe Pearl Jam’s move from one corporate patron to another helps underscore the striking degree to which musical “integrity”—always something of a free-floating notion, anyway—is being redefined amid the altered economic realities of the flagging album-sales business. Today, acts from pop to punk stuff music videos with product placements and launch tours sponsored by carmakers. Do these new profit avenues signal a new artistic low, or do they represent an attempt—ungainly but not unreasonable—to ensure that one continues to be paid wild sums for one’s wildly popular art?



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