Culture Music Bands example essay topic

When Eddie Vedder and Ms. di Franco stood together on that stage, supporting the year's self-proclaimed non-corporate presidential candidate, they represented two prongs of a shared belief organization. Independent artists like Eddie Vedder live anti-corporate lives and, of course, feel connected to anti-corporate politics. Major label stars like Mr. Vedder try to undermine from within, using their authority in struggles like the fight his band, Pearl Jam, waged throughout the 1990's to limit what it saw as a monopoly by the ticket bureau Ticketmaster. Pearl Jam is the band's turf statement, a individual declaration of the significance of music over idolatry. But the weight of Pearl Jam's popularity has fallen most solidly on Vedder, who spent much of his off-season wondering about the effects of being in such a high-profile band. Vedder had even gotten into a barroom fight defending the band.

And one night, while sitting out on a deserted coastal sand bluff, contemplating life after the death of a friend, guitarist Stefanie Sargent of 7 Year Bitch, he heard strange voices coming from the hill behind him. They were singing "Black", the fragile song that to Vedder had come to symbolize the over commercialization of the band. He'd fought to keep it from getting overplayed, didn't want a tape made of the song. Vedder hiked out of the bushes to ask the surprised hikers not to sing the song.

Months later, he still remembers their strange and concerned looks as they faced the angst-filled writer of the song. Two of Mr. Vedder's most impassioned recent performances, for example, have graced benefit albums. The first came on Pearl Jam's cover of the AM radio classic "Last Kiss", which the band released as a single to earn aid for Kosovo refugees. The second pairs Mr. Vedder with the party- punk band the Super suckers, reinterpreting "Poor Girl" by the Los Angeles band X. That song appears on an album dedicated to a more radical cause: vindication for the West Memphis 3, a trio of young heavy metal fans convicted, on what many consider faulty evidence, of a 1993 triple child- murder in West Memphis, Ark. Today, Pearl Jam generally turns in two-hour-plus shows that extent the band's diverse, 7 CD catalogue, along with rarities and surprise covers.

While not as catastrophic on phase, the quintet refuses to flog their newest "product" or become unsurprising. "I still run around and get crazy", McCready says. "Ed doesn't climb around anymore. There's more songs; we play longer sets.

In the early days, there was a lot of excitement about starting to have a career. The main thing these days is Eddie's really kicking ass live. He has to carry the whole show. His singing is better than ever.

I told him, 'It astounds me; I don't know how you do it for two hours. ' " Pearl Jam has always been underground band. The band is in the line with Rage Against the Machine and other counter-cultural bands. But Pearl Jams attitude was very different from even those who belongs to counter-culture music bands. The five of Pearl Jam are in opposition to war actions undertaken by US government and the voice of the huge part of American society.

Their music is far from commercial and this point is in the very core of the bands success today as well as in the past.

Bibliography

Cole, Patrick E. Fans, You Know its True. Time. Dec. 3, 1990 Issue: 21-22.
Death of music sharing is greatly exaggerated. Arlington, VA. USA Today Feb 15, 2001.
FINAL Edition: A. 11 Clarke, Martin Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder: None Too Fragile Plexus Publishing; 2nd edition, 2003 Gunderson, Edna.
Deaths test Pearl Jam's Pledge to be positive". USA Today 31 Aug. 2000.
Hil burn, Robert. "He Didn't Ask For All This". Los Angeles Times 01 May 1994.
Morrell, Brad Pearl Jam: The Illustrated Biography Omnibus Press, 1995 Neely, Kim Five Against One: The Pearl Jam Story Penguin USA (Paper), 1998 Stevenson, Jane.
What lies ahead for Pearl Jam?" Toronto Sun 01 Oct. 2000.