I still enjoy Phil Spector's production work.

since when do I defend everything the band does? I don't think the target deal is a big deal for reasons I have articulated in FAR greater detail and internal consistency than almost anyone who thinks it is a big deal has. I have prefaced pretty much every one of those comments with the caveat that I think the fanclub is poorly run and that the higher prices of tickets are a much more legitimate grievance--although even in that case I hardly lose my shit over it and criticize it with much less desperate energy than the people who are unhappy (the anti-fanboys who are so invested in an idealized image of the band as hero that they die inside when ticket prices go up).

And while I will defend the music the band is currently putting out as really good, Pearl Jam has plenty of songs and music moments I'm critical of, including many of the sacred cows worshiped by this board. In fact, I'm pretty prepared to say that my enjoyment of Backspacer is far less fanboyish than the fetiishization of Yield and No Code that some people around here have.

Oh, I could love the music to death and be really disappointed in the deal with target (see fan club/concert tickets to a lesser extent). Whether or not I'd love the music and no longer want to listen to it because of what the band did is different.

I said "pretty much" But seriously, maybe it's a false impression, but it's what it looks like. There's a reason why different people thought of asking the same thing. Like, if you refuse to call hypocritical on someone who preaches something and then does the opposite, when is it okay to call it then? Things like that give this impression. But I'll admit I never had the impression you thought the Target thing was a big deal, as you just said, so if that's the case I must have misread you.

there is a difference between defending and just not caring. The ten club has alwaysbeen a shit show. Thats never changed.

I just dont care. LIterally. Just dont care.

Yea i like the music a lot still, wont apologize for that though.

oh and the fixer commerial. i think i saw it twice at the most. So....really has no affect on me in any way.

If i was 15 i might care. Im 30. I care about more important things.

LIke when Tom Waits is gonna tour again and how i can generate more work at the office and get a higher % of my output so i can stop renting ghetto ass apartments.

This is where I drew the line. Eff Pearl Jam!

lol yeah i would never buy that. how much is it?

BadMusic, I do understand what the purpose of this original thread was. But there were enough people along the way that commented on selling out, etc. that it felt prudent to comment on that as much as the initial question.

It just strikes me as silly, the need to single out a clear-cut instance where someone would decide that they've just plain had enough--especially since you're saying that "drawing the line" doesn't mean you'd actively separate yourself from the band's music, just that you'd go on record as saying that you disapprove of their decisions for whatever moral reasons you see fit. Who cares? Like, Miles Davis was a known womanizer and on several occasions punched the ones most beloved to him--I'll gladly go on record if you like as being an active opponent of domestic abuse, even womanizing. What difference does it make if I still own fifty Miles Davis CD's? Many of the hypotheticals you listed in your initial post would annoy me, and some might even offend my principles. Many of the the things they do now annoy me, and some even offend my principles. But they're a rock band. It seems perfectly feasible that you could disapprove of virtually everything they do from a non-musical standpoint and have their music mean the world to you. I could understand your question more if they'd done something beyond indefensible, but defending their right to promote their own music on TV or charge market standard for ticket prices hardly seems like the kind of thing that signifies delusional, unconditional fanboyism.

Damn it. Double post again.

The thing of it, for me, is that my standards have changed as I've aged, too.

There was a time when it seemed like selling your music for use in, say, a car commercial was pretty much unforgivable. As I've gotten older, I've asked myself ... why should I really care? Does it harm the integrity of the music, particularly in the case of songs that are 20+ years old? When I hear Rock & Roll in those Cadillac ads or Bargain in the ... what is it? Mazda? commercials ... I really don't care.

As I've grown older those ideas of artistic integrity have come to seem more and more like false constructs. Shakespeare wrote for money and all that.

Something that would be much more likely to disillusion me would be something political. You know, if Bruce Springsteen turned around and allowed conservative PACs to use Born in the USA in campaign ads for immigration reform that would bother me a LOT more than if Thunder Road was being used to sell Chevys.

I might look silly out of context, but again the need to ask this question came from the impression you can have when you frequently read this board that the band gets a free pass on a lot of things. It's hard not to have the feeling that some things would be called out if they came from another band, but when it's Pearl Jam they become okay. Or at least less offensive. Explicitly endorsing corporations or targetting mainstream audiences would be seen as selling out but here instead they become "they're just trying to get more exposure, they deserve it" or "they're trying something new". Being generally interested in people's behavior, how they form their opinions and values, and then how much they're willing to compromise or contradict themselves sometimes, it's hard for me not to wonder whether this tolerance has an end.

what were they doing on mtv in the early 90s?

people here give them a break b/c they were the biggest band in the world and purposely pulled back from public exposure.

Not writing The Fixer?

I should have been more precise. I meant writing music that sounds like it's been made with that in mind.

Well 10 was that.

That's not the feeling I get, but maybe it's true.

Ten was meathead anthems at their finest.

Epic was as mainstream as it got so signing with them is a clear indication. Besides MLB and Stone's demos were very much in line with what mainstream was in the late 80's. The only difference between hair metal and 10 is the singer using a conventional male vocal range.

I think the issue isn't the belief that they haven't "sold out" , its the defense of it against what someone may view as a legit critique. If poster A posts about how they feel that the cost of the fan club and comes to discuss it/rant about it, and poster B doesn't think its a big deal.. Well obviously Poster A is going to be more passionate about it, because from the get go the issue at hand was something worth discussing.
When poster B defends the action as "no big deal," it's obviously because it doesn't bug him to the same degree. But the critique of the action bugs him enough to respond.


So at what point, when someone posts something critical of the band, would the bands action that led to critics be obvious enough, that no one would feel compelled to defend it?

this was a good post.