Selling Out, Or Just Changing?

[The Holy Chaotic]

When Linkin Park made their Collison Course album with Jay-Z, I hated it. I hated that my favorite band (at the time) teamed up with some rapper and completely changed their songs around. It wasn't rock, it was a poor mismatch of a good genre and a terribe one. Linkin Park had sold out.

Now of course I have never listened to Collision Course, so I kept on my crusade against the album until I decided to try listening to it. And I loved it. So much so that it got me into Jay-Z.

Now the point of the story is thus, Children of Chaos. It seems to me that every time some group or game or book goes in a new direction, if it changes a bit, the fans label it/them as "selling out".

This happens especially if something, usually a music artist or group, gets successful. As soon as they end up on television and get their faces plastered on billboards (pretend with me that companies still used billboards to advertise), the fans who liked them from the beginning label them as selling out or becoming too "corporate". Now, don't get me wrong, I know this happens, I know sometimes they do become too "corporate". But it seems to me that people say this as soon as an underground "thing" gains fame.

Why? That's why music artists and others do things. To get famous. Why call them a sellout when they accomplish their goals?

So, it seems to me that the sellout label gets applied to two things. Things that change away from what the fans excpect (even if only slightly), and things that move from the Underground to Mainstream (and this one is really special, because sometimes the thing doesn't even change at all when it leaves the Underground).

So, what do you, the Lonely Souls of the Escapist, think?

 

[Worgen]

people like linking park?

 

[Dr. wonderful]

Ahem...this shall answer your question. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks]

 

[Dr. wonderful]

people like linking park?

My sister like some of their songs.

I can't take it...

"CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN MY SKIN..."

 

[The Holy Chaotic]

people like linking park?

people like linking park?

My sister like some of their songs.

I can't take it...

"CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWLING IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN MY SKIN..."

Both you guys are crazy. Linkin Park is a great, great band. Just ignore Minutes To Midnight, everyone makes mistakes.

 

[BonsaiK]

So, it seems to me that the sellout label gets applied to two things. Things that change away from what the fans excpect (even if only slightly), and things that move from the Underground to Mainstream (and this one is really special, because sometimes the thing doesn't even change at all when it leaves the Underground).

So, what do you, the Lonely Souls of the Escapist, think?

Yay Music Industry guy here, in a "sellout" thread!

WARNING: actual answer to the question follows.

In the scene I work in, the term "sellout" is bandied out all the time. When you hear it, it means one of these things:

1. Person is jealous that another person got somewhere that they didn't
2. Person is upset that more people will get to discover that artist and they can't claim their like for that artist as oh-so-unique and special
3. Person didn't like the new direction the artist took with their music, regardless of if it was an artistic or commercial choice and regardless of if it got them more fans

In all cases, the term is woefully inaccurate. I'll now explain each point in greater detail.

Point 1. This only applies to people in bands or in the industry. Often the most vocal "you sellout" people are those within a certain scene. Bands will call each other sellouts if one does particularly well in a scene even if the overall fame and fortune of that band is relatively tiny. In many cases I've seen bands who can't put food on the table to be considered "sellouts" just because they have an ad in a magazine or something. It's just jealousy, plain and simple. In Australia we even have a term for this - Tall Poppy Syndrome. If someone seems to be getting more successful that those around them, you mercilessly hack them down like a flower that's growing a bit too high in the field, until they learn the lesson that overachieving is bad and that they should be just like everybody else. That's why Australia has such a culture of slackness and it's so hard for me as someone who works pretty hard in the industry to actually get shit done if I need to rely on other people. Everyone's afraid of overstretching themselves and losing peer group approval, the poor dears.

Point 2. People identify strongly with music, and people who are into obscure bands and who also happen to be kind of elitist and snobby tend to form part of their identity on their like for certain music (generally because they're lacking any kind of actual identity of their own - it's the same reason why people use memes and quote TV shows in conversation, they lack their own sense of personality so they feel the need to co-opt "personality artifacts" from somewhere else). When that obscure music then gets popular, they feel a little bit of that identity leech away into the masses, it doesn't feel like "theirs" anymore. The fan then reacts by changing his taste and liking something obscure again. Not saying that all fans of obscuro music are like this (I'd personally be delighted if there was a copy of Whitehouse's "Mummy And Daddy" album in every household in the Western world), but some certainly are.

Point 3. Let's look at what is probably considered in the music industry to be the number #1 "sellout" musical move of the 20th Century. I think Metallica were great in the 80s but the Black Album was just a pop record with heavy riffs in it, the band ditched their interesting progressive arrangements in favour of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus. I wouldn't call it "selling out" though, I'd just call it a bad decision on the band's part to dumb down their music and make a worthless, shitty pop record. Did the album make them successful? Yes, but in 1991 the desire for a new Metallica record was that strong in the general population that their new record would have done brilliantly anyway even if it sounded like Ride The Lightning part 2. They would have sold a bucketload no matter what and they had no concerns about money or career longevity at that stage. In fact if they kept churning out clones of Ride The Lightning they would probably have more money these days, because they wouldn't have lost all those old-school fans from the 80s (and think about how trendy old-school thrash is getting these days and how heavy mainstream music has gotten - they could be riding that commercial goldmine right now but they're not, all because of "En-ter ni-ight...ex-iiit li-ight...").

Hope that helps clear up any thoughts you might have on the matter.