Backspacer
Backspacer euphoria is upon us! But … how can one album have so many purchase options? Just as the name “Backspacer” is taken from a typewriter key, there are nearly as many variations of Backspacer as there are typewriter keys!
What you do is up to you, and there are a lot of factors. In this tough economy, what’s your budget? Are you an audio geek? If you want maximum fidelity, you’ll go vinyl. If you’re semi-old-school, you’ll still go with the (nearly-30-year-old-technology) CD. For the non-materialistic minimalist, there are a bunch of download options. Let’s take a look!
PearlJam.com
Cost:
What You Get:
- CD: “Ten Club/Indie Package” – hard-bound book style jacket ala the “Avocado” package.
- LP: 180-gram vinyl. 24-page full-sized (11.75″ x 11.75″) full-color booklet
Half Full / Half Empty
“Avocado” gave us our first taste of buying a CD directly from the artist, and from all accounts was wildly successful. The CD was housed in a “book” and presented the artwork in high-quality non-plastic packaging. Expect similar for Backspacer. Vinyl lovers will continue to rejoice, and between 2009′s Ten re-issue, “The Fixer” 7-inch and this LP, you have nothing to complain about. The shipping costs are quite high – $5.50 for the CD and $7.50 for the Vinyl. But while there are no promises, the Ten Club nicely sent pre-orders of “Avocado” out a few days before the release date, but depending on your location, ymmv.
Deep Thoughts:
Pearl Jam is the artist. Pearl Jam is the record company. Consider them the mothership. PearlJam.com is the official online store and unless they start opening Pearl Jam retail stores next to Baby Gap and In-And-Out Burger, look no further for official releases than PearlJam.com. You will see below that other bonus goodies accompany all the other releases, and we curiously wonder if bonus goodies will be provided in the shipments or there are some future downloadable treasures.
CIMS
Independent Record Stores
Cost:
- CD – $11.99
- LP – $19.99
What You Get:
- CD: “Ten Club/Indie Package” – hard-bound book style jacket ala the “Avocado” package (same as PearlJam.com version)
- LP: 180-gram vinyl. 24-page full-sized (11.75″ x 11.75″) full-color booklet (same as PearlJam.com version)
- Possibly some free goodies
- That great feeling of purchasing from an independent record store!
Half Full / Half Empty
For many of us, hanging out at midnight sales or waiting for shops to open on Tuesday mornings was a ritual. Easy Street Records carries on that tradition September 19 with its “Backspacer Bash“. Not only do you get to hang with fellow fans, but if you bring non-perishable food items, you get free gifts and become eligible for drawings of PJ merch!
Deep Thoughts:
Yes, it sounds drastic and wildly twentieth century, but you will have to leave your house if you want to buy Backspacer this way. You also won’t have to pay for shipping, but you will have to pay for gas to get there (ok, ok, unless you walk). If you live near an indie store, consider this option. Also, in the days leading up to the release date, Pearl Jam has had cool Twitter contests for the first fans to find a special orange “The Fixer” 7-inch vinyls at different stores in Seattle, and people have actually won!
iTunes
iTunes
Cost:
- $0.99 per song
- $9.99 for the album
What You Get:
- “iTunes LP” – One of the new features in iTunes 9 is the iTunes LP feature, which lets artists share art, lyrics, liner notes, photos and videos
Half Full / Half Empty
PearlJam.com recently went out of their way to address international iTunes purchases, with links for fans in the UK, Germany, Australia, Canada and Japan.
Deep Thoughts:
If you are a sound quality geek, you will probably make mp3s yourself from the CD and not use iTunes. If you exclusively buy (yes, I said “buy”, not “steal”) mp3s, iTunes is currently your only option.
Target minus the dot com
Target
Cost:
- CD – $11.98
What You Get:
- A “regular” CD
- Two Live Concert downloads – According to BillBoard.com, “The Target discs will link to a virtual ‘vault’ of 11 concerts spanning Pearl Jam’s career, from which fans can choose two. “
- T-shirt – Also according to BillBoard.com, “The band will also create an organic cotton T-shirt to be sold at Target, with proceeds earmarked for the hunger relief charity Feeding America. “
Half Full / Half Empty
From Target, you are getting the CD at a good price, but remember that it’s not the cool packaging as from PearlJam.com or Independent Record Stores. The additional t-shirt is a bonus if you’re into PJ Tees. Lastly, if you were never a huge bootleg collector, getting two free live concerts is not a bad deal.
Deep Thoughts:
Target is certainly the best option for casual fans, fans in out of the way places without the ability or inclination to buy online, or die-hards who are completeists and want every version. If you want to save on the shipping costs, buying from Target is a viable option. But if you haven’t looked for independent record stores in your city, use the store finder on cims.com and see if there is a local store near you – the CDs are the same price. Plus, why not support a local store that is probably struggling in this economy. The manager of a local record store probably doesn’t live like the Target CEO.
{ 18 comments }
what about indie stores in Europe… in France… we do not have those nice stuff :’(
I know I shouldn’t assume, but I think Easy Street would prefer people bring NON-PERISHABLE food
Today’s an anniversary, a year since Jeff’s Tone was released. Having heard about it first from an independent record store three thousand miles away from me (nothing near me anyway) I went ahead and preordered it. Then much later, I find out that PJ.com is going to sell it, at a much better price. Well, what the hell, support the indie store, you know? Then I find out that not only did the people who ordered it from PJ get it before I did, the indie store I ordered from didn’t even respond to my query, which was desperate, since Jeff only issued three thousand CDs, and if there had been a screw up, where in shit’s creek did that leave me, then all the PJ people got a pick from Jeff with their order. So this time, I preorder two months ago from Ten Club and now I read that indies have sold the album early, all these people are listening to it, and I just came from a mailbox filled with crap and no Backspacer. There damn well better be bonus goodies, goodies going to people who shop at Le Target and not to people who buy directly from the band is one more trip to the bizarro world that seems to surround the higher world of sanity, decency and intelligence of PJ themselves and their music that I don’t care to take.
Thanks for letting me unload
will itunes preorders dowload at midnight?
yeah.. what about europe? :-S
You forgot the 30 dollar rockband set… main reason I googled your useless post. Need info on that!
Hi,
Do we not get the 2 free concert downloads when we buy it off the website?
@rk – “useless post”? Wow, that was unnecessary. Here is some info on Rock Band: http://www.twofeetthick.com/2009/09/pearl-jam-on-rock-band/
@aj – yes, another fan mentioned that as well. edited above
Yeah what is the deal with the website orders and the concerts. We don’t get them if we order from the fanclub?
Yeah, I’d like to know that too FuzzyReets. Do the two free live concerts come with the Indie/Tenclub version? And is it also true that the cover songs are removed on these concert selections? Thanks, any help would be appreciated.
Gotta check this Backspacer release out!
http://www.amazon.ca/Backspacer-Shm-CD-Pearl-Jam/dp/B002GKRSN4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1253478987&sr=1-3
Album Description
Japan only SHM pressing of their 2009 album. Limited edition & comes in special packaging. The SHM-CD [Super High Material CD] format features enhanced audio quality through the use of a special polycarbonate plastic. Using a process developed by JVC & Universal Music Japan discovered through the joint companies’ research into LCD display manufacturing SHM-CDs feature improved transparency on the data side of the disc allowing for more accurate reading of CD data by the CD player laser head. SHM-CD format CDs are fully compatible with standard CD players.
WOW Demetrios thank you for posting that!! Crazy amazing. What a day for collectors.
Btw–I was in Target tonight to pick up the ltd. ed. tee, and there is space for the vinyl record. It even has a sku, that says it will be $19.98. They didn’t have any, but the guy said it would eventually come. Pretty cool that Target had/has both the 7″ single and the vinyl version of the record.
And so it continues…according to the PJ website, I have two Targets near me that will be carrying the T-shirt. I go to the one closest today, and they tell me IT NEVER CAME IN, THEY NEVER GOT IT. Well, will you be getting it? We don’t know, they never tell us what’s coming in, trucks come in every night and it could be anything. But it doesn’t say the item has been discontinued, so we should be getting it. Well, could you call the other store and see if they have it before I schlep over there. Sure. Keep in mind, these people couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful throughout. They call the other store. Guy says, we have one in medium. I say, I wanted a bigger one than that. He says, actually, he thinks they’re made funny, they are all very long and seem to be the same width, no matter what size. Thanks, honey. Will you be getting more in. We don’t know. So they give me the item numbers and the phone numbers and so I’m supposed to call every day to see what came in the night before. Then I checked out the huge photo of the boys on the beach hanging in the aisle, and they had the album in vinyl, along with the $11.98 CD, you know, the one I bought directly from Ten Club for $13.99 two months ago so I could get FREE SHIPPING, WINK WINK. Now it turns out I can’t access any of the bonus material on the CD. I wrote for help and they wrote back fast and said, update flash player. I did. No soap, I wrote back. It’s been two days. No reply. This is all such bullshit, and an object lesson for the kiddies: change and progress are not synonymous. I’ll just sit with my thirty seven minutes of heaven and screw the rest. But if the band pics on the disc are photos and not drawings, could someone post them, because it seems like I’ll never see them.
you can get all the concert downloads by clicking this link:
http://pearljambackspacer.com/pj/concertDownload.do?concertId=1
replace the 1 at the end with 2,3,4, etc all the way to 11 to get all of them.
Whoo hoo! hi.
~d
Thanks for the link dmt, but all I get when I click on that link is the same thing I get from my CD, the cover with the keys on top, except the cover looks like it’s in shadow, but it’s just dead. WTF is going on? Still no T-shirts at my Targets or reply from support, either. Maybe I should just give up all hope and start following Ian Anderson on tour as the Acoustic Jethro Tull
So it would have been too much for some member of the Pearl Jam, gag, Jamily to tell me that the “bonus material” on Backspacer is nothing but a load of marketing crap that leads to the same tired links to those pompous asses at Ten Club, and that the “band pics” I was praying were the posed group shots by Danny Clinch et al was nothing but a link to the Flickr site, featuring the work of the incredibly average Karen Loria, whose opportunity far outstrips her eye and her talent. Never have I seen a group of people who, with very few exceptions, behave in total contrast to the band they purport to love and admire. Sartre said hell was other people, but he died too soon to be more specific.
I kept in touch with local Target, they didn’t get the shirts until Tuesday, and they didnt have the vinyl yet except the Fixer single. AND NEWS FLASH the Packaging is different on the Target CD, it has a cut out on the cover in the center where the TT brain-in-a-canister picture goes and the Book isn’t solid cover to cover like the fanclub version, its a pull out that tucks into a side pocket.
The Target manager says the T comes in Med, large, and X large, but that it runs small, (as did the last tee from this company comissioned by pj). I have not been able yet to run the fanclub CD on either Winamp or real player, but I can get the cover to come up on the computer, and it will take me to certain fac club pages, I just cant get the musuc to play. I-tunes (whom I have never used before) says I have to have an Apple ID to run it, and Apple doesnt seem to want to sign me up. Guess I will head over to Target to get something that gives me the internet content., but the T wont fit. Some times seems if pj is determined to force us all to be whip thin and fit, all their Tees sizes vary widley and with each size is 1 inch wider than the next smaller, all fans to be within 4 or 5 inches of one another? But all this aside, the album rocks hard as did Avocado, but way newer, and although the band is happy performing it, the songs are as serious as ever so i dont this “pj lightens up thing” but I’m in heaven. Portland’s show last night was so fast and tight the crown wound up and pumping throughout, ever song screamed by the crowd except Golden State with Corrine Tucker, most people didnt know it. At the end Ed flashes this extremely happy self fullfilled look, he knew they pulled off a truly great performance and that the crowd was right there with them. Ben Harper was rockin hard too, best I’ve seen him, set list was almost like they asked me first what I’d like to hear, very personal and amazing night, I stated cryin when the band took the stage and my knees shook. Sandy
Hai there!
My band recently recorded our first full song!!!
Please have a look, we’ve learnt a lot from your blog!
xxx