Conan O’Brien: “Launching a show like this takes a lot of hard work, and one of the things that has sustained me over the past three months was knowing that at the end of our first show I’d get to watch a performance by one of the greatest rock bands in the world.”

Pearl Jam’s Backspacer Out This Fall
By Kate Harper, ChartAttack

Pearl Jam’s ninth studio album will be called Backspacer when it’s released this fall.

Backspacer was the name of Pearl Jam’s 375-kilogram leatherback turtle that won the Great Turtle Race in April. The album carries a tentative release date of Sept. 22, and will be exclusively available through Target stores south of the 49th parallel, but will also be available through Pearl Jam’s fan club, the Ten Club.

Backspacer was recently recorded in Atlanta with producer Brendan O’Brien (Korn, Billy Talent) and it doesn’t have a track list yet, but its first single could be released in July, according to MTV News. It could well end up being “The Fixer,” which was shot as part of a Target commercial directed by filmmaker Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Elizabethtown).

By now you’re probably putting on the brakes pretty hard. Pearl Jam recording a commercial for Target? The Target deal is a bit of a surprise, considering Pearl Jam have a longstanding tradition of not making music videos and distancing themselves from corporatism.

Pearl Jam’s first eight studio albums came out through Epic, but the band are currently without a record deal in the United States and are experimenting with other ways to release their music, including partnership deals like this one. Backspacer will be released through Universal outside the U.S.

Kelly Curtis, Pearl Jam’s manager, told Billboard.com the band chose Target because the store let them have other partners. Curtis says the band can’t reveal who those partners are just yet.

“Everyone’s making assumptions because Target is a big corporation,” Curtis said. “It’s important to remember we just got out of this 18 year relationship with Sony, and I’m pretty sure they are a bigger corporation than Target. We have the freedom to pick our partners and more control than we’ve ever had before. We’re excited to choose who we’re in business with.”

Three or four songs were taped at Seattle’s Showbox, and Curtis says some of the footage may be used in Crowe’s upcoming Pearl Jam documentary he’s making to celebrate the band’s upcoming 20th anniversary.

A Pearl Jam Rock Band game will also be released at some time in the future, and Pearl Jam, MTV Games, Rock Band and Rhapsody want Pearl Jam fans to vote on the songs to be included on the setlist. You can help out here.

Pearl Jam debuted Backspacer’s “Get Some,” as well as the album’s cover art, on the first episode of The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien last night.