New Liberating Porn article. We usually don't post new shit on the site on consecutive days, but I had to get this whole Pearl Jam thing off my chest. Enjoy.

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People tend to get a bit hypocritical when they call their favorite musicians “sellouts”. When I first saw Bob Dylan in a Pepsi commercial, I vomited, forced myself to forget the words to “Tangled Up In Blue”, and smashed the television all because my favorite musician of all time 'sold out'. Except that when I smashed the television, I did so by hurling my delicious can of Pepsi at the screen. Luckily, I had several more cans in the fridge.

My initial shock of seeing Pearl Jam in a Target ad was just as bad, maybe worse. Years after Bob Dylan shed the label of political artist, Eddie Veddier was rocking back and forth like a heroin addict scrawling 'PRO CHOICE' on his arm. Sure, Dylan sang at a few protests and hung out with hippies, but he saw himself as a bard, the most bad ass Jewish (screw his Christ-loving years, I'll always love Bob more as a Jew) traveling musician the world has ever known. Vedder, on the other hand, liked to prance around the stage while impaling a George W. Bush mask. Pearl Jam embodied the justified, but entirely annoying liberal ideal of blaming the worlds problems on corporations. That's not to say I disagree, but when my friends and I are having a conversation about how pleasant it is to lay on the hood of a car and watch clouds on a nice day, it's very annoying when the hairy liberal among us jumps up and screams, “Yeah, well the corporations are polluting the sky!” Or while listening to the radio: “Clear Channel won't let us listen to real music!” Or on the subject of baby wipes: “Our children's butt cracks are being poisoned by the CORPORATIONS!”

You get what I'm saying.

Well, Target is a corporation. A pretty decent-sized corporation, at that. So yes, I was shocked when I saw Pearl Jam in a commercial, the Target logo zipping around in the background, singing to a bunch of extras who may or may not have been actual Pearl Jam fans. Even more gut wrenching was the idea of Eddie Vedder and Stone Gossard talking about the terms of their deal with a couple of office dwelling corporate vampires who no doubt have aspirations of being the next Rupert Murdoch. As the commercial ended, I was very close to saying, “Well, Pearl Jam sold out.”

Maybe they did. But who cares? The music's still good. And it's not like they performed a concert for Blackwater (or Xe or whatever those guys are called these days), or sang “Yellow Ledbetter” at a Palin rally. Pearl Jam is simply marketing their new record and, in the battered music industry, forging a distribution deal with Target is the best way for Vedder and Co. to sell a few CDs.

I can understand the anger that many Pearl Jam fans harbor at the moment. But, honestly, sometimes we put our favorite artists on an ideological pedestal. I'm guilty of that, at least to some degree, or else I never would have felt that Pearl Jam or Bob Dylan were sellouts in the first place. We treat so-called sellout musicians as we treat politicians who break campaign promises. George W. Bush, for example, promised the Religious Right that he'd pack the world's homosexuals into a rocket ship and fire it into the sun. When he didn't, guess what? They still supported him because they still liked his message, the same way Pearl Jam fans will still enjoy their music.

Also, a fan that accuses an artist of selling out after endorsing a product or company is, more often than not, a total hypocrite. Basically, you can't get pissed at Pearl Jam for doing a Target ad if you've ever shopped there. That's an example of putting our favorite artists on pedestals; it's cool if we do it, as long as they don't.

Finally, it's time that we mention that corporations can be a good thing. Of course there are monolithic multi-nationals that rape and destroy people, sometimes literally. It's fashionable these days to condemn capitalism in all its forms, quote Marx, and act like none of us ever had dreams of being rich and powerful. Perhaps we should take it easy on the subject. The free market can be wonderful as long as capitalism isn't used a substitute for social policy (which, unfortunately, has often been the case in America).

So take it easy on Pearl Jam. When you see their new commercial, ask yourself one question: If Target approached you and said, “We'll gladly put your product in our next ad,” what would you do?