Pearl Jam is an interesting case of a popular band not playing that game. http://www.theonionavclub.com/avclub3841/avfeature_3841.html
The Onion:Since the beginning of the band, but particularly in recent years, you've been actively political, doing things like publishing the Manual For Free Living [an issue of Pearl Jam's fan-club newsletter with contributions from Michael Moore and Ralph Nader, among others]. Do you ever worry about alienating fans? Eddie Vedder: I think that if your approach is one where you don't want to alienate anybody, you're going to have to soften the viewpoint or the information that you're offering to such an extent that it doesn't have the power to make any difference. You have to take that risk. That's part of creating and participating in open and honest debate. I saw a few responses to [the newsletter] that were pretty intense, and I guess they were questioning how we could align ourselves with someone like Noam Chomsky. I personally didn't follow up on it, but I felt like it was misguided. I don't know if there's going to be a record-burning party any time soon. I wrote a letter at the beginning suggesting that this was some stuff we found helpful when forming an opinion, and you can put it in your pipe and smoke it and see what it does for you. Even when we were last touring—our last show was the day before the presidential election in 2000—at the beginning of the tour, I was just suggesting that people vote. We had voting tables out, thinking, "We're not gonna tell you how to vote, just create a voice for yourself and see if you can get the politicians to respect your voice." We just wanted to encourage a younger crowd to activate themselves. By the West Coast in November, I was just saying, "Vote for Ralph Nader, c'mon." [Laughs.]