Ms Harmless wrote:he didn't rail against that person, he railed against Ticketmaster and that has caused people to think he was Karl Marx
The fact is that the Eddie that wrote Soon Forget could’ve used his current self as the reference to that song.
The problem with Soon Forget is that Eddie could have used 2000s era Eddie as a reference. Already a millionaire many many many times over. It was an inauthentic song from jump. I've never really liked it. You probably helped me figure out why.
When you sell 10 million copies of your record in 1992, by 1993 you are part of the elite.
Also that song, and many of Ed's issues, were not really as simple as "you have money you're bad"
exactly
yep, everything is more complicated than that
now, I don't think you can be a good person and a Billionnaire, but Ed isn't
Ms Harmless wrote:he didn't rail against that person, he railed against Ticketmaster and that has caused people to think he was Karl Marx
yeah, after all these years and people dont really understand what the fight with Ticketmaster was about
Given the current state of tickets and Ticketmaster, I’m not sure Pearl Jam does either
Well, they pointed out that in 1994 and they lost mainly because the congress didnt care about that monopoly, so not sure whats your point.
I think they still have some say with Ticketmaster. The dynamic/premium pricing, for example. Tickets shouldn’t be going at scalper prices on the official market.
I’ve just come to realize I will never feel the way about any new recorded music as I once did. Being in my 50s with a family just changes the lens you look at things with. I’ve learned to accept that and appreciate things. There are songs I really don’t like from the last few albums but I often wonder if Backspacer was put out in 1998 do I love it more. If Yield came out tomorrow do I love it less?
I’m not even offended, put off or critical of wealth or him achieving it. My opinions of wealth creation, inequality, etc. probably differ significantly from at least half this board and I wasn’t trying to steer the conversation towards that direction. For that I apologize.
I understand that people can change. I do feel in the case study of Eddie Vedder through the years, his transformation from someone who valued his art to the point of protecting it from the machine that the music industry was/is has to somewhat questioned given that he now presides over a well oiled business that has mastered getting his customers to repeatedly shell out money for more of the product. He should be giving sales and marketing seminars, and I mean that as a compliment. It just makes me wonder if the original “tortured artist” who despised fame and celebrity was a carefully crafted persona to capitalize on the moment in which they burst onto the scene. Realizing that it could have been a shtick the entire time is kind of like pulling back the curtain on the old man operating the wizard of Oz.
Ms Harmless wrote:he didn't rail against that person, he railed against Ticketmaster and that has caused people to think he was Karl Marx
The fact is that the Eddie that wrote Soon Forget could’ve used his current self as the reference to that song.
The problem with Soon Forget is that Eddie could have used 2000s era Eddie as a reference. Already a millionaire many many many times over. It was an inauthentic song from jump. I've never really liked it. You probably helped me figure out why.
When you sell 10 million copies of your record in 1992, by 1993 you are part of the elite.
Also that song, and many of Ed's issues, were not really as simple as "you have money you're bad"
exactly
yep, everything is more complicated than that
now, I don't think you can be a good person and a Billionnaire, but Ed isn't
Mind you I disagree with that premise entirely, but what kind of mental gymnastics must you have to use where billionaire = can’t be a good person while $100 millionaire = can be a good person?
but I also don't think it was born out of a consistent, calculated anti-capitalist ideology; PJ were a part of a set of bands that made it cool to Rage Against the Machine, and they did good things and still do, but ultimately they were a bunch of surfer himbos
Where do you subjectively draw the line in regards to excess? Does that subjectivity change based on an individual’s perceived values/political positions/causes they donate to?
Seems to me that if you believe extreme excess is bad, the difference between having a net worth of $100,000,000 or a net worth of $1,000,000,000 is inconsequential.
mattyv1908 wrote:I’m not even offended, put off or critical of wealth or him achieving it. My opinions of wealth creation, inequality, etc. probably differ significantly from at least half this board and I wasn’t trying to steer the conversation towards that direction. For that I apologize.
I understand that people can change. I do feel in the case study of Eddie Vedder through the years, his transformation from someone who valued his art to the point of protecting it from the machine that the music industry was/is has to somewhat questioned given that he now presides over a well oiled business that has mastered getting his customers to repeatedly shell out money for more of the product. He should be giving sales and marketing seminars, and I mean that as a compliment. It just makes me wonder if the original “tortured artist” who despised fame and celebrity was a carefully crafted persona to capitalize on the moment in which they burst onto the scene. Realizing that it could have been a shtick the entire time is kind of like pulling back the curtain on the old man operating the wizard of Oz.
no apologies needed!
Something that I think sometimes gets lost in this conversation is how the industry has changed for ALL artists. They no longer sustain their organizations through album sales due to streaming. So selling niche products to the fans with disposable incomes is what sustains the org (that our touring). that's every artist. And as long as the products are not must have and just shit for collectors that seems harmless. I'll buy Pearl Jam shirts I like, but it doesn't matter if I don't. The vinyl variants don't contain new tracks you can only hear by buying a variant. If you have the money and want a branded basketball then they have one for you.
The 'older' Eddie didn't have to worry about these things. You made your money through album sales. They also had a label, and being on one meant that the band didn't have to get involved in a lot of the business side of the org unless they want to.
But at a certain scale a band IS a business and it IS a brand. It was in the 90s as well. It just had more direct revenue streams
Ms Harmless wrote:he didn't rail against that person, he railed against Ticketmaster and that has caused people to think he was Karl Marx
The fact is that the Eddie that wrote Soon Forget could’ve used his current self as the reference to that song.
The problem with Soon Forget is that Eddie could have used 2000s era Eddie as a reference. Already a millionaire many many many times over. It was an inauthentic song from jump. I've never really liked it. You probably helped me figure out why.
When you sell 10 million copies of your record in 1992, by 1993 you are part of the elite.
Also that song, and many of Ed's issues, were not really as simple as "you have money you're bad"
exactly
yep, everything is more complicated than that
now, I don't think you can be a good person and a Billionnaire, but Ed isn't
Mind you I disagree with that premise entirely, but what kind of mental gymnastics must you have to use where billionaire = can’t be a good person while $100 millionaire = can be a good person?
we have to draw the line somewhere, and the fact is there is a point where hoarding that much money is immoral in itself
anyway, Ed is far down the list of people I want to morally and ethically emulate; Ed isn't one of the best people in terms of his politics or practices, but he's not the worst either, and he's all the better for speaking out against the worst
Last edited by Ms Harmless on Wed April 10, 2024 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ms Harmless wrote:he didn't rail against that person, he railed against Ticketmaster and that has caused people to think he was Karl Marx
yeah, after all these years and people dont really understand what the fight with Ticketmaster was about
Given the current state of tickets and Ticketmaster, I’m not sure Pearl Jam does either
Well, they pointed out that in 1994 and they lost mainly because the congress didnt care about that monopoly, so not sure whats your point.
I think they still have some say with Ticketmaster. The dynamic/premium pricing, for example. Tickets shouldn’t be going at scalper prices on the official market.
i dont know how much of say they currently have, thats a speculation. I do know for a fact that went to congress to testify because they saw Ticketmaster was a becoming a problem, and live nation didnt even existed back then. So kudos for them for actually trying.
"went to congress" is very revealing; they used democratic processes, not fists -- social democrats; when the government said no, they gave up; I don't see how that falls out of line with PJ 2024
Last edited by Ms Harmless on Wed April 10, 2024 9:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
mattyv1908 wrote:Where do you subjectively draw the line in regards to excess? Does that subjectivity change based on an individual’s perceived values/political positions/causes they donate to?
Seems to me that if you believe extreme excess is bad, the difference between having a net worth of $100,000,000 or a net worth of $1,000,000,000 is inconsequential.
You can't draw a line. Money is a manifestation of power and privilege. What you do with that power and privilege is what determines your value
Ms Harmless wrote:"went to congress" is very revealing; they used parliamentary processes, not fists -- social democrats; when the government said no, they gave up; I don't see how that falls out of line with PJ 2024
they boycotted too. That is social movement 'money where your mouth is' action. And they lost. They had to decide if they wanted people to see their music, and hold onto a kind of moral purity at the expense of access and experience.
Ms Harmless wrote:he didn't rail against that person, he railed against Ticketmaster and that has caused people to think he was Karl Marx
The fact is that the Eddie that wrote Soon Forget could’ve used his current self as the reference to that song.
The problem with Soon Forget is that Eddie could have used 2000s era Eddie as a reference. Already a millionaire many many many times over. It was an inauthentic song from jump. I've never really liked it. You probably helped me figure out why.
When you sell 10 million copies of your record in 1992, by 1993 you are part of the elite.
Also that song, and many of Ed's issues, were not really as simple as "you have money you're bad"
exactly
yep, everything is more complicated than that
now, I don't think you can be a good person and a Billionnaire, but Ed isn't
Mind you I disagree with that premise entirely, but what kind of mental gymnastics must you have to use where billionaire = can’t be a good person while $100 millionaire = can be a good person?
we have to draw the line somewhere, and the fact is there is a point where hoarding that much money is immoral in itself
anyway, Ed is far down the list of people I want to morally and ethically emulate; Ed isn't one of the best people in terms of his politics or practices, but he's not the worst either, and he's all the better for speaking out against the worst
Since his net worth is calculated at roughly $100 million, where would the threshold be where he should be castigated into the likes of the wealthy elites who’s money should be redistributed for the betterment of humanity? I’m genuinely curious. I don’t believe that to be a solution to solving anything, but if I did $100 million seems like it would exceed the standard of needing to be redistributed.
mattyv1908 wrote:Where do you subjectively draw the line in regards to excess? Does that subjectivity change based on an individual’s perceived values/political positions/causes they donate to?
Seems to me that if you believe extreme excess is bad, the difference between having a net worth of $100,000,000 or a net worth of $1,000,000,000 is inconsequential.
You can't draw a line. Money is a manifestation of power and privilege. What you do with that power and privilege is what determines your value
exactly
when I say "draw a line", I'm talking about making a judgment as to who is consistently and repeatedly living for their own interests, but not only that, actively choosing to make uncountable others' lives harder
Ms Harmless wrote:"went to congress" is very revealing; they used parliamentary processes, not fists -- social democrats; when the government said no, they gave up; I don't see how that falls out of line with PJ 2024
they boycotted too. That is social movement 'money where your mouth is' action. And they lost. They had to decide if they wanted people to see their music, and hold onto a kind of moral purity at the expense of access and experience.
yeah, rememeber the 1996 tour. I mean those guys did a lot and it nearly killed the band.
tragabigzanda wrote:
I was referring more to the need to sit in a room together with your friends and make music because it's fun.
It's wild fun to make noises together, to explore new sonic territories by playing parts and turning knobs and having conversations about where things can go, then trying to explore those avenues.
And I get the strong impression this band doesn't have that need at all. They need to go on tour, because I think they love it. So they want to make the record as quickly and effectively as possible, because they seem to dislike doing that part together.
I'd take an album of Sweet Lews that felt spontaneous and live any day over an album of "We checked the boxes, we followed the roadmap, we didn't even have to use amps! We were in-and-out without a single headache."
This thing, the speed and efficiency aspect of how they think about records, it's something that feels like it's been around ever since I've been plugged into the band's album rollouts, and it's something I've never really understood. You can see it in some of the interviews they've done for this album, as with albums in the past, where they talk about the speed with which they made the record as if that in and of itself is a positive attribute of the record, in the same way saying the rhythm section or Eddie really pushed themselves hard when making an album.
Doing albums quickly could be a good thing, or it could be bad, but the mere fact that the record didn't take them long to record (even if there's a long period of time between albums) doesn't really mean anything. Maybe it's a Neil Young kind of thing, where they want to be responsive to striking while the iron is hot, but they don't really take any of Neil's other lessons when it comes to taking that kind of approach.
Exactly.
These guys seem like they want to be in Pearl Jam six weeks out of the year.
Total agreement, particularly with the bolded part. Gigaton aside, they place such emphasis on it - it's bizarre.
It's obvious to everyone outside the band this just reads as wanting to make the smallest time commitment practically possible to the creative part of making music.
Ms Harmless wrote:"went to congress" is very revealing; they used parliamentary processes, not fists -- social democrats; when the government said no, they gave up; I don't see how that falls out of line with PJ 2024
they boycotted too. That is social movement 'money where your mouth is' action. And they lost. They had to decide if they wanted people to see their music, and hold onto a kind of moral purity at the expense of access and experience.
yeah, rememeber the 1996 tour. I mean those guys did a lot and it nearly killed the band.
