harmless wrote:stip wrote:harmless wrote:stip wrote:harmless wrote:Stip, you and I both admit to being somewhere on the Socialist spectrum politically. One of the big things, I guess, is that while we agree that some of Pearl Jam's music is still very enjoyable, we probably ultimately disagree on how much they've abandoned their prior anti-capitalist values. These were values that they were not overt about in the first few years of their career, granted. But when we (or I, anyway) once so proudly sang "It's evolution, baby!" it was at least in part due to the progression they'd taken in their stances. In their middle period, their desire to hold to their ethics and values in more than rhetoric was reflected in their artistic aesthetic, which you say is boring. I say it was intelligent and unassuming. I say that all the bombast and crowd-pleasing they did in their early career was thought of as early-career posturing for a reason. It was pretty dumb. I guess I'm lucky to think that the music from Vitalogy to Riot Act was the best they ever did, and maybe I would find it easier to adjust to the rest if that wasn't my feeling. If I genuinely thought that Pearl Jam's current music is artistically stronger than then. But I don't.
pearl jam's evolution on this (if we can claim to know what they're thinking) has largely paralleled my own, but that's just coincidental. The old pearl jam anti-corporate/capitalist objection was often aesthetic. Not always (the ticketmaster stuff was great), but usually. They were on a major label, and sold their albums through corporate record stores, relied on major corporations to promote them. The anti corporate/capitalist ethos (which was always more targeted against greed than capitalism per se) was largely just talk. It was image. Even in the fabled middle period. And I was really into the image stuff.
You're mostly appealing to Pearl Jam's early years here, because you know I can't disagree. But there was no genuine anti-Capitalism early on (and sorry, but to me Capitalism is greed, that's where we disagree). But there was in the middle years, and as I've said, the art followed that aesthetic, by becoming more unassuming and ambiguous (you say 'joyless and obtuse') and less likely to be bought by corporations wishing to make money off it or allow Pearl Jam to form alliances with such corporations.
excepting Yield, right? And although it was not conceptualized in those terms, Vitalogy is probably the record that most directly addressed the intersection of capitalism and art. Beyond that there is not really any anit-capitalist sentiment on any of those albums, with the exception of Green Disease and Soon Forget, and these are hardly the songs we associate with pearl jam. The withdrawl in the music and the enterprise was a personal statement, not a political one (as Southp said, I think)
And of course the major label band pearl jam, playing its music all over corporate radio, appearing on corporate television, using ticketmaster for all their tours but one, selling their albums at corporate stores, had no product that corporations were making money off of during this period.
. As I've said before, I really couldn't give a shit if the music hadn't followed a general trajectory of becoming more palatable for a general audience *precisely because* such changes allow the music to be used in this way. And yes, I really do think that is (one of) the reason(s) for all the changes. You might say "Well that's just the way they have to sell music", and I'd say OK, but it is still why I'm not as interested as I once was.
stip wrote:But today I care a lot less about it. I like it, and I would prefer if pearl jam was, say, Ani Difranco. But today ideas interest me insofar as they are attached to vehicles that can actually challenge the status quo or make life tangibly better for people. Nothing about their changing practices undermines that commitment (they're still very active in the causes they support, etc). The rest is just window dressing, and if the spending less money on the window dressing positions you to do more good for people (which is a serious argument you can make) than I'd prefer that.
This is why Bono's posturing doesn't bother me. He can act like a diva if he's actually doing good for people. That's much more impressive to me than someone who acts humble and does less.
harmless wrote:
See, I care a lot more about it today than I used to. Rich people's posturing pisses me off now more than ever. So again, that might be another difference between us. You've grown with Pearl Jam into their "Well, we're grown ups now, we can do what we like" phase, and I've grown into a more anti-corporate socialist adult than I ever was when I listened to early Pearl Jam. During the middle period, I was under the impression that my favourite band of all time was growing with me. They were... but then they stopped. But such is life.
I am far more militantly anti-corporate today than I have ever been, and my thinking of that has radicalized precisely during the period that pearl jam became independent, made the target deal, etc. etc. So in theory I should be appalled by this. However, what people see as the corporate sell out moment
- Spoiler: show
- list incoming
A: anything new,
B: uninteresting because the fundamental difference is aesthetic. You can't posture as easily once you have to take responsibility for your business. It is easy to make uncompromising statements when you have a system in place to do the compromising for you.
C: Does not interfere in participating in the social and political causes that actually DO have a chance of pushing back against the things they hate.
So basically what changed, when we're honest, is that there is less posturing than there was before. I liked the posturing, so that's too bad. But lets call it what it is.
No, sorry. You can't reduce PJ's old standpoints and values down to two songs and you can't reduce every value PJ said they had down to 'posturing'.
Pearl Jam's philosophy/worldview/standpoint as I understood it was about (wait for it) agency, authenticity, and solidarity. Being able to build meaningful relationships, shared experiences, and lives in a world that made this really difficult. There are personal components to this, political components to this, social components to this. What it was NOT was an anti-capitalist ideology. There were elements of that for sure. They are good lefties. But while their project was emancipatory, it was only political in the broadest terms. Issues about women's rights, the environment, war, the economy were just some of the theaters in which this message might play. But they were not the only ones, and were rarely the principle ones. They were publicly oriented applications of a personal philosophy. Pearl Jam was not Rage Against the Machine. The actions that really counted, in terms of their politics, was not in the music (although they were certainly supported by it). It was in the political causes supported, and the actions TAKEN.
That's why I was reducing the anti-corporate stuff to posturing. It was just rhetoric independent of action (and often technically contradicted by the actions). Ticketmaster was real, but it was 18 months out of a 10 year window. Vote for Change was real. Nader in 2000 was real. The causes endorsed, the benefits played, the money given, that is the stuff that matters. Hell, the speeches matter too, insofar as it is conscious raising. But pearl jam still does all of those kinds of things. Target deals and licensing a song to a TV show doesn't change that. Wanting to write a song that people outside of your insular fan base might give a shit about doesn't change that. That's why I don't see hypocrisy here.
Beyond that, you can be perfectly capable of adopting and believing that corporations as an institution are harmful and dangerous, and that steps need to be taken to limit their power, while still making use of them because they govern the world we live in. You don't need to be an ascetic living in a cave to think that greed is bad. Warren Buffet can be one of the richest people in the world and think too much inequality is a bad thing, and not donating all his money to charity does not make him a hypocrite. If he opposed laws that created a progressive tax code he would be.
harmless wrote:
You can't decide that 'when we're honest', an independent band has to whore themselves out left right and centre just to survive. Plenty don't.
you're right. Plenty of people have done this better than Pearl Jam. And that's too bad. But it's not a betrayal of principles because they basically never did this and honestly only seemed that interested in it twice, and both times they feel like they got burned. In 1996 they boycotted Ticketmaster, and in 2000 they supported Ralph Nader. And in both cases I think they learned that you can be proud of the stand you've taken, but there are real costs, and the benefits (outside of feeling good about yourself, which to be fair is no small thing) may not really outweigh them. After that Pearl Jam has fought their fights and supported their causes, but they lost interest in trying to invent institutions that can supplant the ones they don't like. But that was also never really their fight. It was not, at their core, who they were. Pearl Jam is about solidarity, not vision.
harmless wrote:
You make a good point that you can't posture and spout crap about being anti-capitalist when you're no longer able to rely on a label doing the capitalist stuff behind the scenes, but people are / I am allowed to be upset that essentially, Pearl Jam were totally dishonest about their opinions and positions for like 15 years.
Not dishonest. Again, they were not Rage Against the Machine. This was not a band of Marxists writing songs like Ashes in the Fall. In fact, the best we can point to in terms of the music is green disease and soon forget. One song that says greedy people suck and another that says greedy people will die lonely. Oh, and undone says corporations are bad. Nothing about what they've done since then contradicts those trenchant insights. Let me know what else i'm missing. Beyond that we have what? Some drunken concert rants? Infallible was dedicated to Wall Street at Brooklyn II. That's still there.
Lyrically pearl jam still writes about the same themes
Politically pearl jam still supports the same causes
Their music was and is still largely marketed and distributed through corporations. Now they do it themselves. So interestingly enough fewer corporations are involved, but their involvement is more obvious (not more prevalent) than it was before.
harmless wrote:
Lastly, the personal is political; I don't (or I didn't) believe that PJ's refusal to play for massive crowds was *just* them being scared to be famous. To put it down to *just* that now is blatant revisionism, in my opinion. Back then, it was all part of a package that said "I never slept in Satan's Bed." I will not comply with the media's expectations of me.
The personal is political insofar as people's private lives and choices might be subject to public concern. So when we're talking about race, gender, class, domestic abuse, reproductive rights, disability rights sure, the personal is political. And authenticity can stand in opposition to commodification and so there are larger political issues there. But telling me that pearl jam's choices about how to write and market their music was explicitly anti-capitalist is a tough sell.
Pearl Jam always played for massive crowds. No Code and Vitalogy both were records that seemed designed, at least on the surface, to be more difficult for casual fans. By the time Yield comes around we have television commercials promoting the album and a lead single featuring one of the most anthematic songs they ever wrote (followed by a schmaltzy ballad and then a song with a video). Then we have two other difficult records that sell poorly, that the band seemed to be (and perhaps still are) at least somewhat unhappy with, and a diminished audience (and with it diminished cultural cache and a smaller soapbox) that they weren't happy with--especially since they were both at a point in their lives when being a famous musician no longer seemed like a horrible thing. Wanting to have people hear your music, and wanting to be able to draw more attention to the issues you care about hardly seem like something worth stoning a band over.
