New Studio Album Set Up With A Streamed Single, Cyber Chat

Eric RECORDS STAFFERS know the drill pretty well by now. When it comes time to present a marketing plan for a new Pearl Jam release, they expect that the famously mediashy band will likely shoot down interview requests, TV appearances, music video treatments, and most every other idea that might be suggested.

But according to Tim Bierman, who manages Pearl Jam's fan club and helps run its accompanying Web site (tenclub.net), it made sense to at least pitch a few new concepts to the band and its management in advance of its sixth studio album, "Binaural," which came out May 16 in the US.

"Pearl Jam has always been a band that doesn't play by the rules, and it has always worked, marketing-wise," Bierman says. "But so many fans are becoming more and more dependent on their computers for information that we decided to take some baby steps toward having an Internet marketing plan."

Indeed, the marketing department received a number of pleasant surprises during the planning for "Binaural." After getting last-minute approval for a pre-release download promotion, Epic VP of online and emerging technology Jim McDermott brokered a deal with Apple to encode "Nothing As It Seems," the first single from the album, into a streaming audio feed that hit the Internet a day before its radio add date.

Still, McDermott says he was wary of the security concerns surrounding online downloads, particularly since Pearl Jam's entire 1998 album "Yield" found its way onto the Internet well in advance of its street date. To minimize possible leaks, the entire production process--from approval to the track's online debut--was completed in less than a week.

"We didn't want the...