How we listen to music has been changing for more than a century, but since the rise of streaming, musicians are being left behind.
At the time, most artists struggled for control and more equitable treatment by record labels, who routinely signed them to predatory deals while controlling almost every aspect of their careers. And of course, at the end of the day, these labels owned the lucrative masters, ensuring they’d get the lion’s share of any profits across multiple generations. In fact, many major labels were built by exploiting such jazz deals.
Record labels, and in fact the entire industry, are actually byproducts of technological innovations made around sound recording, at the end of the 1800s. By the time Milford met Coltrane, record players in every household, and record enthusiasts who filled their collections with their favorite artists, had become cultural bedrock. Recording artists made a small percentage, a royalty, on every record sale. For artists such as Coltrane, all these royalties accumulated to make him one of the biggest earners in jazz towards the end of his life.
“Just like internet providers, they sold the idea to the public that information—music—was free, but the pipeline that supplied it—their networks—weren’t.”
When CDs arrived in the 1980s, they were incorporated into the existing model. Though they eventually replaced vinyl, CDs actually injected even more cash into major labels, as they reissued their back catalogues and convinced most people to repurchase their entire collections. Just as everything changed with the invention of the phonograph, it changed again with the invention of the MP3. MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 is a data compression algorithm which took the large digital files on CDs and turned them into something comparatively tiny, that could be stored on an iPod or transmitted across the internet. However, unlike vinyl, cassettes, or CDs, MP3s did not inject more cash into the now extremely large and very prosperous music industry, at first. They began undercutting record sales, as collectors began to “rip” their entire CD libraries and then share them for free via peer-to-peer file-sharing applications like Napster, LimeWire, and Kazaa. If vinyl had originally established music in the minds of listeners as a tangible product that could be bought and sold, the MP3 now did the exact opposite. Music was now intangible, and potentially free.
In early attempts to monetize on sharing, streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify began offering massive collections of illegitimately procured MP3s to stream for a fixed monthly subscription, which exacerbated the problems labels were already facing by doing away with record collections altogether. Just like internet providers, they essentially sold the idea to the public that information—music—was free, but the pipeline that supplied it—their networks—wasn’t. This approach allowed them to make billions in a very short period of time, while sharing none of this profit with the artists and record companies who owned the rights.
What followed next was a series of futile attempts by major labels to shut down streaming. They eventually realized that this would never work because the nature of the product had already shifted in the mind of the consumer. Listeners would never go back to owning a handful of records purchased from a closed network of highly curated stores at a premium. People now expected access to the entirety of recording history from their smartphone, at a moment’s notice. What ensued were backroom negotiations, where record labels agreed to grant streaming companies licenses to their massive catalogs in return for a cut of the subscription revenues.
Such deals were a temporary fix with one major flaw: Record companies didn’t advocate for their artists, who actually made the music. Since the licensing deals between labels and streaming companies were opaque, artists now had no way of knowing how much labels made from their music, and predictably, their royalties continued to vanish before their eyes.
All of this eventually brought us the current unsustainable scenario: A major artist might accrue five million streams of their hit song over a year, yielding just $11,900, according to Spotify’s rate calculator. (For reference, the federal poverty level for an individual currently stands at $15,060.) For the average artist, who may limp to 2,000 streams per month, that royalty becomes just $4.76, or a loaf of bread!
The huge inequity that this demonstrates has become one of the major hurdles that both the music industry and music rights community must solve if they wish to continue to have jobs. In this scenario, successful recording artists like Coltrane may not have been able to afford to become musicians in the first place, and Graves may have stuck to botany!
In 2023, the members of Pearl Jam—Eddie Vedder [vocals], Jeff Ament [bass], Stone Gossard [rhythm guitar], Mike McCready [lead guitar], and Matt Cameron [drums]—retreated to Shangri-La Studios in Malibu where they simply plugged in and played with producer Andrew Watt at the helm.
The musicians faced one another in the same space and communicated sonically at the highest level. Writing and recording in a burst of inspiration, Dark Matter was born in just three weeks.
As a result, Dark Matter channels the shared spirit of a group of lifelong creative confidants and brothers in one room playing as if their very lives depended on it. All of the blood, sweat, tears, and energy of a storied career felt renewed and poured into this one body of work.
The band members personally previewed the record with a listening party at the iconic Troubadour in West Hollywood during Grammy week:
Vedder said: “I’m getting chills, because I have good memories. We’re still looking for ways to communicate. We’re at this time in our lives when you could do it or you could not do it, but we still care about putting something out there that is meaningful and we hopefully think is our best work. No hyperbole, I think this is our best work.”
Ament added, “What Ed said about getting us in a room at this point, we felt like we were about to make a really important record. A lot of that had to do with the atmosphere Andrew set up. He has encyclopedic knowledge of our history, not only as a band and how we wrote songs, but as players. He could pinpoint things we did on old songs to the point where I was like, ‘What the fuck is he talking about?’ His excitement was contagious. He’s a force. I just want to say thanks for keeping us on track. I couldn’t be prouder of us as a band. I feel so grateful for the fans, but mostly for my brothers and these people I’ve made music with.”
The band is celebrating indie record stores with the release of a special edition of Dark Matter on April 20. Only at participating stores as part of Record Store Day.
Dark Matter album packaging features light painting art by Alexandr Gnezdilov. Light painting is an artistic form of photography where images are created by adjusting a camera's exposure for an extended period and using a light source, such as a flashlight, to "paint" in the dark. The album cover art was crafted using a large self-made kaleidoscope. Each letter visible on the cover was individually captured and handwritten midair with a specially designed flashlight to create the pearlescent effect.
Dark Matter Tracklist
Dark Matter Album Artwork: light painting art by Alexandr Gnezdilov
1. Scared of Fear
2. React, Respond
3. Wreckage
4. Dark Matter
5. Won’t Tell
6. Upper Hand
7. Waiting for Stevie
8. Running
9. Something Special
10. Got to Give
11. Setting Sun
In support of Dark Matter, Pearl Jam will head out on a world tour this year, marking the first time the band has announced a new album and tour simultaneously and first time the group has unveiled all worldwide tour dates at once. Their global tour, hitting nine countries and 25 cities, kicks off at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, and will cover much of North America including shows at Wrigley Field, Madison Square Garden, Fenway Park, and their first hometown performance in six years at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, the world’s first net zero certified arena.
The tour continues with performances in the UK and Europe, including their first performance at London’s brand new and state-of-the-art Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, through September, followed by the group’s long-awaited ten-year return to New Zealand and Australia this November. Full routing below.
Special guests Deep Sea Diver (North America Leg 1), Glen Hansard (North America Leg 2), The Murder Capital (UK/EU), Richard Ashcroft (Dublin and London), and Pixies (Australia and New Zealand) will serve as support for these dates.
For more information, please visit pearljam.com.
Dark Matter World Tour Dates:
May 04 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
May 06 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
May 10 Portland, OR Moda Center
May 13 Sacramento, CA Golden 1 Center
May 16 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena
May 18 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena
May 21 Los Angeles, CA Kia Forum
May 22 Los Angeles, CA Kia Forum
May 25** Napa Valley, CA BottleRock Festival
May 28 Seattle, WA Climate Pledge Arena
May 30 Seattle, WA Climate Pledge Arena
Jun 22 Dublin, IE Marlay Park
Jun 25 Manchester, UK Manchester Co-Op Live
Jun 29 London, UK Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Jul 02 Berlin, DE Waldbühne
Jul 03 Berlin, DE Waldbühne
Jul 06 Barcelona, ES Palau Sant Jordi
Jul 08 Barcelona, ES Palau Sant Jordi
Jul 11** Madrid, SE Mad Cool Festival
Jul 13** Lisbon, PT NOS Alive Festival
Aug 22 Missoula, MT Washington-Grizzly Stadium
Aug 26* Indianapolis, IN Ruoff Music Center
Aug 29 Chicago, IL Wrigley Field
Aug 31 Chicago, IL Wrigley Field
Sep 03 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
Sep 04 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
Sep 07 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
Sep 09 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
Sep 12 Baltimore, MD CFG Bank Arena
Sep 15 Boston, MA Fenway Park
Sep 17 Boston, MA Fenway Park
Nov 08 Auckland, NZ Go Media Stadium Mt Smart
Nov 13 Gold Coast, AU Heritage Bank Stadium
Nov 16 Melbourne, AU Marvel Stadium
Nov 21 Sydney, AU Giants Stadium
* Rescheduled date from 2022
** Festival dates are already on sale